Page 19

19

SERAPHINE

W e find the kid at the edge of the old runewell—shaking, hunched into a beat-up hoodie, sneakers soaked in runoff from the broken pipes nearby.

He can’t be older than twenty. Maybe younger. The kind of scared that doesn’t come from inexperience but from surviving something they shouldn’t have seen.

“Name’s Lio,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve got info. And… and they said you were the one who could help.”

“Who told you that?” I ask.

“Old market fae. She said you don’t take sides, but you hate when people get used.”

That makes me pause.

Because she’s not wrong.

Lio shifts on his feet, glancing around like the shadows themselves are listening. “I think I was followed.”

I’m already building a ward under my breath, symbols curling along my knuckles.

Jackson steps forward. “You got anyone else who knows where you are?”

Lio shakes his head. “I’ve been off the grid since I saw the thing in the catacombs. I was stupid . Thought I could run it to PEACE and get some kind of protection. But they wouldn’t even listen. Said my kind doesn’t have clearance.”

That tracks.

Lio’s aura flickers. Leopard-Shifter. Barely stabilized.

He’s trembling now. “It wasn’t just a sigil. It moved. It spoke. I heard it say something about ‘the gate waking.’ About a key. And from what I’ve seen on the news, I can tell it’s all tied together and it has to be bad, right?”

Before I can speak, the air behind us rips open.

The shadows recoil. Magic slams through the runewell like a pressure wave. Jackson shoves Lio to the ground and I throw a shield around them just as the creature steps from the dark.

Tall. Elegant. Dressed in a suit that absorbs the light.

Eyes like twin pits of charred bone.

“Fucking Black Sun,” I hiss, stepping forward, power coiling at my fingertips.

The thing grins. “Thank you for bringing her to me.”

Lio gasps. “I didn’t know—they weren’t there before—I swear ? — ”

“I know,” I say, without looking back. I already can tell this kid is squirmy but not a liar. “This isn’t your fault.”

Jackson draws his gun.

I speak the invocation that raises the ground beneath us, wards etched in old blood singing against my skin.

The fight begins.

The creature moves like it’s made of smoke and razors.

Jackson flanks left, bullets enchanted with sigils from my desk—thankfully—and they sting. One tears through the creature’s side. It bleeds light and screams like a breaking violin.

I hurl shadow spears. They slash across the beast’s chest and limbs, but it keeps moving.

Lio curls against the stone, whispering spells of protection I haven’t heard in a century. Old language. Fae-taught. Someone trained him which screams orphan vibes.

Then the thing lunges for me.

Jackson tackles it mid-air. They both crash against the edge of the well.

And in that second, when I reach out to pull him up, he grabs my hand—skin to skin—and the words I was chanting, a seal.

A shockwave rips through the space. Not outward. Inward.

The bond snaps into place.

I feel him in my chest. In my breath.

Jackson’s heartbeat becomes mine. His panic. His focus.

It feeds my spell.

Together, we cast.

The creature howls, realizing what it’s triggered.

I reach for the power inside me, ancient and buried. Jackson steadies me with a single look.

I speak the words. He pulls the trigger.

And the beast dissolves into ash and light.

Gone.

Silence follows. Then a whimper.

Lio crawls forward, eyes wide, face bloodied. “What was that?”

I exhale slowly, gripping Jackson’s wrist.

“That,” I say, “was Black Sun trying to break the world.”

Jackson kneels beside Lio. “You okay?”

“I’m not hurt,” he whispers. “Just… changed.” He looks between us.

“You’re bonded, aren’t you?”

I flinch.

Lio continues, voice hushed. “I’ve read about it. Only in myth. But I felt it. When it locked. Like lightning through the ley lines.”

He bows his head. “I pledge myself to you,” he whispers, hands trembling. “I don’t have much. But I want to fight. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

I crouch beside him. “You just did.”

Lio meets my gaze. “Then I’m yours.”

Jackson doesn’t speak. But I feel his hand against mine.

Warm. Steady.

And somewhere, someone is watching.

And now they know. He’s the key. And I’m his destruction.