Ariane:
The night seemed to stretch on, long and breathless, stitched together with silence and fear. The air still carried the heat of the kiss Kaelen, and I shared, and somewhere deep inside me, magic coiled like smoke—restless, volatile, at war with itself, wondering if he had crossed back into his border yet and if he had, what was happening?
I could feel the whispers of Varek's Court of Shadows, the echo of their blood-bound magic threading through my veins like embers. A gift, they'd called it, a thank you. On top of that, he had given me a part of him. And yet… it all burned like a foreign flame, clashing with the starlight that had always lived in my bones. The light that was mine that had always been mine. Now, I wasn't so sure where one ended and the other began, and the only w
