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LIORA

T he world crashes down. Stone splits, dust surges, and the ceiling gives way like brittle bone, swallowing us in the temple’s final, dying breath. I fall—we fall—plunging into darkness, my scream swallowed before it can escape.

Impact slams through me. Rocks dig into my side, scraping skin, knocking my breath out of me. The ground isn’t even—it shifts beneath me, debris tumbling, my limbs tangled in the chaos.

Silence slithers in next. Too sudden. Too heavy.

I cough, the taste of grit thick on my tongue. Everything aches. My chest, my arms, my skull—bruised but not broken. Still breathing. Still alive.

A sound rumbles through the dark.

Not stone shifting. Not the ruin settling.

Something else.

I freeze.

A growl slithers between the jagged edges of my consciousness, something low and raw, vibrating against the walls of our prison.

He is here.

I press a hand to the uneven ground, forcing myself up onto my elbows. The chamber is narrow, trapped beneath tons of collapsed ruin, but there’s a glow—a dull, molten red illuminating the dust-clogged dark.

Him.

The gargoyle.

I barely see him at first, crouched in the rubble, hunched over, one knee bent, massive frame shrouded in crumbling dust. His wings, those wings—shift against the ruined floor, battered but whole, their obsidian edges flickering like dying embers. His tail drags against the ground, curling once before going still.

The glow comes from beneath his skin.

Veins of deep-crimson pulse beneath the blackened stone of his flesh, streaks of molten gold flickering at the edges, brightening with each breath. His chest rises, ragged and slow. He should be dead. We both should be.

But he is not human.

Neither is the sound that tears from his throat.

A deep, guttural snarl, raw with pain.

I push myself up fully, ignoring the screaming protest of my sides. A mistake.

His head snaps up.

Eyes burn into me—not gold, not ember, but something deeper, darker, a molten pit of fury buried beneath centuries of silence.

I do not move. Neither does he.

A thin ribbon of air stretches between us, charged and unforgiving, both of us half-buried, half-alive, half-waiting.

He shifts, slow, predatory. His wings stretch outward, joints popping as though snapping back into place.

I inch backward. My heel catches against debris, stopping me short.

He notices.

A flicker of something dangerous gleams behind his half-lidded gaze. The corner of his mouth curls, sharp canines glinting.

He enjoys this.

“You run again,” he rasps, voice scraping against the cavernous dark. “It will be the last time.”

I swallow. The truth of it sits heavy in my core, tangled with the ache in my heart. I should be afraid. I am.

But something in me stirs—recognition.

Not from stories whispered by frightened slaves, not from ancient warnings carved into temple walls.

Something deeper. Older.

A memory that isn’t mine.

A voice that should not be familiar.

What is this?

He moves first, shifting his weight, but it’s not to lunge. His left side falters, muscles tightening in a way that betrays pain. My gaze flicks down.

The glow beneath his skin pulses unevenly, fractures of ember beneath a deep gash, raw and sluggish where his stone-like flesh has cracked. Dark blood drips, thicker than human, pooling at the jagged edges of broken stone.

He grits his teeth, still crouched, one hand braced against the ground as though holding himself together through sheer will.

He is wounded.

Without thinking, I move.

His snarl cuts through between us, snapping against my nerves, warning, threatening, commanding stillness?—

I do not stop.

I kneel before him, pressing a hand to his wound.

Heat sears through me.

A shock of power ripples up my arm, his magic colliding with mine, meeting at the boundary of my palm where his wound drinks in my touch. The glow beneath his skin flickers—not in pain. In something else.

I don’t even know how I’m using magic. It’s unfamiliar, but at the same time, familiar as if the instruction manual is carve in my very being.

He stares at me.

Not with hatred. Not with rage.

With something worse. Curiosity. I feel the same.

Neither of us speak. The silence is an unwelcome intimacy, neither of us daring to shatter it. His breathing slows, chest rising and falling in tandem with mine. I feel it, his body’s warmth seeping into me, the unnatural pulse of his magic responding to something in me.

I pull back first.

The glow in his veins settles, still thrumming, but calmer. I exhale, fingers curling into my lap. I should have let him bleed.

His claws curl against the stone, slow, deliberate, a tension coiling in his frame that isn’t rage—not entirely.

“Why?” The question is more breath than voice, rasping from his lips like something unwilling.

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

Lies.

His eyes narrow. “What are you?”

The question unsettles me.

He doesn’t ask who . He doesn’t ask how .

He asks what .

I bite the inside of my cheek. “A slave.”

He scoffs, low and dark. “A slave does not wield purna magic.”

My stomach twists. I have no answer for him. I don’t even have an answer for myself.

His gaze drags over me, calculating, reading too much, seeing too much.

Something shifts in the air around us.

A sound echoes beyond the rubble—a distant voice, barely audible, but coming closer.

His expression hardens. Not his fight. Not his problem.

He pushes himself up fully, towering above me, stretching his wings, testing his own strength. I scramble to my feet, something sharp tangling in my gut.

I expect him to leave me there.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he turns. Looks at me. Considers.

Without a word, he starts walking. Not away.

Deeper into the ruins.

He stops and turns to me. I hold my breath. He wants me to follow, doesn’t he?

With the footsteps coming closer, I run after him.