Page 195 of Feralheart

I kept stuffing things inside. Medical supplies Eradin could use on my shoulder. Water flasks. Food. I lifted the knife I’d worn for a very long time and stared down at it in my hand.

A Lancifer blade for a Lancifer champion, my mother had said, the day I won my first real competition. I was sixteen. Her pride had felt like sunlight after years of night, and I’d spent years doing everything I could to earn that feeling again.

She hadn’t given me the knife because she loved me. She’d given it to me because I’d performed to her expectations once.

I looked at it for a long moment. Then I tossed it onto the empty bed, and the ache I felt wasn’t grief. It was the pain of finally putting something down that had been cutting your hands open the entire time you’d been carrying it.

She could keep her gifts. I was done begging for scraps of approval.

“She’s commons.” Vella’s voice bit harder. “This will destroy you. Your reputation. Your standing. Everything you’ve built.”

I cinched the pack closed and straightened. “Then let it.”

I knew exactly what this would cost. I’d spent the last hour calculating consequences the way I’d been trained. Political fallout. Social exile. My mother’s fury.

Her potential for revenge.

I was doing it anyway.

“You can’t be serious,” Vella stuttered out.

“I act for myself.” I picked up my pack, my bedroll tucked under my bad arm.

“And what do you want?” Her question came out sharp. Mocking. “To play with the commons? To pretend the stable girl sees anything in you beyond a crown and a way out of Shaleside?”

Heat flared in my chest, but I kept my voice level. “Don’t.”

“Don’t tell you the truth?” She stepped closer, her voice dropping to something sounding much like pity. “I’ve known you since we were children. I know what you’re doing. You think if you save her, fix her, give her everything, she’ll make you feel real. Like you’re more than what you were made to be.”

My jaw locked.

“But she’s not your redemption. She’s a commons in the Scorching who got lucky enough to catch your attention. And the moment this is over and she realizes what being with you actually costs…” Her smile cut. “She’ll run. Just like she ran from your tent tonight.”

The words found their mark. My lungs locked around them for the space of two steps before I could breathe again.

Because there was a version of me, the one I’d been three weeks ago, who might’ve wondered the same thing. But I’d been inside the trial magic with Eradin. I’d felt her stripped down to the bone. And what I’d felt wasn’t strategy.

“She’s not using me,” I said.

“Wake up, Fen.” My nickname in her mouth sounded like a weapon she’d been saving for exactly this moment. “Everyone uses you. At least with me, you knew what you were getting. Alliance. A future that made sense.”

“I don’t want sense.”

“No.” A chill came through in her voice. “You want to feel something. And you’ve decided this commons girl with her illegal magic and her desperation is the answer. But when this destroys you, and it will destroy you, don’t expect me to be there to gather up your pieces and put you back together.”

I thought about Eradin’s hands shaking when she’d pulled me closer. The sound she’d made when I’d kissed her. The way she’d run from my tent like what we’d done had terrified her. That wasn’t someone executing a plan. She hadn’t planned for this at all and because of that, she didn’t know what to do with it.

She was as lost as I was.

“Are you finished?” I asked.

Vella’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I’m trying to save you from yourself.”

“I don’t want saving. Not anymore.”

I walked past her, out into the night air that bit cold against my face.

The elite camp spread around me, servants moving between tents with supplies, food, and wine. Fires burned clean and smokeless, spelled to provide heat without mess. Everything was organized. Perfect. Controlled.