Page 85 of The Book of Legends
The dash dims.
My eyes ache.
The edges of the dashboard blur. The buildings outside smear together in streaks of shadow and light. I blink rapidly, jaw tightening, trying to fight off the strange veil pulling over my vision.
Not now.
Not this.
Ever since I first stepped foot in Nythia, I didn’t need my glasses. Maybe it was magic. Maybe just adrenaline. But now, back in this world, a soft pressure builds behind my eyelids—a throb that pulses like a warning bell.
“Kainen,” I murmur, pressing trembling fingers to my temple. “Something’s wrong.”
He doesn’t bring the car to a stop. It glides forward in smooth, silent defiance. But the interior lights flicker, then deepen into a low, glowing crimson. The console glows warm, almost alive. The speakers thrum with his voice—low, steady, intimate.
“Focus on me.”
I try. Gods, I try.
A golden-crimson shimmer rises from the dashboard, and then his presence envelops me like a breath exhaled between worlds—heat, strength, and absolute command.
Then—release.
The pressure vanishes in a sudden wave, and I gasp, chest rising sharply.
My vision clears.
As if the haze never existed.
“What did you do?” I whisper, nearly breathless, one hand bracing against the seat, the other still hovering by my temple.
From the vents, his voice curls like smoke—velvet and steel. “What I never should have waited to do. We’re connected now. I protect what’s mine.”
My breath catches.
I blink again—then rub my eyes slowly, stunned. The clarity is sharp. Too sharp. Every light, every edge of the street outside glows with startling precision. I feel like I’m seeing the world as it truly is—for the first time.
“You rewired my eyes,” I murmur, more to myself than to him.
“I prefer them clear,” he says. “So I can see myself in them.”
My dorm fades into silence as we glide through the streets, swallowed by shadows.
My throat tightens. It shouldn’t. My fists shouldn’t clench, and my legs shouldn’t feel hot beneath the hem of my thin skirt.
But they do.
Outside the window, a paper skeleton dangles from a tree limb, caught in the wind, spinning wildly. Strings of green and purple lights blink across the house ahead—alive with music, bodies, laughter. All of it belongs to my world.
Or it did.
We glide through the street, my dorm shrinking behind us into shadows and silence. The ordinary world vanishes in the rearview mirror.
“Are you sure you want to say goodbye to this?” he asks, his voice curling through the speakers like smoke. Like a lover’s whisper against my throat.
“I need closure,” I whisper back. “ I left Diana a letter in her room but still.” I think of Micah even though he proved to be someone I thought I knew.
The car slows, gliding to a stop half a block from the costume party. Lights flash. Music spills into the night, wrapped in the sharp tang of cheap beer and glittered chaos.
