Page 57 of The Midnight Death Match

I close my eyes, sick with the weight of it. The loophole I hoped for—cooperation, unity, shared strength—it was never written into the binding. My hope was built on a story they rewrote long ago.

This isn’t just a curse. It’s betrayal, calcified into blood.

My voice is barely audible. “We aren’t victims of fate. We’re victims of greed.”

Beside me, Einar’s face darkens, but he places a hand gently on my shoulder, a silent echo of my grief.

Lys speaks again, voice quiet but heavy. “But you aren’t bound by their rules, Eira. You were born from what should never have mixed. You stand outside their intent.”

His words feel like both a lifeline and a trap.

I don’t reply. Because I don’t know if I should feel relief or terror.

The chamber feels even colder now. Flickering wards cast long, shivering shadows across the ancient stone, but I barelysee them. The words on the scroll loop through my mind like a chant I can’t silence.

One life feeds another. Balance broken cannot restore itself.

I stand near the edge of the archive, gripping the cool stone ledge, breath unsteady.

Harek watches me from across the room, but I can’t meet his gaze yet. I’m not ready for the weight I’ll see in his eyes. The disappointment and grief I know mirrors my own.

Not now, not after this.

Soft measured steps approach behind me.

Lys speaks without preamble, his voice like silk sliding across glass. “They chose to bind their power to sacrifice because they lacked vision. They feared losing what they built.”

I say nothing.

“But you,” he continues, “stand outside their fear. You were not shaped by their rules—you’re their fracture made flesh.”

I swallow hard. “I’m still part of them.”

“More than that.” He steps closer, close enough that I feel the warmth of him behind me, but he doesn’t touch. “You’re hybrid. The first of something neither hunter nor wolf intended.”

His voice dips lower, almost a whisper against the back of my neck.

“They tried to bind power to blood. But you? You’re living proof that power canevolve. That it can break free.”

I close my eyes, and my heart thunders. The words wrap around the part of me that’s terrified, not just of dying but of hurting the people I love under the weight of this cursed legacy. “If there’s no way to break it, then what am I supposed to do?”

“There may yet be a way.” Lys’s words are smooth and promising. “Not through balance or passive hope, but through reshaping the binding itself.”

I turn slightly, searching his face. “You meanrewritingthe curse.”

His smile is faint. “It won’t come without cost. The kind of cost others might not be willing to face.” He leans just enough that his voice dips like a secret. “But I believe you could.”

My breath hitches. The pull is sharp and dangerous. In this moment, he sees the part of me I don’t dare admit to anyone else—the part that isn’t ready to surrender. Not yet.

Not to fate, fear, or even to love.

But transformation.

Chapter

Twenty-One

The sanctuary isnothing more than a hollow shell—a crumbling dome of once-flawless stone, its ceiling fractured open to the cold night sky. Vines creep through the broken ribs of its arches, curling around the ancient carvings like nature reclaiming its due.