Page 101 of Embers of Midnight
Sunday starts with water and a list I can carry without choking on it. Shoulders under the spray. Forehead to tile. Breath where it belongs. Two short in. One long out. Not a prayer. A tool I made and keep.
Clothes that won’t snag. Fitted top. Laced boots. Hand wraps snug but not tight. The bracelet slides onto my left wrist, warm against skin like a steady yes I didn’t have last year. The thread settles light over the pulse on my right, Darian’s knot right where I look when I forget I know how to keep my own rhythm. Pyrelight hangs easy at my hip. When I draw the guard into my palm for a second, the horn spine answers with a low warmth that feels like it remembers me.
I don’t check the mirror. I know the face I’m bringing. Clear eyes. Jaw set. Jitters contained, not invited.
Downstairs smells like toast and citrus and the kind of quiet that comes from people speaking softly because they respect what the next hour costs. Ronan pushes a plate toward me and waits until I take the first bite like arguing would insult physics.
“Eat,” he says, low. No edge. Just the shape of belief that fits my bones.
“Working on it,” I tell him, mouth already full.
He ghosts a thumb along the rim of my glass before he lets go. It’s nothing, and it isn’t.
Darian steals the inside of my wrist for a second and taps our pattern. Two quick. One long. My lungs take the cue the way muscles take a stretch. He doesn’t add a speech about control or consequences. He trusts that my head already wrote it.
Caelum slides tea into my space and stands close enough for lemon steam to reach my face. “Anchor first,” he murmurs. My mouth almost says I know. My chest says thank you instead.
Ash leans down, steals the corner of my toast, and kisses my hair like he’s swearing at the sun. “Little flame,” he says, grin quick and indecent. “Be boringly perfect. Break her heart with technique.”
“Your kink is efficiency,” I answer. He preens. Vex flutters to the chair back and eyes my plate like a tiny mob boss. He gets a crumb because I am weak. Morrow sprawls as a black wolf alongAsh’s forearm, just ink, just shadow. Silks coils pale at his wrist. They don’t wake. They don’t have to.
We run a short drill in the yard because my body likes proof more than pep talks. Darian adjusts one angle and lets it go like that trust again. Caelum checks my anchor and doesn’t ask what it is because he already knows I won’t borrow theirs for this. Ronan nudges my back heel with his boot until my stance sits where it should. Ash taps a rhythm between my shoulder blades with two fingers—three downbeats, then release—and I feel the click when everything lines up.
I eat the rest of my breakfast because his look says keep the blood sugar up. I drink water because none of us wants me lightheaded in a quarry. We clean the kitchen with our usual choreography even though we’ll mess it again in two hours. Normal feels like armor.
We walk.
The path to the old quarry is all scrub and dust and the kind of rock that holds heat without showing off. The air thins as the basin opens and the upper ledge collects bodies. Students perch along the rim in knots, too cool to call out, too curious to pretend indifference. My name rides the air once, soft, and dies without getting teeth. Taya’s wave flashes. Laz lifts a hand and doesn’t yell something stupid, which is his version of love. I clock exits and loose gravel without looking like I’m clocking anything. I don’t touch Pyrelight again. I don’t need a comfort object when I’ve got four men at my back who know how to be quiet.
We stop short of the line. Tradition has a bite and all of us respect teeth.
“Finish that,” Ronan says, and sets my water bottle into my palm. I drink because ignoring him would be theater and I didn’t come here for a show.
Darian steals my pulse for one last count. His mouth doesn’t move. His grip says stay with me. Two short. One long. It lands where it needs to land.
Caelum bends so his voice finds my ear, not the crowd. “Anchor first. No borrowed courage. Yours is enough.”
“I know,” I answer, and my voice is steady enough that I almost believe I’ve never lost it.
Ash touches the back of my neck for exactly one heartbeat and then lets go. “Little flame,” he murmurs, softer than usual. “Whatever she thinks she owns, leave her standing in the receipt line.”
“I’ll try not to sign anything with blood,” I say. He grins like a crime and steps back.
I walk into the bowl. Heat sits low at center, banked and ready. Dust shifts under my boots in a way I can read. The far wall slopes just enough to punish anyone who forgets about gravity. Chalk taste, dry tongue. I put my shoulders where they belong and breathe in count. Two short in. One long out.
Cassandra comes down the opposite side like it is a runway. Hair sleek. Blade polished. Frost kisses her knuckles because she wants the audience to look there. She looks rested. She looks practiced.
She stops ten paces out. “Ready?” Her tone expects me to flinch.
“I’m ready.”
There is no ref. The first move starts the clock.
She opens with a wide scatter of ice pins meant to make me choose wrong. I don’t chase. I keep my weight centered, take a narrow step, and let half of them die on dust. The rest nip leather and stop caring. She paints a frost smear under my lead foot to yank my ankle. I skim the top edge, keep vertical, and store the trick for later. A mirror shimmer rides my left, offset by a half step. I file it without looking.
Her next throw is a glass needle aimed at my hip and a low sickle for my shin. I tap the needle with Pyrelight’s flat and plant my heel on the sickle hard enough to bark ice without spinning. The blade sits right in my hand, warm along the horned spine, weight a hair forward to remind me to commit.
She tests the edge with a fast three-count—slash, twist, cut—and expects me to sing back. I answer with basics. Catch. Roll. Bind. Release. On the third exchange I leave a sliver of opening to bait her pride. She takes it. I tip the line and cut a clean slice across her forearm—first blood, not a finish. She hisses, checks grip.The earlier cut she put on me bleeds down to my elbow. We both take inventory and keep moving.
