Page 15 of Kingdom of Chaos
It’s him.
A jolt runs through me as soon as I spot Talon. He’s shirtless, barefoot, wearing only a pair of low-slung joggers. He hammers away at a heavy bag, muscles flexing and gleaming with sweatunder the dim lights. Fists, elbows, knees. Blow after blow. Relentless.
Earbuds in and facing away from me, he doesn’t hear me. Doesn’t know I’m here, and so for a moment, I just stand there. Watching, absorbing, remembering.
I’m not prepared for the sight of him to gut me, but it does.
It all comes rushing back. Kerrim, the portal, the cold spike of panic in my chest when I realized I was holding Shadow Striker and what that meant. That I had basically signed Talon’s death sentence. When the magic linked us and began draining his life, I tried to get him through the portal to sever the connection, but everything fell apart when Kerrim threw Becks in first and reached the other side before we could.
That entire night carved itself into my memory like a scar, and now, seeing Talon alive and whole, it doesn’t bring the relief I expected. It just hurts. In that raw, quiet way that lingers beneath the surface.
He’s here, training like nothing happened. Like it wasn’t because of me that he almost died. Like he didn’t keep secrets that changed everything. Like he didn’t just disappear without a word when I needed him most.
Part of me wants to storm across the room and demand answers. Another part wants to walk back out the door and pretend I never saw him.
And then there’s the worst part, the one I don’t like to acknowledge, the part of me that’sdrawnto him.
It’s infuriating. He makes me angry. He makes me ache. He makes me remember everything I’m trying so hard to bury.
I can’t look away, yet I can’t walk out either. Like it or not, I need him. And whether he realizes it or not, he’s going to help me. He owes me that, at least.
He has no idea I’m there as I move quietly along the stone wall, staying close as I make my way across the room. I’m nearlyto the other side when he suddenly stops and, without looking, snatches a dagger off the wall. Before I can react, he spins and the blade flies through the air, end over end, straight toward me.
I barely have time to flinch before it sinks into the mortar between the stones, inches from my head.
Talon yanks out his earbuds, staring at me like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s seeing.
“Freck—?” he starts, then catches himself. The last time I saw him, I told him not to call me that.
“What are you doing here?” he asks instead.
I glance at the blade, just inches from my face. “I can’t believe you just threw that at me. You could have killed me.”
Grabbing the hilt, I give it a tug, but the dagger’s embedded deeper into the mortar than I expected and doesn’t budge. The fine hairs on the back of my neck prickle, and I spin around to find Talon standing there.
Crowding me with his presence, he reaches past my shoulder and grips the dagger’s hilt. My breath catches as I look up into his blue-gray eyes and find him staring down at me with an unreadable expression. My heart stutters in my chest, heat rising beneath my skin before I can stop it.
He doesn’t move right away. For a second he just stands there, his hand still on the hilt, eyes locked on mine. Something flickers across his face. Regret, maybe, or an emotion I can’t name, before he wipes it clean, his expression going flat.
Then he yanks the blade free and steps back, calm as ever.
“How did you find Grimspire Castle?” he asks, completely unfazed by the fact that he almost skewered me.
I give myself a mental shake, irritated by the way my body responded to his nearness.
“Your uncle told me where to find you,” I say through clenched teeth, still trying to regain control. I hadn’t even knownhis home had a name—Grimspire Castle—and I vaguely wonder if the town was named after it, or the other way around.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says.
I thought I was angry at him before, but a fresh wave of fury rises in me. Talon didn’t just run from Everton, he ran from me when I needed him most.
“Ishouldn’t be here?Youshouldn’t be here,” I snap, letting the anger and frustration bleed into my voice.
He presses his lips together, then grabs a towel from a nearby stool and wipes the sweat from his face and neck before finally answering. “And where do you think I should be, if not here in my home?”
I didn’t expect Talon to fall at my feet and apologize for abandoning me, but a touch of remorse would’ve been nice. Instead, I’m met with indifference laced with just enough hostility to make my hackles rise.
“Back in Everton, helping clean up the mess you made,” I say bluntly.
