Page 40

Story: Bitten By Prophecy

ELIAS

T he second the door clicks shut behind us, Kaia grabs my wrist.

"Wait," she says, breathless like the words are trying to outrun her fear.

I stop. I’d stop the fucking world if she asked me like that.

Her hand’s shaking where it’s wrapped around mine, and when she looks up at me with those gold-flecked eyes, all wild and wounded, I know—whatever she's about to say, it’s bad.

Really bad.

I step closer, crowding her gently into the wall, shielding her from the bustle of the main hall where witches and shifters and old gods are sharpening their blades for war.

"Talk to me, Kaia," I say low, trying to steady her. "Whatever it is... I’m here."

She bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. I smell the metallic tang of it and it spikes my instincts, but I force myself to stay calm. Force myself to be what she needs right now.

"My mom," she rasps. "She told me something. About the Veil. About me."

I tilt my head, trying to catch her gaze, but she keeps glancing away like she can’t bear to look at me.

"I’m not just tied to it," she says, each word like it’s ripped from her throat. "I’m the last true anchor. If I die—or if someone else takes my magic—the Veil falls. The worlds bleed into each other. Everything burns."

I go still.

Completely, utterly still.

Kaia finally lifts her eyes to mine, and what I see there fucking wrecks me—terror, resolve, devastation. All tangled together.

"There’s a ritual," she continues, voice breaking. "I can heal it. Bind my magic permanently to hold it steady. But it’s a one-way trip, Elias. It could kill me. Or erase everything I am. My memories. Us. "

My heart hammers against my ribs so hard I swear it cracks bone.

"No." The word tears out of me raw and violent.

"Elias—"

"No, Kaia!" I slam my hand against the wall next to her head, my whole body vibrating with fury and panic. "You don’t fucking do this alone."

Tears swim in her eyes, but she blinks them back. Always so goddamn stubborn.

"It’s the only way," she says, whispering now, like if she says it soft enough it’ll hurt less.

"The only way they told you about," I bite out. "There has to be something else. There is something else. Your mother has lied to you your whole life, why do you think she’s benign honest now?!"

Before she can argue, before I can completely lose my shit, a voice cuts through the hall.

"Kaia! Hey—" Sonya, one of the witches we’re working with, waves from across the main chamber. "We need you to go over the east wing layouts again. Security’s tighter than we thought."

Kaia presses her forehead to my chest for a heartbeat. Just a second. Just enough for me to feel the way she trembles before she shoves it down.

"I have to go," she mumbles.

"I know," I say, even though every part of me wants to chain her to me and never let her leave my sight again.

She looks up, brushes a shaking hand against my jawline. "We’ll figure it out," she promises, lying through her goddamn teeth.

And then she’s gone.

Swallowed up by the movement of soldiers and sorcerers and shifters.

And I’m left standing there with the walls closing in.

Later, when the noise dies down and no one’s looking for me, I slip away.

Deep into the ruins. Past the carved runes warning against trespassing. Past the pools of magic so old they hum like dying stars.

Into the forbidden archive hidden beneath what used to be the heart of the old Fae kingdom.

Velara told me once, back when she was still pretending to care—that the ancients wrote down everything. Their victories. Their betrayals. Their desperate, dangerous magic.

It’s where I find it.

Buried under a collapsed archway, half-burned and bleeding ink.

A ritual so dark, so reckless, even the Crimson Court outlawed it.

Soulbinding.

Not the neat, pretty magic Kaia’s mother was talking about.

This is brutal. Ugly.

It splits the burden between two lives. Two souls.

But the cost?

It takes a piece of the caster’s soul to do it.

Scars them. Forever.

I sit in the dark, clutching the brittle parchment, feeling the weight of what I’m about to do like a noose tightening around my throat.

I could tell her.

I should tell her.

But if I do... she’ll fight me. She’ll argue. She’ll try to protect me just like I’m trying to protect her.

And I can't let her.

Not when she's already giving up everything.

Not when I finally found something worth bleeding for.

I press my hand to the dirt, close my eyes, and swear the oath.

Not to the gods.

Not to the Veil.

Not even to the world.

To her.

Kaia.

Her stubborn, reckless, fire-born heart.

Her sarcasm and her quiet smiles and the way she looked at me that night in the tunnels like maybe, I wasn’t doomed to rot alone.

I’ll save you, even if it destroys me.

The magic burns through my blood, carving itself into my bones, setting something deep inside me on fire.

I grit my teeth through the pain, through the certainty that nothing will ever be the same again.

Because this?

This is love, too.

Not the kind that’s soft or easy or safe.

The kind that razes you to ash and rebuilds you into something stronger.

Something unstoppable.

When I finally stagger out of the ruins, I catch a glimpse of her across the field, laughing tightly at something Sonya says, shoving a map under her arm like the weight of the world isn’t about to crush her.

And I swear to every god that ever existed, I will not let her fall alone.