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Of what she might have to do to stop Garrick. Of how far her power might pull her from the people she loved.

Of the ancient whispers that still echoed at the edge of her thoughts.

It’s almost time.

Delilah stopped in a clearing where the moonvine grew in lazy curls up an old stone altar. She sank to her knees and let her basket fall beside her.

Her fingers curled into the moss.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she whispered, voice breaking. “I didn’t ask to be the one who had to hold this together.”

The wind answered only with silence.

A stillness that wasn’t peace. A pause before a storm.

She blinked hard, willing the tears away. They burned anyway.

“I love him,” she said aloud, the words tasting like salt and iron. “But if I stay… he’ll bleed for me. And I can’t ask him to do that. Not again.”

The guilt clawed deep.

Rollo had nearly died because she wasn’t fast enough.

Wren was fading because her magic wasn’t strong enough.

The land was sickening because her bond made it easier for Garrick’s corruption to reach her.

And now Rollo thought he had to protect her.

From Garrick.

From the forest.

Fromhimself.

Delilah buried her face in her hands. Her breath came out in jagged stutters.

“I thought the bond meant we were stronger,” she whispered. “But maybe it’s just making us easier to break.”

She stayed there a long while, letting the stillness swallow her.

Then she stood.

Steady. Quiet. Resolute.

She didn’t need saving.

And she couldn’t let herself become the reason he was always one step from the edge. Garrick had told Rollo that the bond was his weakness, and while Delilah had refused to believe it at first, the ache in her chest now whispered something she couldn’t ignore.

Maybe it wasn’t the bond itself—but what it asked of them. What it demanded.

If she had to meet Garrick herself—if she had to become something more than she’d ever dared to be to protect Wren, protect this town,protect Rollo—then she would.

But not as his mate.

Not if being bound to her meant Rollo walked toward every fire just to shield her from the heat. Not if it kept costing him pieces of himself because she knew she had no more of herself to give to save him.

She rose from the mossy altar with her heart breaking open inside her chest. But her spine stayed straight.