Page 182 of Shifting Hearts 1
Something was wrong.
Something was changing.
The wind stank of prophecy. Of endings.
I should’ve kept going. I should’ve run until the horizon split, until my knives dulled and my name meant nothing to anyone.
Instead, I turned back.
The cathedral waited, heavy with the silence of the aftermath. The fire was ash. Brannan hadn’t moved. He sat in the dark like a statue left behind by some ancient god — jaw clenched, threads glowing faintly beneath torn sleeves, body still raw from what we’d done.
And when his eyes lifted to mine, I saw it.
The truth I’d been avoiding.
He knew.
“What did you do?” His voice was quiet. Measured. That terrifying, exhausted kind of calm people get just before the world breaks open beneath them.
I didn’t answer, but then we both knew I didn’t need to.
His gaze dropped to the dreambone hanging from my throat.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “It’s the death-oath isn’t it?”
I nodded once, jaw tight. My mouth felt like it was full of blood
His eyes flared — not with magic, but with understanding. The kind that sliced deeper than any blade. “You have to kill me, don’t you?”
I looked away. The cathedral had never felt smaller, or more alive.
“How long?” he asked.
My throat worked, but the words caught. Time was a noose, and I’d pulled it myself.
“Soon,” I said finally. A whisper that tasted like ash. “Days. Maybe less.”
The silence stretched between us like an executioner’s rope. Brannan’s hands curled into fists on his knees, threads biting into his skin until they burned white. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. That was worse than fury—worse than begging.
“You should’ve told me,” he said, voice low. Not an accusation. A fact.
I laughed, but it broke halfway through. “And what then? You’d have unmade it? Torn the bone from my throat with your pretty threads? Don’t lie, Brannan. You would’ve tried.”
His jaw tightened. He didn’t deny it.
I pressed my palm against the dreambone, as if I could still it. Stop the rhythm that wasn’t mine. “It doesn’t matter. All that mattered was that it was made. Magic is funny like that.”
He stood then, slow and deliberate, like he was remembering what it felt like to move after being carved open. “If this thing says you’ll kill me,” he said, “then we’ll break it.”
“It doesn’t break.”
“Neither do I.”
The words hit harder than any spell. For a heartbeat, for a single reckless breath, I wanted to believe him. To believe that threads and bone and prophecy could bow to sheer stubbornness.
But the dreambone pulsed hot against my skin, and I knew better.
“Brannan—” I began.
