Kiara.
She was looking straight at him.
For a second neither of them moved. The space between the roofs felt narrower than the actual distance.
The breeze continued, lifting strands of her long black hair and pushing them across her cheek.
She did not brush them away.
Her posture stayed still, the full curves of her body outlined clearly against the darker shape of the wall behind her.
Lor felt something shift under his ribs, a dull low ache.
It was not the sharp pull of the old bond. That was gone.
This was quieter and heavier.
Kiara had been his first love.
The first person who had looked at him like he was more than the quiet boy at the back of the class.
The first person he had trusted with the parts of himself he usually kept locked down.
And then the marking. The lies. The slow realization that she had been using him for power.
He should have been angry.
Tonight the anger would not rise the way it used to.
