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LIORA

A s I’m walking through the woods to make my way back to the loft, everything suddenly feels off and quiet. The kind of quiet that isn’t peace—it’s the pause between a scream and the blood.

I’m not even halfway back when I feel it. Something in me fractures. It’s not magic. Not just instinct.

It’s Thorne.

Pain lashes down the tether that still ties me to him, mentor to student, father-figure to something close to a daughter. It pulses once—twice—and then nothing.

Just cold. Hollow. Dead.

“No—” I turn on a dime, wind ripping at my hair as I run, faster than I’ve ever moved before.

My magic senses it before my eyes do. Fire and smoke. The pulse of something wrong bleeding through the trees like rot.

Seraphiel.

When I reach the grove, my knees nearly buckle.

The sanctuary is gone.

Ash floats in the air like snow, swirling in the embers of what used to be a sacred place. The ancient roots have been split down the middle, hollowed out by something violent—raw magic stripped of intent and laced in cruelty.

And in the center, motionless, face toward the stars he used to read like scripture is Thorne. Lying in blood that no longer steams.

A dagger of molten obsidian is still lodged in his chest, sunk hilt-deep, the runes along its blade burning red like they’re laughing.

I stumble forward. Drop to my knees. “Thorne…”

But there’s no breath in him. No spark. Just ruin.

And standing a few paces behind me, cloaked in that familiar, loathsome calm, is the nightmare I should’ve known would follow me here.

“Hello again, little star,” Seraphiel murmurs, his voice like silk catching fire.

I don’t think. I burn.

Magic roars out of me before I can stop it. My hands lift without command, and the ground beneath us screams, split open by a pulse of celestial power that flashes so bright the trees combust into white flame.

He laughs.

Laughs.

“This,” he says, voice echoing through the carnage, “this is what I have been waiting for.”

I scream.

And the world answers.

The sky cracks open. Not metaphorically. Literally.

A vein of starlight splits through the heavens above us, ripping the realm like paper soaked in gasoline. Magic pours from me unchecked, pure chaos laced with starlight and shadow, the perfect storm of what I was born to be and what I’ve tried so fucking hard not to become.

“You wanted the prophecy?” I scream, chest heaving. “ Here it is, you bastard! ”

Power blasts outward, fracturing the forest. The trees bend, then snap. The ground warps and folds inward as the Veil itself flickers—then tears.

I feel realms fracture. Time stutter. Life shudder.

And for a second—just one— I see myself reflected in Seraphiel’s eyes.

Not a girl. Not a fae. Not even a warrior.

But destruction.

And that’s when it hits me that I have just done exactly what he wanted.

When it’s over, I drop. Magic gone. Body empty. Voice cracked.

The grove is a crater. The sanctuary is dust. And Thorne… Thorne is gone.

Tears scorch my cheeks as I crawl to what’s left of him. I pull the blade from his chest and scream until my throat gives out.

Seraphiel’s gone, vanished into the fold he tore open just before my explosion hit, but his laugh still echoes.

He wanted this. He provoked this. And I gave it to him.I don’t know how long I sit there, curled into Thorne’s robes, rocking back and forth like a child who just woke up from a nightmare that won’t end.

Eventually, I rise. Barely.

My legs are shaking. My hands are stained red and gold and something darker. But I stand because now I understand.

He wasn’t trying to force the union. He was trying to ignite me. Because that’s the real weapon.

Me.

Uncontrolled. Unhinged. Unleashed.