The sun hung high at its merciless apex, burning down on me like a punishment. It stung my shoulders, pricked at my skin, made the back of my neck slick with sweat as I moved through the chaos of the market. I felt every stare like a pin to the spine—people glancing at me like I was mad. And maybe they were right. What teenage girl walks alone through a crowd, cuffs around her wrists, clothes barely holding together, dried blood on her sleeve, acting like nothing's wrong? I kept my head down, tried not to drag attention, slipping through clusters of merchants and shouting hawkers. The air reeked of spices, smoke, and heat. I scanned every face I passed—gods, where the hell did that bastard go?
"This might hurt a little."
His voice—unmistakably dull and blank—cut through the noise like a blade, and I snapped around to see him standing there like the gods had dropped him onto that exact patch of dirt just to piss me off. Krevyr. Same sack slung over his shoulder. Same tired, unreadable eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept in days and didn't care if he ever did. In his hand, something small and glassy caught the sunlight—what looked like a vial filled with some kind of sickly green liquid. I opened my mouth to ask where the hell he'd been, what the hell he was doing, but before I could say a word—
He plunged the vial straight into my wounded shoulder.
It pierced my skin with a sick crunch, and the liquid inside oozed into my muscle like venom. That's when the real pain hit. It didn't sting—it roared. It seared like acid melting into steel, igniting every nerve in my arm, and I gasped—no, screamed—as my knees nearly buckled. The burn tore through me like wildfire. People turned. Merchants paused. I bit down hard on my lip, swallowing the scream like glass. My fingers clawed at my shoulder, but it was too late—the damage had been done.
He vanished on me for a while, maybe longer, and the first thing he does when he shows up is jab some toxic mystery fluid into the hole his psychotic aunt carved into me? The nerve.
"What the fuck did you do to me?!" I shrieked. Loud. Sharp enough to slice straight through the noise of the crowd. Heads turned again, more eyes on us, but it was like we didn't exist. Like we were ghosts in the street.
"You disappear on me and then just appear out of nowhere, like nothing happened—what the hell is wrong with you?"
Krevyr didn't flinch. Didn't even blink. He looked down at the now-empty vial in his hand, turned it once like it was a piece of trash, and then tossed it aside without even checking where it landed.
"How's your shoulder," he asked, voice flat, already turning to walk away.
I stomped after him, rage bubbling up like a storm about to split open my skull.
"Oh, I don't know, why don't you ask your bitchy aunt?" I snapped, my voice echoing over the path. "You know, the one who ripped me open like a bag of grain while you watched?!"
He didn't even look at me. Not a glance. My fists twitched at my sides—I wanted to punch that smug, emotionless face so bad I could taste it.
"How's your shoulder now?" he asked again, this time quieter, like I was supposed to calm down just because his voice got soft.
"Oh, I'll tell you how my shoulder is, you son of a—" I cut off. My eyes narrowed.
I flexed my arm. No pain. Twisted it. Still nothing. My brows knit. I looked down at my sleeve—torn open, stained with dried blood—but beneath it? No wound. No scar. Like it had never happened.
I blinked, turning to face him again. He wasn't even looking.
"I figured you would've needed some help," he muttered as he ruffled his hair
My blood boiled hotter than the damn sun. "I didn't ask for your help."
"Well, I didn't ask to be stuck with you either," he replied, ducking around a pair of passing traders, "but here we are."
I clenched my jaw, forcing down every waking urge to punch him in the back of the head.
"You could've just let her kill me," I grumbled, trailing behind Krevyr. He didn't even give me the decency of a glance.
"Have people lost their sense of hearing now?" he muttered, voice lazy but edged, as we turned a corner. His fingers slid through his hair, ruffling it in that half-bored way of his, before he came to a stop beneath a crooked market stall.
The sun caught him fully here, spilling across his profile. Sweat trickled from his temple, glinting before disappearing into his collar. In the daylight, Krevyr looked younger—so much younger it was jarring. His plain clothes blurred him into the crowd with ease, every shade and seam making him look like he belonged.
Almost.
If not for the void I could still feel humming in him like a second heartbeat.
A twist knotted in my gut. Beneath all the calm, all the disinterest, Krevyr was… fine. Handsome, even—
I swallowed that thought hard, nearly choking on it. No. I was losing it. Must be the sun.
Except the boiling in my veins said otherwise. My magic, sealed and suffocating, clawed against my skin. The cuffs dimmed—just for a moment—then flared violently, heat lancing my wrists and neck like a brand.
Yeah. Definitely not the sun.
"Can you not gawk for too long?" Krevyr's voice cut through my thoughts, low and almost bored. I blinked fast, caught in his tired, watchful gaze. His hands stayed buried in his pockets, but the way his weight shifted said he'd noticed me long before I noticed him.
"People might start thinking you're weird," he added, one brow lifting like he already knew I'd snap back.
My blood spiked—unreasonably high.
"Don't get cocky, lowlife," I snarled, every nerve in my body begging me to send his smug ass straight into the abyss. The sheer gall of him… to think, even for a heartbeat, that this void-touched bastard had been trying to help me.
Krevyr was the last person I'd ever call an ally. His hands weren't clean—not by a long shot. I'd seen it myself—he driving the blow that stole my mother's strength watched her crumple to the dirt with blood spilling from her lips. He hadn't dealt the killing strike—that cruelty belonged to Victor—but he'd wounded her so deeply there was no coming back. Whether it was his choice or his master's order didn't matter. Blood was blood, and hers was on him. Every time I looked at him, I saw her collapse again, and I wanted to drive that same agony into his ribs until he knew exactly what it was to watch someone you love die slow.
"Sorry," he said at last, turning to glance at me as we walked on. Well—he walked on. I had to chase his damned shadow.
"For not helping you."
I scoffed. Oh, so he could feel pity. How touching. Pity was the last thing I wanted from him, and it scraped my nerves raw just hearing it. "I don't need your sympathy," I muttered, sidestepping a passerby without breaking stride.
"I get it," he replied, maddeningly calm—but I caught it, the faintest shift in his tone. Discomfort.
"It was my job to keep you unharmed. You've got every right to be—"
"Why are you telling me this?" The words snapped out before I could stop them. My voice cut like glass.
"You think I care about your regrets? You were never on my side, Krevyr, so don't start acting like you give a damn about me now."
His gaze slid sideways, narrowing just enough to show something—annoyance, maybe guilt, maybe nothing at all.
"I just thought… maybe you felt—"
"When you're involved—" I said coldly, glaring at him, "it automatically means you have no business with what I felt. And if you must know?"
We turned another corner, weaving through the press of merchants and buyers. "The only feeling I have for you is pure and undiluted rage and loathing."
The look I caught on his face was strange—like pain flickered there for an instant, if he was even capable of it. Pain. As if he had the right to feel that. He fell silent, almost hollow, and we pushed through the bustling path in wordless tension. The breeze swept through the street, tugging at clothes and banners, but it wasn't the wind that made me shiver.
That feeling again. The same chaotic weight I'd sensed before. Not cold. Not warmth. Just wrong. Too wrong. Like a storm pressing in but never breaking.
I scanned the crowd, ignoring the void-hearted bastard walking just ahead of me. My eyes darted over vendors, soldiers, mothers with baskets, children darting underfoot. Nothing. And yet the presence lingered, heavy and mobile, never still.