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LIORA

T he ruins stretch around me, lifeless and empty. There is no warmth here, no sound but the ragged draw of my breath and the faint rustle of wind through the broken stone. Dain is gone. He left me.

The truth is a blade inside me.

I press a trembling hand to my chest, feeling for the bond that should still be there, the invisible tether that has bound me to him since I first drank his blood. It’s weaker now, slipping, fraying. He’s pulling away, forcing it to break.

A sharp, searing pain shoots through me, an ache that isn’t in my body and everything to do with my soul. He’s actually doing it. He’s tearing me out of himself, piece by piece, as if I never mattered.

I stumble forward, my knees hitting the jagged stone, my breath hitching as the realization crashes over me like a storm. He doesn’t want me. He never did.

"He will never come back to you."

The whisper slithers through my mind, thick and suffocating. The dark presence is closer now, its voice a curling thread of silk and poison.

"He’s already made his choice, little Purna. You are nothing to him. But you could be something to me."

I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my palms against my ears. "Leave me alone," I rasp, my voice hoarse, cracked from too many screams.

"You are breaking, Liora. You feel it, don’t you? The bond unraveling? The pain will only grow worse. But I can make it stop."

I lift my head. The ruins waver in front of me, my vision blurring. My heartbeat is uneven, my body cold. Dain’s rejection is a weight pressing down on me, suffocating, crushing.

"All you have to do is sever it completely," the voice purrs.

A sharp wind cuts through the ruins, whipping my hair across my face. My fingers tremble as I clutch my arms, digging my nails into my skin to ground myself, to stop myself from considering it.

"Cut him from you, and you will be free. No more pain. No more bond. No more love."

The offer slams into me like a wave. Freedom. From him. From the ache of his absence. From the unbearable knowledge that I will never be enough for him.

My chest tightens. The temptation burns.

Wouldn’t it be easier to let go? To stop this agony? If he can sever the bond, why shouldn’t I? Why should I keep chasing after something that was never mine to begin with?

The pain throbs through me, sharper now. I can feel him pulling harder, like a hand wrenching a chain, twisting it until it snaps.

He’s almost succeeded.

I could finish it. Right now.

All I have to do is let go.

The dark presence pulses around me, sensing my hesitation. The air grows thick, charged with something ancient and hungry.

"That’s it," the voice croons. "Sever it. Say his name one last time, and it will all be over."

My lips part.

Dain.

His name is a phantom on my tongue, a ghost in my chest, a brand in my soul.

A new whisper slithers through the air. Softer. Desperate.

"No, don’t listen."

I freeze.

The voice isn’t the dark presence. It’s her.

Amara.

My head snaps up. I stagger to my feet, my pulse hammering as a shiver rakes down my spine. The ruins shift. The air warps, heat rippling around me as the past bleeds into the present.

A vision flickers to life before my eyes.

A woman stands before a massive stone altar, her hands shaking as golden light pulses from her palms. Magic crackles around her, coiling like living fire.

I know her face.

She is me.

No. She is Amara.

Her lips part, but her voice doesn’t belong to her alone. It belongs to me, too.

"Please, don’t listen to him. Don’t make the same mistake I did."

I stumble back, my heel catching on loose stone. The ruins blur around me. The magic in my veins surges, pulsing with something wrong.

"I never wanted this for you."

"Shut up," I whisper, pressing my hands to my temples, squeezing my eyes shut. "You’re not real."

"I am. And if you let go of him now, it will be too late."

The darkness surges. The presence snarls, its voice twisting into something sharp, vicious.

"She lies. She always has. Do not trust her."

I can’t breathe. The ruins are spinning, my body trembling under it all.

Dain is leaving me. The bond is snapping. The dark presence is waiting.

And Amara is begging me not to make the same mistake she did.

Tears burn my eyes. My chest tightens, my body shaking as the choice crushes me.

What am I supposed to do?

The wind howls through the ruins, and in the distance, I feel something shifting.

Something awakening.

Deep inside, I know whatever happens next, there is no turning back.