Page 18 of Bound By the Beast Man

DIANA

I huddle in the darkness, my body wedged between two large, cold boulders.

From this hiding place, I can see the flickering torchlight of the outpost below, a hive of dangerous activity that makes my skin crawl.

Corvak has been gone for what feels like an eternity, and with every passing moment, the fragile sense of safety I felt in his presence erodes, replaced by a cold, familiar fear.

The sounds from the settlement—a burst of rough laughter, the sharp crack of a whip, a sudden angry shout—all remind me that the world outside our small, sheltered cave is a place of casual brutality.

My mind is a turmoil. The revelation of my own magic, the power that exploded from me is a terrifying new reality.

I am part Purna. I am part of the evil that destroyed my family and stole my life.

The thought is a bitter poison, a self-hatred so profound it threatens to swallow me whole.

And now, Corvak, the one who saved me, is down there, in that viper’s nest, all because I am too weak to provide for myself. I am a burden, a liability.

When he finally returns, moving like a shadow up the mountainside, the relief that washes over me is so intense it makes me dizzy.

But it is short-lived. I see his face in the moonlight, and my heart plummets.

His expression is grim, his jaw set like stone, and the quiet hope that had begun to blossom in my chest withers and dies.

He brings with him no food, no supplies. He brings only bad news.

He sits before me, his powerful form radiating a tense, controlled anger. He does not waste time with pleasantries.

“What is it?” I asked. “What did you hear?”

He tells me what he overheard in the outpost. The Purna have put out a bounty for my return. They have named me their “stolen prize.” My stomach clenches with a nauseating mixture of rage and shame. To them, I am still just an object, a thing to be owned and reclaimed.

Then he delivers the final, devastating blow.

They have placed a magical trace on me. They are hunting me, not by sight or by scent, but with a magic that I cannot see or feel.

We are not running to safety. We are merely running out the clock until they find us.

Bitter resignation erupts over me. Of course they would do this.

There is no escape. I am a beacon, leading their evil directly to the one person who has tried to save me. I will be the cause of his death.

“We must keep moving,” he says, his eyes scanning the dark mountainside. “Faster, and further.”

A sudden, chilling certainty reveals itself; running is not enough.

We can run until our legs give out, but we can never outrun their magic.

A flash of insight, a fragmented memory from my long stasis, breaks through my despair.

I remember the sound of their voices, whispering about binding runes, about sympathetic magic, about how a trace must be anchored to its target’s own life force.

And I realize, with a dawning, terrifying hope, that there may be one way to fight them.

“No,” I said, my own voice surprising me with its firmness. “Running won’t work. They will always find us.”

Corvak turns to look at me, his bronze-gold eyes questioning in the darkness. I see the doubt there, but also a willingness to listen.

“Their magic is tied to me,” I explain, the idea taking shape even as I speak it.

“It is anchored to my… to what I am.” It is the first time I have acknowledged my heritage out loud, and the words taste like ash in my mouth.

“Perhaps… perhaps the only way to counter Purna magic is with Purna magic.”

This is the moment. This is the choice. I can continue to fear and despise this part of myself, or I can try to use it.

I can use the poison that runs in my veins as an antidote.

I see the hesitation in Corvak’s face, the deep, instinctual mistrust of the power I am suggesting I wield.

He fears what using it might do to me, and I cannot blame him.

But he also sees the fierce, desperate determination in my eyes.

He sees the logic in my words. After a long, tense silence, he gives a single, curt nod.

We move to a more secluded spot, a small basin hidden by a grove of stunted pines. I kneel on the cold earth and try to reach for the power that came to me before.

It is a painful, frustrating process. It does not answer my call easily.

I gather herbs and small, pale stones from the forest floor, materials I vaguely remember the Purna using in their rituals.

I close my eyes and focus, trying to piece together the broken fragments of the runes I overheard them chant.

Slowly, tentatively, a strange warmth begins to build in my chest. It is a frightening, foreign feeling, yet it is also strangely, terrifyingly, my own.