Lunch did not arrive as peacefully as either of them had hoped. Not by half.

The morning’s walk, while tired and slow, had carried a rhythm that felt almost manageable. A trudging progress through the Mistlands, each step heavy but deliberate. There had even been moments where their shared grumbles became the shadow of a joke, half-formed and fleeting but enough to break the silence.

Then the mist began creeping in, denser than before, coiling closer as if testing their resolve.

Ember hadn’t known what she’d hoped for. That the thing that’d stalked her yesterday—whatever it was—had given up? That it had truly been scared off by Penta’s presence? It had seemed wary, maybe even deterred, but not gone. No, evidently not gone.

“Emberlyth...” The voices came, threading through the mist like a needle through cloth, stitching dread into her chest. “Return to us. Don’t go…”

Her hands tightened, fingers curling into the fabric of Penta’s shirt around his neck. He didn’t startle—he never did—but she felt the subtle shift as he straightened his shoulders and turned his head slightly toward her.

“Don’t listen,” he said softly, his voice steady, but there was a weight behind it that felt like stone. “That’s all you can do. Don’t listen.”

It was his kindness, again—unexpected, unasked for—slipping through the cracks of his sharp-edged demeanor. And, as always, it twisted in her gut like a knife.

Kindness wasn’t what she expected from him. It wasn’t what she wanted from him. Too many people had been kind to her back at the estate: pampering her, shielding her, leading her down paths they thought best without ever asking what she wanted. Even Vaelen, who had effortlessly upended her life, hadn’t spoken a single unkind word as she did it.

No, Penta’s honesty—the callous remarks, the biting jokes—those had felt real. Genuine. She had come to appreciate them, in a strange, backward way. But now they were gone, too. Replaced by something careful, something soft and wary, and she hated it.

The flicker of a shadow at the edge of her vision made Ember flinch. A subtle twitch, nothing more, but enough to catch Penta’s attention. She saw him stiffen, a tiny shift in his posture—an imperceptible hesitation, but it was there. Not a flicker of unease to be found on his face, but she knew it well enough. She’d seen it in the way his shoulders had drawn up ever since she, against better knowing, had told him what happened yesterday before he appeared.

Now, there was something he wasn’t telling her, something hidden beneath his easy-going mask. Something about this creature. She could feel it in the space between them, thick with unspoken things. It wasn’t the first time she’d caught him holding back, but this time felt different. This wasn’t just a thief’s secret or a wandering rogue’s quiet past. This was something deeper.

It stung.

Everyone kept secrets. That much was clear. He didn’t owe her the truth about his Aethermarks, or where he came from, or why he was even here. She had never expected him to lay his soul bare. But if he was hiding something from her to “protect her”—well, that was different. That was the same thing her family had done. The one thing they had never needed to do.

“Ember, my sweet little Ember...”

Her father’s voice—sharp, like broken glass—cut through her thoughts, shattering the quiet. A memory she thought long buried, something near forgotten, crept back into her mind. It had been years since she’d heard him speak that way, but the wound still lingered, dull but persistent. The weight of it hung in the air, settling heavily in her chest.

“Come here, my lovely—”

“Shut—!”

The word came out before she could stop it, her voice rising, a shout meant to silence it all. But she was cut short.

Penta’s “Don’t” struck like a whip, sharp and final. It was the harshest thing she’d heard from him. His voice didn’t just stop her; it pinned her in place, cold as iron. She froze, a sudden, biting chill wrapping around her spine, as if she had been caught misbehaving, caught out in a way that made her feel small—like a child being scolded for something she hadn’t known was wrong.

“There is nothing there,” he said, his voice steady but edged with something darker. “Just keep moving.”

Ember wanted to argue, to protest, but the words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t. He had said it like it was law, an unspoken command she couldn’t defy. Ever since she had told him about that creature, he had shifted. There was something new in him now—a tautness, a restlessness, as if every moment he spent with her stretched him tighter, pulling him to the brink of something.

Maybe she should have kept that secret, too. Maybe some things were better left unsaid, left buried, hidden away from the people who would change when they heard them. People like Penta. People like her. Because once they knew, nothing was ever the same.

“Sorry,” Emberlyth murmured into the stillness, the word soft and small.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Sorry,” the mist echoed back, a dozen voices, a hundred sorries tumbling over one another.

She knew these echoes too well. They came from the past, from places she didn’t want to return to but couldn’t help revisiting. A young girl, sitting at the edge of her bed, legs swinging above a floor her feet didn’t quite touch back then. She’d held a broken doll in her hands, parts of its painted face cracked and missing.

“Sorry,” she had whispered to herself, over and over, as if the repetition might stitch the doll back together.

“Dad gave it to me,” Vaelen had said, her voice bright with pride. i

Ember had turned the doll over in her hands, careful, as if unsure she was even allowed to touch on it. “What’s it like?” she had asked, quiet and unsure.

Vaelen’s chin had lifted, her face glowing with a confidence that seemed too big for her small frame. “Oh, it’s no big deal,” she’d said, as if speaking of the weather. It was strange, the way her cousin had seemed older then. Wiser. For a moment, their roles had felt reversed. “They just paint a little ink on your back, and even if the brush is tickly and the ink is cold, you get a lot of candy and praise when it’s done.”

It wasn’t the mark Ember had meant to ask about. It was the doll.

To get something from your parents. To have them notice you, care for you, love you enough to give you something special. What must that feel like? Emberlyth had many dolls, but none quite like this one.

“Must’ve been nice,” she had said instead, her voice so faint that it barely stirred the air between them.

“Oh, it really was,” Vaelen had sighed, her gaze dreamy and distant. “Afterward, Mom took me all around the city. Let me see and buy whatever I wanted. She called me her little angel, the family’s future star. She showed me off to everyone and…”

What’s that like? Ember had almost asked. To have a mom?

She didn’t, of course. How could she? She didn’t even know what the words would mean once she said them. Her mother was a shadow of an idea, a phantom that lived in corners she couldn’t quite reach. Was it something like Lady Efrain? She had tried. Last year, the woman had even thrown a party for Ember’s birthday. Ginnis had baked a lopsided cake, and the guards had sung, their voices rough but warm. The halls had felt less empty that day.

But it didn’t seem right to tell Vaelen about that.

Her cousin hadn’t come to the party, despite Ember painstakingly spelling out her invitation with Olsen’s help. Neither had Uncle. Only their gifts had arrived—impersonal, unwrapped things left on her bedside table. Nothing close to the doll now cradled in her cousin’s hands.

Ember had said nothing then, just as she said nothing now.

“Do you also think I’ll be the family’s future star?” Vaelen’s voice had been so hopeful, her eyes bright with the kind of light Emberlyth had only ever seen reflected in others, never her own.

Ember could have nodded. Could have smiled and told her cousin what she wanted to hear: Of course, you will. You’re so brave. So clever. So loved.

But the question hurt, in a way Ember couldn’t name. It burned low and quiet, a coal left smoldering too long. Was it because she’d spent her whole life waiting to hear those words herself, waiting for someone to tell her she mattered, only to be met with silence?

Maybe that was why some dark, hateful part of her—a part she hardly dared acknowledge—wanted to shout, No, you won’t. Your hair isn’t even the right color. You’re not special.

But she didn’t. Not this time. The last time she had said something cruel, Vaelen had cried for hours. Uncle had come, kneeling by Vaelen’s side, his voice soft as he soothed her. And Ember? She’d only gotten that look. The one that wasn’t angry or sad but worse. Disappointed.

The only look he ever gave her.

It was better to change the subject. Something fun. Something to make them both forget. A game. One of the ones she used to play with her dad. Yeah, that sounded better.

“Catch!” she’d yelled, springing to her feet without warning.

The doll had flown from her hands—why had she thrown it so hard? She didn’t know. She hadn’t thought.

But maybe she had. Maybe some part of her hadn’t wanted Vaelen to catch it. Maybe she’d hoped it would fall, shatter, and be no longer whole. Was it jealousy? Envy? Some other wicked thing?

The maids whispered as much afterward. How the “wicked child” had laughed as the porcelain doll broke into pieces.

She hadn’t laughed. But she hadn’t cried either. Not then. Not until later, sitting on the edge of her bed, locked in her room to “think about what she’d done.” Her legs had dangled over the side, too short to touch the floor, and her fingers had twisted the hem of her dress.

Vaelen was crying again. She always cried when Ember was around.

“I’m sorry,” Ember whispered into the quiet, her voice trembling as she rocked back and forth. “I—I didn’t mean to…”

It was that same sorry she had echoed a few months later, when they’d found her in her room, smiling proudly despite being drenched in her own blood. Why had she etched the Aethermarks directly into her skin with a sharpened quill? She couldn’t quite say. Normal ink hadn’t felt good enough, hadn’t felt magical enough. But none of that mattered.

She had them now. Marks of her own.

She could finally be praised. Finally be part of the family.

But they had screamed. They had fussed. They had run back and forth in a panic, voices rising like a storm. Emberlyth hadn’t understood why. What was the big deal? Why couldn’t they see she’d done something good?

Later came the anger, the lectures that stretched for hours. And all the while, she’d mumbled, Sorry, sorry, sorry, until the word lost its shape and meaning.

Just like she had after they pulled her from the suitcase she’d tried to stow away in. She’d only wanted to see Eroboria with her own eyes, the magical city she’d heard about deep within the Abyss.

Just like she had when she set the rats loose on the maids.

Just like she had when she broke the third-floor window, because—

There had been a lot of sorries in her life. Now, every one of them came rushing back, flooding the mist around her. They swirled at her feet, ghostly echoes of things long since shattered, long since ruined.

She deserved it. Deserved to be alone. Every time someone got too close, she hurt them. That’s all she knew how to do. She should have let Penta leave when he tried. Should have let him go. It would have been better for him.

It was better for him now.

So she loosened her grip on his collar, the rough fabric slipping through her fingers. With her palm against his back, she pushed him forward.

“Sorry,” she murmured, the word carrying more weight than it ever had.

It was better this way. Even as she saw his wide, startled eyes glancing back at her—just before the mist swallowed him whole—she knew it was right.

He’ll be better off, she thought. They all are without me.

And then the mist descended upon her like an avalanche.

It had been holding back. Now, it didn’t have to anymore.

“That’s my sweet little Ember,” it whispered, soft as a mother’s hand stroking her hair. “That’s my good girl…”