The air in the courtyard was heavy.
Heavy with voices that sounded too loud, with shoes scraping across the asphalt, with something invisible hanging between us like electric smoke.
I felt my heart beating too fast, an irregular rhythm that didn't belong in this world.
Malaric stood just one step away.
His shoulders were tense, the muscles beneath his skin twitching as if fighting against something I couldn't see.
His eyes wandered restlessly, too quick, too alert – searching for stability and finding none.
Sometimes his hands clenched into fists, then opened again, as if he couldn't grasp anything, couldn't hold onto anything.
The smell of cold smoke, sweat, and metal hung around him, sharp and bitter, and I wondered if this scent came from him – or from whatever lived inside him.
"You," he spat out, his voice rough yet fragile. "You've made him weak."
My heart nearly stopped.
"That's not true."
He laughed – a sound that resembled coughing, dry, burning, without joy.
