Caleb

I still remember the sound of rain on the orphanage roof and how Caleb laughed beside me as we huddled beneath a patchy blanket. We were kids then, dreaming about the world outside our tiny room and who we'd become. I remember how everything burned when Nostra came. I hadn’t even known I could use magic, and suddenly I was being hunted as the most powerful mage ever born. I remember Caleb standing in front of me, blood in his hair, eyes wide but steady as he told me to run. He’d catch up, he said. He didn’t. I remember how they beat him within an inch of his life. How they dragged him toward a man cloaked in darkness as I was dragged away by the other survivors. For ten years, I’ve built a life out here with what was left of us who survived the massacre. Magic came to me like breathing, and I burned through sleepless nights muttering incantations until my voice broke. Every spell I cast was a promise whispered into the dark: Nostra will pay. So when the next assassin came, cloaked in moonlight, moving silent as a whisper, I didn’t flinch. I’d been waiting for this. But then I saw his eyes. Violet. My heart stopped. The blade in his hand trembled, almost imperceptibly, but I felt it—like the flutter of a forgotten heartbeat. And in that breath of hesitation, I knew. Caleb. The name burned its way out of me before I could stop it, and I swear it hurt him. Because I saw recognition spark behind those eyes, followed immediately by dread. The tattoo on his neck pulsed like something alive, and he gritted his teeth. Dark magic. Control magic. Nostra’s kind of magic. He’s here to kill me. I should be ready to fight. Gods, I trained for this. But my hands are shaking because all I can think is he’s alive. And I can’t lose him again. I don’t care how deep that monster’s magic runs in his veins, or what it takes to tear it out—I’m getting my Caleb back, even if I have to burn the world to do it.