Page 29

Kaia

The world around me shifts.

I know this is a dream—I always know.

But this one feels different.

I’m standing in a place I don’t recognize, though something about it tugs at the edges of my mind like a half-forgotten song.

Shadows coil around my feet, not just stretching but clinging, their tendrils wrapping like searching fingers, like they’re trying to tell me something I’m not ready to hear.

The cracked stone beneath me pulses faintly, as if it carries a heartbeat, as if it remembers things I’ve forgotten.

The air hums with something ancient, something hungry.

The sky above is endless black, no stars, no moon, just a vast and empty void that presses down on me like a weight I can taste. The silence isn’t peaceful—it’s waiting. Watching.

A flicker of movement catches my eye, something small, bobbing just above the ground.

Walter .

But his usual lazy drifting is gone. His form wavers in and out of focus, like a candle struggling against wind. He moves toward me with hesitant urgency, his strange purplish glow flickering as he hovers near my shoulder. He’s trying to warn me.

I take a step forward, but the ground beneath me isn’t solid. It shifts like sand made of shadows, not quite earth, not quite anything. Each step feels like walking on the surface of a frozen lake where the ice grows thinner with every breath.

Then I see him.

A figure stands in the distance, half-swallowed by shifting mist.

I can’t make out his face clearly.

I can’t even tell if he’s real.

But I feel him.

Something inside me snaps taut, an invisible wire pulled tight around my ribs. My breath stutters in my throat, the bonds that should be settled inside me shuddering like struck tuning forks.

The others—Finn, Malrik, Aspen, Torric, even Kieran—they all fell into place, their connections forming and locking into something solid, undeniable.

But this? This bond still bleeds.

It aches.

Like something vital is missing. Like something is trying to crawl home through broken glass.

I take another step forward, my pulse hammering against my skull, my body knowing something my mind refuses to accept.

The shadows part just enough for me to glimpse him clearly.

Dark hair that catches light it shouldn’t have. Sharp features carved from marble and regret. Eyes like storm clouds before lightning strikes.

A voice echoes through the space, low and rough, but the words dissolve before they reach me, slipping through my fingers like smoke.

Walter flickers beside me, his glow dimming to almost nothing. He bobs once—frantic, urgent—then vanishes entirely.

I know him.

But I don’t.

The recognition slams into me like a fist to the chest. My lungs seize, my body reacting to something my mind can’t grasp. There’s history here, written in the space between us, carved into the way he stands like he’s holding himself together by will alone.

I know that face.

I know the weight in those eyes.

But before I can reach him, before I can even whisper the name burning on my tongue, the darkness pulls.

And everything shatters.

I wake with a gasp that tears from my throat like a scream I couldn’t release. My entire body is rigid, every muscle locked like I’ve been struck by lightning. My heart pounds so violently it hurts, the incomplete bond in my chest pulling, demanding , refusing to be ignored.

The room is dark, but I can feel warmth beside me, solid and real. Finn’s arm tightens around my waist as I jolt awake, his breath warm against the back of my neck. His body anchors me, pulls me back from whatever edge I was standing on.

I press my fingers against my sternum, willing the ache to fade.

It doesn’t .

It gets worse .

Across the room, Malrik shifts restlessly, his jaw clenched even in sleep. Aspen and Torric both tense, their bodies responding to something their unconscious minds recognize. Kieran’s bond flares—just for a heartbeat, sharp and distant—before settling back into careful control.

Finn stirs, his fingers searching across my skin even before he’s fully awake.

The dream clings to me like cobwebs, thick and suffocating, refusing to fade. I should wake Finn, tell him, let him distract me with his chaos and warmth. But I can’t move.

Can’t breathe.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t help. My mind is racing, chasing fragments of recognition that slip away the moment I try to hold them.

I felt him.

The bond is there. Its been there all along, just out of reach, lingering in the space between what is and what’s been stolen from me.

And whoever he is, wherever he is, he felt it too.

I know it the same way I know my own heartbeat.

The same way I felt each of my other bonds snap into place like pieces of a puzzle I didn’t know I was solving.

Whoever he is, he’s waiting.

And I’m running out of time to find him.