Ryker’s head turns sharply. “What?”
“The visions. They’re gone.”
“You just need to recover,” he says. “The silver took more from you than you realize.”
I shake my head, frantically grasping for any trace of our bond.
Nothing—all remains silent.
I shake my head, panic rising sharp and acidic. “No. No, Ryker—there’snothing.I can’t hear you. I can’tfeelyou.”
The wind cuts through the woods below, whistling through broken stone and blood-soaked earth. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls.
I’m empty.
Tears sting my eyes as a hollow ache blooms. My gift—the thing I was hated for, prized for, used for—is silent. I don’t know who I am without it.
“I don’t know how to be… me without it,” I whisper, curling into myself. “Now I truly am broken.”
Ryker doesn’t hesitate. He pulls me into his arms, wrapping his warmth around me like a shield against the cold. “You are not your gift, Kitara,” he murmurs, fierce and low. “You are so much more.”
But his words are a kindness I can’t touch right now.
Because this isn’t just about magic. It’s about identity. About being seen—for the first time—and now ripped back into invisibility.
“I was never enough with it,” I choke out, my voice unraveling. “Not for my parents. Not for the pack. Not for anyone. It was the only reason they kept me. The only reason I wasn’t cast out or put down or left behind. If I wasn’t enough with it, then I’m certainly less without it.”
The words pour out of me like blood from an open wound. “All my life, I’ve been told I was wrong. A failure. Too human. Too different. But at least Isaw.” My breath hitches. “Now there’s nothing. I don’t know who I am without them whispering through my bones.”
I press my fists to my chest, as if I could reach inside and pull the silence out with my bare hands. “It’s like someone ripped out a part of me and left a void. And I—I don’t know if I’ll ever feel whole again.”
My tears come harder now. Not silent ones, but the kind that hitch in my throat and drag from my lungs like grief made flesh.
“I’m scared,” I finally confess. “Gods, I’m so fucking scared.”
For a long beat, Ryker doesn’t speak. He just lets me sob into the hollow of his throat, lets me fall apart in his arms.
Only when my body starts to tremble from exhaustion does he speak again, voice low and fierce.
“Then be scared,” he says. “But don’t believe for one second that you’re less. They broke you to control you. I will help you put the pieces back in any shape you choose—evenif we have to start from ash.” He leans in, pressing his forehead to mine. “I nearly lost you, Kitara. I understand that you’re hurting and a piece of you has been ripped away. It may come back in time, it may not. But I will remind you, every damn day, that the best part of you isn’t your sight. It’s your fire. It’s your heart. It’s the way you never stop fighting—even when the whole world tells you to surrender.”
I close my eyes, letting his words anchor me.
Even without my visions... I’m still here. Still tethered to him. Still breathing.
Stillme—even if I have to learn what that means all over again.
I close my eyes, letting his words anchor me.
“I love you,” he says quietly, the words settling into the silence between us like a promise. “Not the seer. Not the gift. You, Kitara. Just you.” His thumb brushes away another tear I didn’t realize had fallen.
“I love you too,” I whisper.
He holds me while I grieve, offering comfort. Finally, I nod, and he lifts me, taking me away from this cursed place.
We eventually withdraw to a plateau overlooking the compound—high ground that offers strategic advantage while remaining visible enough to serve as an obvious challenge. As allies tend to the wounded and position defensive forces, Ryker secures a sheltered area for us.
“Rest,” Ryker urges, brushing a strand of hair from my face. “I’ll wake you when it’s time.”
