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“So, Drennek had one of these, and he wanted to try it on me.”

Naya went very still beneath his touch. “On you?”

“I was maybe nine years old. He was older, stronger and I learned to avoid him.” Akoro’s voice dropped. “I told him I’d let him do it if he taught me how first. So I could understand what he was doing to me.”

Naya’s mouth dropped open. “But that’s so dangerous. Why didn’t you tell anyone—your parents?”

He shook his head. “You think they would listen? He was a Sy.”

“So what happened?”

“He lied about what it did, so I fought him and cut him with it.”

Naya gasped. “But you said he was bigger and stronger.”

“Yes, but I’d been training long before I was nine.

He learned that day that the ‘boring’ combat skills he always passed on had real value when you intended to hurt someone.

” He finished with the ointment, capping the pot and setting it aside.

“I made him show me how to remove the wound and forced him to tell me what it was. He made the knife, carved the symbols into the blade. Said he’d learned the technique from someone who knew the old ways. ”

“Someone who knew...” Understanding entered her eyes. “An Omega.”

“I didn’t realize that at the time. I thought it was just another piece of dynasty magic, something passed down through bloodlines.

” His jaw tightened. “It wasn’t until years later after I learned what my family had been doing that I understood what Drennek had really done to acquire that knowledge. ”

Akoro could see her mind whirring. Drennek had coerced an Omega into teaching him a technique designed to control and enslave. And Akoro had learned it, unknowingly from his cousin’s cruelty.

“What happened to Drennek?”

“He lives in another region. Far from Onn Kkulma.” Akoro’s tone grew flat. “He sometimes robs trade carts close to the border, and occasionally kills travelers if they resist, but we barely hear about him anymore.”

“You could stop him.”

“I could.” Akoro met her gaze. “But dealing with Drennek would require resources. As long as he stays outside of my region, he’s not my immediate concern.”

Naya was quiet for a long moment, her fingers pressing against his chest. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “You used it on me after you knew. After you understood what it meant, what it had been used for.”

Akoro swallowed, accepting the chill that entered his veins. “Yes,” he said simply. There was no point in denial, no excuse that wouldn’t sound hollow.

“Why?”

The single word carried the weight of everything between them—all the pain, all the betrayal, all the complicated emotions that had brought them to this moment.

“Because I couldn’t lose you,” he said, the admission clawing his throat raw.

“Because every instinct I possessed screamed that you belonged to me, and I would do anything—anything—to keep you.” He paused, coldness settling in his chest. “And because you’re right.

I blindly became what I’d killed my family to stop.

” He blinked, the realization cresting in his mind.

“I’m not against cruelty. But I was consumed by vengeance, wrath, anger for too long. ”

Tears gathered in her eyes, though she didn’t let them fall. “Do you regret it?”

“Every day.” He held her gaze. “Not just because it hurt you, though that’s part of it. But because it proved that all my righteousness about being different from them was ultimately a lie. When it mattered, when I wanted something badly enough, I reached for the same tools they’d used.”

She was quiet for a long time, her gaze searching his face. Outside, the desert wind whipped and whispered, and the camp settled for the night. They were silent for a moment, memories he could remember from his childhood, drifting in and out of his mind. And then something stuck, a sharp memory.

Akoro stilled, his hand ceasing its movement through her hair as the recollection took form.

He could see it clearly now—Drennek in the old armory, not working on flesh but on a broken piece of sandstone from the palace wall.

The master torturer had been experimenting, carving those same symbols into the stone, muttering about redirecting energy instead of drawing it.

“I remember something,” he said slowly, his voice rough with sudden understanding. “Drennek used the nnol ttaehh mael on objects too. I watched him bind a section of damaged wall to redirect structural magic back into the foundation.”

Naya lifted her head from his chest, her brown eyes searching his face. “What do you mean?”

“The same principle.” His mind raced, pieces clicking together with startling clarity.

“If the nnol ttaehh mael can bind a wound to a specific person, creating a connection across distance...” He sat up abruptly, his muscles coiling with the intensity of the revelation.

“We must be able to bind the nnin-eellithi to a specific place instead of a person?”

Her breath caught, understanding beginning to bleed into her expression. “So we use the same principle but reverse it—instead of binding someone to come to you, bind the magic to return to where it belongs.”

“To the Nnin-kaa Sands.” The words came out as barely more than a growl, possessive satisfaction thrumming through him at the elegant simplicity of it.

“Exactly!” She sat up beside him, her skin flushed with excitement, and the sight of her—brilliant and beautiful and completely focused—sent heat spiraling through his chest. “If I could draw all the nnin-eellithi to one location, and you could perform the binding ritual there... We could send them home. Not destroy them, not fight them, but return them to where they were originally contained.”

The solution was elegant in its simplicity, terrifying in its implications. “It would require perfect timing. Perfect execution.”

“And it would be dangerous,” Naya added, her voice sobering.

“For both of us. I’d have to draw every piece of wild magic in the region to wherever you perform the ritual.

And you’d be standing at the center of that convergence, working magic with a technique that could kill you if done incorrectly. ”

Possessive fury blazed through him at the thought of her in such danger. Every instinct rebelled against allowing his mate anywhere near that level of risk. “No. Absolutely not. I won’t let you?—”

“Akoro.” She cupped his face, her touch gentle but firm, and the simple contact sent warmth racing along his skin. “This is our only chance. Our only real solution.” Her brown eyes held his, steady and resolved. “And we have to do it together.”

The word “together” struck him. Not just the physical partnership the plan would require, but something deeper. True collaboration, built on trust and shared risk. The kind of partnership she’d described between her parents.

His Alpha nature rebelled against the danger to her, but his strategic mind wrestled it down, clinging to the truth in her words. They were stronger together than apart.

“Where?” he asked, his voice rougher than intended. “We can’t perform the ritual in the Nnin-kaa Sands themselves—they’re too far away, and we don’t have time.”

“Somewhere closer. Somewhere we could create a new containment point.” She paused, thinking, her teeth catching her lower lip in a way that made his focus fracture momentarily.

“What about the ruins? The abandoned cities you told me about? Places where the magical infrastructure might still exist, just dormant?”

Understanding sparked through him, sharp and immediate. “Kessarok. The old Vos capital. It’s half a day’s ride from here, and the magical foundations were built to channel enormous amounts of power.”

“Could we get there in time? How long do we need to prepare?”

Akoro’s mind raced through logistics, calculating distances and preparation time with the precision of a military campaign.

“Two days to reach the ruins, a day to set up the ritual space, perform the binding...” He met her gaze, seeing his own determination reflected there.

“We’d be cutting it very close to the storm’s arrival. ”

“Then we need to start immediately.” Her voice held absolute determination, and something primal in him responded to her strength. “Tomorrow, we present the plan to both the Omegas and your council. The day after, we leave for Kessarok.”

The timeline was brutal, the risks enormous.

If they failed, if the timing was wrong, if any element of the plan went awry, the storm would strike Onn Kkulma with devastating force.

And if they succeeded, if they managed to pull every piece of wild magic in the region to one location.

.. they would both be standing at the center of a magical maelstrom unlike anything the world had seen since the first wave of destruction decades ago.

“Three days,” he said quietly. “Three days to save the region.”

“Three days,” she agreed. Then, with a smile that was equal parts fierce determination and reckless hope: “No pressure at all.”

Despite everything—the danger, the impossible timeline, the sheer audacity of what they were proposing—Akoro found himself almost smiling in return.

This brilliant, brave woman who’d walked into his life and turned everything upside down was asking him to trust her with both their lives. To be her partner in the truest sense.

“Together,” he said, the word resonating through his chest.

“Together,” she whispered.