meghxwrites
- LECTURES 3,429
- Votes 832
- Chapitres 31
(The second book of SEA: The Empire Game - cannot be read as a standalone. It is a novella.)
they say the fire of a man's own making is the one that burns the cleanest.I stood in that library, surrounded by the rotting wisdom of an empire I broke, and I welcomed the heat. I wanted the flames to act as a judge, jury, and executioner.
Apparently, I wasn't even worth the price of a burial.
I thought death was the ultimate punishment for my sins. It turns out, the real torture isn't dying-it's being forced to wake up the next morning.
I owe my life to the one person who should have been twisting the knife. Just because - Someone Dearest to him -called me her "best friend" while the smoke filled our lungs.
Now, five years later, I carry her mercy like a lead weight in my chest.
Russia is cold, but it isn't cold enough to numb the memory of that night.
A new face. A new name. A new life built on the wreckage of a shattered skull and grafted skin. In the underground circuits of Moscow, they don't see the man who lost an empire. They see The Dragon. They see the assassin who doesn't miss, the hacker who can bleed a bank dry in thirty seconds, and the racer who drives like he's already dead-BECAUSE, IN MY HEAD, I AM.
Winning a race at two hundred miles per hour doesn't feel like victory. It feels like a taunt. I spent half a decade perfecting this misery.
And then, SHE walked in.
A girl who barely reaches my shoulder. Dark brown eyes that seem to see through the "Dragon" mask to the charred remains of the man underneath. Long black hair that smells of a home I no longer have.
But it's the sound that haunts me. The soft, rhythmic chime of her ghungroo beads against the cold Russian pavement. It's a sound that doesn't belong in a world of gunpowder and grease. It's a sound of peace-a calm I've spent five years trying to outrun.
My name is Dev. Or it was.
I'm the man who survived the fire, only to realize I'm terrified of the light.