Page 284 of Elemental Becoming

Thane doesn’t say things like this. He is a man of action, of sharp edges and quiet strength. The Warlord of the realm.

But now, with his body still wrapped around mine and his mind cradling mine through the bond, he is just a man.

My man.

And the way he says it, so softly, with so much quiet hurt beneath the words, makes my chest ache.

I lift my head to look at him, but his eyes are already on me. Shadowed in the dim light. I can see the emotion flickering there. The fear he tries so hard to hide.

“I have lived in castles,” he says, his fingers brushing absently over my ribs, tracing the shape of me. “I have walked through gilded halls, stood on battlefields, led armies. I have worn a crown.”

His voice turns hoarse, a quiet rasp that splinters through me.

“And yet, not once in my life have I ever felt like I belonged.”

The words gut me.

“Not in the Pyre Keep. Not in the war room. Not in my father’s house.”

His gaze drifts away for a moment.

“Even as a child, I knew. The walls were tall, the halls endless, but they were never mine. Not really.”

His breath shudders.

“And now, even this . . . ” His voice roughens. “Even this, I fear it is not mine to keep.”

A cold prickle creeps down my spine. Because I know what he means. I know what he fears.

The curse.

The shadows moving beneath his skin. The force that stirs when he does not command it. The same thing that took his mother piece by piece. The same thing that might one day take him from me.

But is it a curse?

The question has been haunting me ever since Thane wielded them for the first time in his office at the outpost. They felt like a caress, not a curse. Since then, Valen has uncovered fragments of a history that no longer fit the stories we were raised on.

The shadows sometimes answer to Thane and sometimes act of their own accord when his emotions run high. They also react to the bond.

And to me.

Every new discovery seems to raise more questions than answers.

We know so little about the Shadow Warden. So little about what the gods intended. So little about what Thane is becoming. Maybe the darkness inside him is exactly what we’ve always feared. Or maybe we’ve spent generations calling it a curse simply because we didn’t understand it.

Uncertainty offers little comfort when the stakes are this high. Because whether the shadows are a curse, a gift, or something far older than either, the fear inside Thane remains the same.

One day he will lose himself—he will look at me and not remember who I am.

His jaw tightens, his grip flexing against my waist.

“I want to believe I can have this,” he admits, and gods, his voice sounds destroyed. “I want to believe I will stay as me.”

Because this is the truth of it. It isn’t just about duty. Or war. Or the Pyre Keep. It’s about him. And the thing inside him that might take everything away.

I press my palm to his cheek, my thumb brushing just beneath his eye, and he leans into the touch as though he’s starving for it.

“It was never a place,” he continues, his forehead resting against mine, his breath warm against my lips. “It was never stone walls or a throne or a name.”