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He lunges again, and Ambrose catches him mid-strike.

It’s not graceful. It’s brutal. Messy. Flesh meeting flesh, bone colliding with bone.

Ambrose snarls something too low for me to hear and shoves Caspian back with a burst of sheer force—not magic, not power. Just rage and iron-hard will. It buys a second, maybe two, but Caspian rolls with it and comes right back. He doesn’t even blink. His expression doesn’t change. If anything, the more resistance he meets, the more vacant he looks.

Like he’slosingto it.

Like Branwen’s finally digging deep enough to make him forget who I am.

But I can't move. Because if I do—if I try to reach him, or worse, hurt him—I might break what’s left of him completely.

And Ambrose… he's looking at me. Even while fighting, even while dodging Caspian's next strike, his gaze cuts sideways, pinning me in place with that calculating stare that always sees more than he should.

The message is clear in his expression.Stay back.Ihatestanding still while the people I love tear themselves apart in front of me. But I hate the idea of making this worse more.

So I stay where I am. And I pray Ambrose doesn't bleed out trying to fix another mess I made.

Caspian’s whip whistles past my face, missing by inches—a blur of glittering steel and twisted magic that cracks the air just behind me. I lunge back, breath caught in my throat, bootsskidding across fractured stone as the ground where I stood erupts in a spray of shattered dust and heat. The impact leaves a scorched welt in the Hollow’s skin. If I’d been slower, if I hadn’t felt the pull of the bond tug like a scream behind my ribs—he would’ve cut straight through me.

He wouldn’t have meant to. But hewould’ve.

And gods, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Out of everyone here, out of all the blood-drenched powerhouses tearing this battlefield apart, I’m the only one who can actuallydie.

I’m mortal. I’m the weak point. The crack in the wall. The edge Branwen is counting on.

Because if I die—if this fragile, exhausted, blood-humming body of mine finally goes still—it’s over.

She takes everything. I don’t know what she is—not fully. Not yet. But I know this much: shecan’tforce the bond. She can’t take the Sins through will alone. But if I’m gone, if I’m not here to hold what we’ve built, she canbendwhat’s left of them. She can twist their grief, their rage, their ruin into obedience. Manipulate what’s broken in them into submission. She’ll make them hers, and not through magic—but throughloss.

And the others? She’ll use the bonded ones against them. Elias. Silas. Riven. She’ll rip it apart piece by piece, and they’ll feel every inch of it—weaponized affection turned into punishment. They’ll blame themselves. They’ll break under it. And once they’re broken, she’llownthem.

I stagger back another step, heart jackhammering, pulse roaring so loud in my ears it drowns out the next clash of magic behind me. The Hollow smells like ash and blood and something older—like memory being burned out of the dirt.

I grip the edge of my sleeve and press it hard to my mouth, grounding myself, forcing the shake out of my hands.

I can’t die.

Not because I’m afraid.

But because if I go down—

They all fall with me.

I should’ve trained harder. I should’ve never stopped. Should’ve bled more. Burned more. Taken every hit, every insult, every lesson carved into me and asked for more until I could’ve stood among them without needing to beprotected. But I didn’t. I thought time would wait. I thought love—whatever fractured, brutal thing it’s become—was enough. I thought they would shield me until I learned how to wield what I am.

And now here I am.

A liability in a war I was born to anchor. A body waiting to beerased.

I move like I know what I’m doing, like instinct might be enough to keep me alive another second. But every shift, every dodge, every stumble back from a whip crack or a burst of stolen magic reminds me I’m not made for this.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

I’ve had weeks—weeks—of training. In between war councils and bonding rituals and trying not to fall apart under the weight of who I am to each of them. I’ve held weapons. I’ve bled in practice circles. I’ve stood toe to toe with Riven, let Silas taunt me until I snapped, let Elias shove me until Ifought back. But none of that matters here.

Not when the battlefield is real. Not when the people I love are the ones I’m forced to face. I wouldn’t want to fight them. Even if I could. Even if I could crack the ground open with a thought, even if I could wield all the power inside me without it fracturing my soul—I wouldn’t raise a blade against them. Not Lucien. Not Orin. Not Caspian.