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“It’s the only one I can give you,” he told me without any impatience. “They’re watching the camp more closely now. They’re preparing everything. We have to be even more careful.”

My stomach dropped. “The ritual.”

His eyes darkened. “Yes.”

I swallowed hard and looked down at the bread in my lap. My fingers tore at it absentmindedly, but my mind was already racing.

The dream. The witch. The chains are weakening.

“They are taking more and more of my blood,” I told him something he already knew.

I could see Kael’s jaw tighten. “Then, we’ll make sure they don’t get another drop.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to cling to the hope he brought with him, fragile as it was.

But then, he stood and pulled his hood back up, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that time was running out.

Kael paused at the door, glancing back at me. “Stay strong, Annika. Lucas won’t stop until you’re free.”

Then he was gone, and the cell felt even colder than before. I looked at the bread without any appetite, but I knew I had to eat. So, I forced myself.

The bread was dry, crumbling in my hands, and the water was lukewarm, but I swallowed it down anyway. Bite after bite. Sip after sip. It felt mechanical, like feeding a body that didn’t belong to me anymore.

Kael said Lucas was coming. He said they had a plan.

But when?

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, my fingers trembling. The room felt smaller now, the walls pressing in, shadows pooling in the corners like they were alive, watching. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn’t help.

The witch’s voice echoed in my head. Blood binds. Blood frees.

My blood.

I pressed a hand against my chest, as if I could feel it there, pulsing beneath the skin, ancient and cursed. The same blood that had locked Aurelius away now threatened to free him, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Tears burned at the edges of my eyes. I bit my lip hard enough to taste copper.

I wouldn’t cry.

Not here. Not in this place where the walls listened, and the air felt thick with malice.

But my breath hitched anyway, and the lump in my throat swelled until I couldn’t swallow it down. My hands curled into fists in my lap, nails digging into my palms, and I bowed my head, letting my hair fall forward to hide my face.

Lucas.

I didn’t say it out loud, but the name echoed in my mind like a prayer.

Find me. Please.

I imagined his face, the sharp lines softened by shadows, the way his eyes burned when he looked at me, like I was something worth fighting for. Worth dying for.

I clung to that image like a lifeline, picturing him tearing through this place, unstoppable and furious, cutting down anyone who stood between us. I saw him breaking the bars of this cage, pulling me into his arms, whispering that it was over. That I was safe.

But the image splintered as quickly as it came, chased away by the memory of how they’d dragged me here. Helpless. Powerless.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, as if I could block it all out, the fear, the doubt, the ache that wouldn’t go away.

I didn’t want to die here.