Page 104 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

“Suffer? Right…” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is it true you’re trying to find a cure for it?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Why?”

“I…” He looked at her, jaw clenched.

She wanted the truth, so why not tell her everything?

“I’m a soldier,” he snarled, fists closing. “It’s all I’ve ever known. As I’ve said before, I don’t have a want or need for any form of emotional attachment. And yet I have it with you.” He forced the words out, raking fingers through his hair. “It’s driving me crazy with this constant, nagging worry about you. I want to tear people’s heads off—especially other men—thinking you might be attracted to someone else. It’s distracting!” He shouldn’t be like this, when he never allowed himself to feel because if he did, he’d become the monster.

He gritted his teeth and glared at the floor, taking a few deep breaths to control himself before he looked up at her. “Just before, in that gymnasium, with you walking through that doorway? I wanted to kill all those soldiers I’ve been training. And they had done nothing wrong.”

He exhaled as the confession tore out of him. “It’s like my magick is separate from me. And there is a risk I won’t be in control. Especially with you. I’ve always fought so hard to control it, only now its breaking against me to be with you when we can’t be together.”

His heart pounded. The fear of rejection, of telling her the truth, was almost worse than the Claiming itself.

“That’s why no one is allowed to talk to me,” she said quietly. “Or look at me.”

Zarek nodded.

“So this pet peeve of mine for being different, that I’ve felt my entire life… I’m feeling it here too. All because of this Claiming.”

“It’s because of me. Not you. They’ve been told to do this to keep them out of harm’s way. From me.” He’d done this. To protect her. To protect them. And somewhere between strategy and survival, he’d recreated the exact thing she’d spent her entire life trying to escape.

He’d made her feel like a freak. Again. In a world that wasn’t even hers.

“I’m sorry.” The words felt hollow, like offering a bandage to someone after he’d run a sword through their heart. “I am truly sorry, Angela. I did not—”

“So to you, it’s more of a curse?”

“Yes.” Though the actual curse had nothing to do with the Claiming. It was simpler than that—and somehow worse. He enjoyed holding her hand and liked looking into her eyes. He cherished how she looked at him without fear, like he wasn’t something to run from.

He truly cared about her on such a deep level that he had no words to describe this new emotion. And he was the fool who’d done everything wrong in a situation no one he personally knew had ever faced before.

She studied him for a long moment, as if weighing up the evidence. Her arms were crossed, like she had put on her armor. “And it’s against your laws, the Accords, because I’m a mortal from the human realm, and you’re from this one. When we both agreed to not break any more rules.”

“Yes.”

“And that you think you’ll hurt me with your magick.”

“Yes.” He sighed under the crushing weight at the mere thought of hurting her. He had the power to burn the sun and her soul, so he should have no heart for anyone, as he could never be with anyone, let alone a woman as fragile as her. Ever.

“How can I be affected by this Claiming when you said I was immune to magic?”

“You are immune to external magicks, spells cast on you, and the wards meant to contain you. You’ve already proven that from the moment I met you when you could see through our cloaking spell in that alley.” Zarek exhaled heavily trying to find reason within the confession of truth he’d been putting off for so long. “The Claiming isn’t a spell. It’s older than the Accords itself. It’s… recognition. Magick calling to magick. Like it’s hijacked my magick to be with your magick.”

“I don’t have—”

“You do.” His voice was rough. “You’ve proven it. The rain. What you do with your salt magick. And the truth compulsion. I believe your magick is just different. The Claiming doesn’t act on you, it acts through you. It recognizes the magick in your blood and has somehow bound itself to you and me.”

She clutched her throat. “So it’s been affecting me—us—since when?”

He shrugged.

“I deserve an answer, Zarek.”

“I can’t give you one, because I don’t know. But I’m thinking… Your scream was the trigger for it. I heard you, no—” He thumped his fist against his chest to fight the frustration of this entire situation. “I felt your scream, like something had gripped my heart with icy fingers, when I was forty miles away from you. On the other side of your city.”