Burned in Memory
Madeline
I didn’t move. Not for a long time.
Not even after he spoke. Not when the shadows bled thicker into the corners of the room, curling like smoke around old stone. Not when the lantern flickered low enough to chase the darkness away and I knew—truly knew—that it was him standing there and not my imagination.
And still, I stayed frozen, curled in the tangled ruin of my sheets, limbs stiff and aching, breath caught somewhere between gasp and sob. My body had gone quiet, but my pulse thundered like it hadn’t figured out how to adjust to this new world—this new truth.
Lucien.
Lucifer.
The names twisted together in my mind now—braided into one impossible thread I couldn’t untangle. Everything I knew fractured. Everything I thought I understood was ash in my mouth.
