Smoke choked the hall, curling in black tendrils around broken furniture. Aria moved like a storm incarnate, her eyes flashing with a feral light that made Alec’s stomach drop. The Hollow Twin had taken over, and she was… unrecognizable.

“Step back!” Alec shouted, his voice cracking as he tried to reach her. “Aria, stop!”

Kael’s grip on his crossbow was tight, knuckles white. “I can’t hold her o...

(Aria’s POV)

The sea smelled of salt and storm. Waves lapped against the pale stretch of sand, leaving silver traces of foam in their wake. Alec walked beside me, his boots dangling from his hand, the other tucked behind his back as if he didn’t know what to do with it. For once, he wasn’t trying to outshine the world with some smirk or clever remark. He was quiet—almost thoughtful...

The papers trembled in my hands. I didn’t want to read them again, but the words blurred across the page no matter how hard I tried to blink them away.

Orders. Signed in Seraphine Caereth’s seal. Alec’s mother’s seal.

My stomach twisted. I threw them down on the table between us. “How long were you going to keep this from me?”

Alec’s face hardened, his usual careless grin nowhere to be found. “...

“You are unbelievable,” I snapped, shoving past him toward the door. “I didn’t ask for your help, I didn’t need it, and I definitely don’t need you trying to—”

“Trying to what?” Alec’s voice was a spark against flint, his footsteps loud on the warped floorboards as he followed. “Keep you from getting yourself killed?”

I spun on him, heat curling in my chest. “You don’t get to decide what I can h...

Why Do Roses Have Thorns

by Alec Caereth

Because beauty should never be touched without care.

Because the sweetest thing on earth can still draw blood.

Because even in bloom, a rose remembers winter,

and hides its heart behind steel.

You are that rose.

Your petals catch the light like they’ve stolen it,

soft enough to make me forget the war in your eyes—

until I reach for you.

Until I feel the s...

She was pacing again. Back and forth across the narrow stretch of dirt between the campfire and the tree line, her boots kicking up dust. The sparks from the flames caught in her hair, turning black strands into threads of molten copper every time she passed into the light.

“They think they know everything,” she muttered, not to me, not even to herself, but to the air that wouldn’t talk back. “Li...

When I was little I used to lay outside and reach my hands up to the sky above, convinced I could touch the great moving clouds if I just extended my arms a little further. I remember the warmth of the grass under my back, the smell of sun-soaked earth, and the way the clouds always seemed just within reach, as if they were waiting for me.

Now, sitting here beside Alec, the memory feels impossibl...

The world was all fire and steel.

Sparks rained from the ceiling as the stone archway cracked overhead. Alec’s hand was on my arm, dragging me backward, but the roar in my ears wasn’t just the battle—it was the Hollow Twin pacing inside me, tasting the blood in the air.

“Aria—” His voice was sharp, urgent. “We need to move—now!”

I wrenched free. “If we run, the gate falls. And when it falls, ev...

The moment the door slammed behind us, she wouldn’t look at me.

Her shoulders trembled, but not with rage — with something heavier, sharper. I’d seen her fight through wounds, through blood, through storms that would have broken anyone else. But this? This was different.

“Aria,” I said, soft enough that my own voice felt foreign.

Nothing. Just the sound of her shallow breaths, like each one mig...

The scent of blood still clung to my hands.

I scrubbed them harder, not because it would help, but because I didn’t know what else to do. The basin water had long turned pink, then rust-red. Her magic hadn’t just cut — it had burned. It had torn. The gash in my shoulder was sealed now, but the memory of her eyes — too dark, too hollow — stayed sharp.

Aria had run. I let her. No, I’d watched her ...