For hours after he left, the mate-mark scar on my shoulder throbbed, phantom pain radiating outward like aftershocks from a wound that refused to remember it had healed. I pressed my fingers to the skin, feeling only the faint ridges of what used to glow silver with Kael’s claim.
He was gone.
And somehow, the world had not ended.
“You’re shaking.”
Nicero’s voice came from behind me, low, carrying none of the command tone he used with his warriors. Just concern — raw and unfiltered.
I didn’t turn. “It’s residual,” I said. “The mark reacting to proximity. It will fade.”
“Eventually,” he agreed. He draped his cloak over my shoulders anyway, the heavy Blackfang fabric settling around me like armor. “But scars are loyal things.”
I exhaled slowly, my breath fogging in the night air. “He knelt, Nicero.”
“Good.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t good. It was… hollow. I thought I wanted that moment more than anything. I thought it would make everything feel justified.”
He stepped beside me, leaning against the cold stone railing. “And?”
“It didn’t,” I admitted. “I didn’t feel powerful. I felt like I was staring at the ruin of something I once loved.”