Page 22

22

RHAEGAR

T he ruins are quieter after the storm—but it’s not a peaceful silence.

It’s watchful .

Like something has noticed us.

I linger in the shadows of a half-collapsed wall, my body still humming from the kiss I should never have given her. From the taste of her magic. From the ache it left in my teeth. She’s inside me now in a way I can’t strip free, her power nesting where the void in my chest used to be.

And Protheka knows it. The magic does.

The wind has changed. It carries no scent, no chill—only stillness. A waiting.

Then I hear it.

A soft click on stone.

Not claws. Not paws.

Feet. Bare and slow.

I shift, instinct wrapping around my spine like armor. My wings stretch wide, silent. My claws flex.

Another sound, closer now.

A breath where there should be none.

I leap from the ledge just as the first creature appears beneath me—its form a flickering silhouette, half-there, half-not. The moment I strike, my fist passes through mist, and my body lands hard on the broken tiles.

The shadows ripple.

They rise.

And then I feel them— The Unseen . In my memories, they’re called this way because… they’re unidentified and can be anything. I’m even unsure of what they are exactly.

Things forgotten by the surface of the world, born from cursed soul magic, corrupted beyond even the understanding of the Thirteen. Their faces blur in and out of reality, jaws splitting too wide, hands elongated and reaching like tendrils. Not undead. Not demons. Something worse. Remnants of a power that should have faded with the wars.

Their eyes glow faintly—and they are all fixed on one direction.

Nora.

I let out a guttural roar and hurl myself at them.

Stone tears through smoke. One of them shrieks, high and unnatural, and I slam it into the stone, but it melts beneath my claws like smoke. Another lashes out—its hand brushes my side, and fire spreads across my ribcage like acid. Soul-burn. They’re feeding.

No, searching .

They're not here to kill.

They’re here to claim .

My rage spikes, and the ground quakes with the force of it. My wings explode outward as I throw a kinetic blast that shatters the nearest column. Stone rains down, crushing one of the beasts—but it reforms seconds later, crawling from its own dust like it’s wearing the ruin itself.

“What are you?” I snarl, but they don’t speak.

They don’t have to .

Because I feel it now—through the bond. Through her magic flaring again in the distance, untrained, leaking like a signal into the world. Nora. She's calling to them without realizing it.

She summoned them.

Not with intent.

With blood .

The memory of the shrine flashes through my mind. The pact. The runes. The damn name painted across the stones in ink that smelled of ash and bone.

Medea.

She’s waking inside her.

And the Wastes have begun to respond.

This place was cursed long before she ever stepped foot into it. A burial ground of failed creations. It was once a battlefield for those who never belonged—not in life, not in death. The Ashen Wastes are a crucible, a graveyard of Protheka’s sins.

And her magic sings to every broken thing left behind.

I draw deeply on what little power I have left. My regeneration’s slowed. My hunger gnaws. I haven’t fed in too long—not from her. Not since I pulled away that night with her mouth on mine, her fire spilling into me like salvation.

I can only get from her. Feed from her. My body doesn’t accept anything else. We’re both broken.

But I don’t need to feed now.

I need to destroy .

With a roar, I slam my palm into the broken stone beneath my feet and release the magnetic force still locked in my corrupted veins. The air ripples. Lightning splits the sky in a streak of gold-red flame—and it strikes the earth in a wave that scatters the creatures backward, their forms unraveling into wailing dust.

Silence returns.

But it’s a false silence. A truce between breaths.

The Unseen will return.

I stalk through the ruin toward Nora’s energy, rage coiling tighter in my gut with each step. My claws won’t retract. My wings twitch, twitch again. I feel every cell inside me screaming to take what’s mine, to anchor myself before I fade entirely.

But I won’t touch her.

She stands at the corner of the ruin, looking toward the horizon, unaware of the war I just fought to keep her breathing. Her magic dances around her—an aura visible even in the dying stormlight. She’s changing. Evolving.

And something deep in the world is listening.

I glance at my hand, where a mark now burns along my wrist—a line of cursed soul-ink from one of the Unseen. It’s not just corruption.

It’s a claim .

They’ve marked me too. They always come to those that are tainted.

I clench my teeth and whisper into the wind.

“You won’t take her.”

And if you try, I will burn this world to ash .