I want to believe that I can still pull her back, still fix this, still keep her as mine.
But the horrible truth is she is not mine anymore.
She is something else.
And I am so afraid that I will never get her back.
37
NAIRA
Ishould be tired.
I should feel the ache in my limbs, the sting of battle still fresh in my muscles, the exhaustion dragging me under like it always has.
But I don’t.
I feel nothing.
That is the most terrifying part.
I know it the moment I step away from Zephiran touch.
The moment his fingers leave my wrist, and I feel no cold, no warmth, no fucking difference.
Like my body doesn’t need those things anymore.
It has evolved past them.
I should be afraid. Probably care about what’s happening to me.
But I don’t.
Not in the way I should.
The fear is distant, a dull echo in my brain, a whisper my mind that I can easily ignore.
The relic inside me is stronger.
It does not want me to be afraid.
It wants me to hunger.
There’s a deep, gnawing emptiness inside me.
Not pain.
Not need.
Something worse.
Like I have lost something vital.
There is a missing piece of me that I will never get back.
And yet—I do not want it back.
Whatever I lost—it made me weak.
