Page 37

A dagger hits the shield and deflects. Then another, and another. None of them touch me, and finally, I’m pressing the flat of my dagger against his chest, and his whole body jolts like I’ve put a current through him.

His golden eyes snap down to the blade, and the weapons orbiting the room stutter in their trajectories.

“I need you to focus on this blade,” I tell him, and the words are steady, because I’ve been carrying this lesson since the day he taught it to me. “Not the rage. Not the war-blood. This blade. You told me to learn how the fire moves through it, and I did. Now, you need to feel it, too.”

17

EVIE

Kieran’s eyes meet mine, gold and barely human.

I stay close. Because Kieran’s there beneath the gold, and I’m going to get through to him, or apparently burn to death trying.

“You need an anchor.” I press harder, and the crossguard shifts against my palm—warm, hot, and cool. “Find what’s physical. Hold onto it. Let everything else go.”

At first, I’m not sure he hears me.

Then his hand comes off the wall and wraps around my blade, tight enough to draw blood. Green bleeds through at the edges of his eyes, then disappears, then bleeds through again, and his thermal signature is oscillating so violently that my magic can’t stabilize a reading.

He squeezes harder, and his blood runs hot over my knuckles. It’s hot—too hot—but I won’t cry out again. I can’t let myself, or he might break like he did on the bed, and I won’t allow that. Instead, I breathe through it, focusing on his eyes to stop myself from giving in to the pain.

Two blades crash to the floor behind me, and the impact shakes through my bare feet.

“I’m right here,” I tell him, angling his face down until his eyes are on mine. “Whether you like it or not, I’ll always be here.”

For a second, I swear I see the ghost of a pained smile. Then, slowly, his hand loosens on the blade, one finger at a time, and I pull it free before he can grip it again.

The cut across his palm is deep and clean. Blood is still welling in the crease. But the edges are already coming together, healing faster than a witch’s injury ever could.

Another spinning blade hits the floor. Then another, and another, until they’re spread around our feet like fallen soldiers on a battlefield.

The entire time, I keep my gaze locked on Kieran’s. His eyes are green again, with the amber flecks I catalogued a hundred times in the Scorched Circles, the deck of a ship, and the spring on Lotus Island. His thermal signature is dropping. He’s still running hot—he’ll always run hot—but he’s no longer experiencing the chain reaction that turned his release into molten fire and his blades into a kill box.

“I could have put a blade through your skull.” His breathing slows and steadies, and there’s unmistakable relief in his tone. “Six inches to the left, and I would have killed you with a weapon I sharpened to pass the time.”

“You didn’t.”

“Because I missed. Not because I controlled it.” He holds up his healing hand and examines it. The cut across his palm is nearly closed, fresh pink skin knitting together. “This is what it took to bring me back. My own blood. That’s not control, Evie. That’s a man who had to cut himself open to stop himself from killing the person he’d just been…”

He trails off and studies the destroyed room, unable to meet my eyes.

I wait. Because Kieran doesn’t trail off. Kieran finishes his sentences with the same precision he uses to finish opponents, and the fact that he can’t complete this one tells me more than words ever could.

“The Geryon told me the war-blood would claim me.” He glances at the floor, and when he meets my eyes again, he’s quiet and stripped bare. “I told myself I could outfight it. That my discipline would hold. But it didn’t. I let my guard down, just this once, and I burned you and almost killed you.”

My chest aches so hard I can feel it in my throat.

Then, without a word, he lifts the cotton just above my navel, and we both look down.

The burn spreads across my stomach in an uneven pattern, blistered at the center where the contact was hottest.

“I did this to you,” he says softly, as if speaking any louder will break him. “You were close to me, and I stopped fighting it. Then my body thanked me by burning the first person who’s made me want to feel anything in six years.”

He lets the hem of my shirt fall back down, then he steps back, as if being close to me will make him burn me again.

No. I won’t let him do this. I won’t let him put the walls back up between us that he was finally letting break.

“You didn’t lose control because you touched me,” I tell him, and I need to believe it, because that can’t be the last time he touches me. “You lost control because the war-blood is escalating, exactly the way the Seer said it would. But it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. We’re going to talk to the Amazons, we’re going to find Ares, and we’ll get answers about how to control it. I won’t rest until we do.”