Finn squeezes my hand once before following the others out. The door closes with a soft click, leaving me alone with the stranger who feels impossibly familiar.
Kieran.
His name finally surfaces, hitting me like a distant memory, like something long-buried clawing its way to the surface.
He exhales slowly, like he's felt it too. "Little star," he murmurs, and the nickname hits like a physical blow. "I've waited so long to find you again."
Iswallow hard, my fingers twisting in the bedsheets. "Who… who are you to me?"
Kieran steps closer, his presence both overwhelming and comforting. His movements are measured, restrained, like he's constantly holding back something tremendous. "You are important," he says, voice thick with emotion. "I have searched for you across centuries, through time and death and forgotten realms. I've held onto the hope that one day, you would return."
My breath catches. "Why?"
His gaze darkens with something haunted. "Because you are meant to heal what was broken."
A muscle in his jaw tenses, as if he's debating whether to say more. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he speaks:
"You call to the shadows in ways I've never seen before. The fallen ones respond to you. The lost find their way back."
The words resonate deep inside me, something in them familiar yet untouchable. My shadows curl tighter around me, like they're whispering between themselves.
I exhale shakily. "What does it mean?"
His silence is heavy with unspoken truths.
"I don't understand," I whisper. "I'm just… I'm just Kaia."
"No," he says, taking another step closer. "You are so much more."
He looks at me like he's trying to memorize every detail, as if he still doesn't believe I'm real. "I swore I'd find you again. That I'd protect you this time. No matter the cost."
His hand lifts, but he hesitates, as if touching me would shatter whatever fragile reality this is.
And void help me… I want him to.
I want to remember why he feels like something I've lost.
Why his voice feels like home.
And why his presence makes my heart ache like an old wound I'm terrified to reopen.
Chapter 14
Aspen
I keep my distance. Not because I want to, but because I have to. Every time I see her now, every time I hear her voice, watch her shadows curl around her like something alive, I remember what I am. What I became. The memory of it sits heavy in my chest, a stone that won’t dissolve no matter how much I try to rationalize it away.
I should be with her. Holding her. Protecting her. But I can’t. Not like this. Not when I still wake up feeling the muscles shifting beneath my skin, my body remembering what it became the moment we stepped into this realm. What I let happen when those creatures attacked. Not when every time I close my eyes, I imagine her blood on my hands—what could have happened if I’d lost control completely.
I exhale sharply, bracing my hands against the stone railing of the balcony. The sanctuary is quiet this late, the sky a deep, endless black, but my mind won’t stop running in circles. She almost died. She almost died, and I wasn’t strong enough to stop it. The thought circles, like a vulture, refusing to give me peace.
A muscle in my jaw tightens. I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t stop the memories from flooding back. The way she looked at me when I changed, the flash of fear before she shoved it down, swallowed it back like she didn’t want me to see. But I did. I saw everything.
I know what I am now—a berserker, a monster, a thing made for violence—and I know she felt it too. She’s never said it outright, never looked at me like I was something to be afraid of. But she hasn’t looked at me the same since that moment when the ice in my veins turned to something older and darker.
And now… now he’s here. Kieran. His presence presses against my senses even from here, dark and unshakable. He moves around her like he already owns a piece of her, like he’s been waiting centuries to claim it. And maybe he has. But void help me, I can’t watch it happen. Not when I already feel like I’m losing her to something I can’t fight.
“You’re brooding.”
