Page 26

26

RHAEGAR

T wo days pass.

Two days of silence thick enough to drown in. Of unspoken apologies and restless magic simmering just beneath her skin.

I don’t touch her again.

Not because I don’t want to. Not because the hunger’s gone—if anything, it’s worse now, knowing what she tastes like, what she sounds like when she breaks open beneath me.

But because I took too much. And now the part of her that lives inside me won’t shut up.

I feel her even when she’s on the other side of the ruin. Her heartbeat, the whisper of her magic, the low hum of her dreams when she finally sleeps. I know it’s a result of what we did. Of what I let happen.

She trains each day beneath the archway of a half-collapsed corridor, hurling her power at shattered stone and old glyphs carved into the walls. Her control is improving—less feral, more focused—but the flare-ups still come. When her mind drifts. When the whispering gets louder. When she forgets she’s not just Nora anymore.

I watch her from the shadows, jaw tight. She doesn’t know I’m looking for answers. She doesn’t see the runes I sketch when she’s not watching—the old texts I scrape from the walls, the bloodmarks I test on stone.

There must be a way to unbind her from the Wraithborn.

To keep them from claiming her.

Because they will come back. They always do. And next time, they won’t just watch from the edges of the Wastes. They’ll take.

I’ve seen what happens when a soul is split between two masters.

It shatters.

And she’s already cracking.

“You want to leave,” she says behind me, interrupting my thoughts. Her voice is low, but not uncertain. She’s standing at the archway, arms folded, magic sparking faintly along her fingers.

I glance up. “Yes.”

Her mouth curves—not quite a smile. “Because you’re scared.”

I narrow my eyes. “Because I’m not stupid .”

She strides toward me, each step defiant. “You want to run every time the past reaches out its hand. That’s not strength, Rhaegar. That’s fear.”

My wings twitch behind me. “The past didn’t just reach for you. It owns you. You said you wanted to fight it—then we should be moving , finding a way to stop Medea before she rises through you completely.”

“I need to understand her to fight her,” she snaps. “Don’t you get it? If I walk away now, I walk away blind.”

“And if we stay, you won’t walk away at all.”

Her jaw clenches, but she says nothing.

I rake a hand through my hair, my claws dragging against my scalp. “You don’t know what they’re capable of, Nora. The Wraithborn... they don’t attack because they’re not ready. Not because they’re merciful.”

“Then we prepare,” she says, stepping closer. “You train me. You said it yourself—I’m stronger now. Let me be strong.”

I should argue. I should grab her and fly us far from this cursed city before it buries her in memories that don’t belong to her.

But she’s staring at me like I’m the enemy.

And I’m too tired to be the enemy right now.

“Fine,” I growl. “Two more days. That’s all.”

Her eyes flash, but she nods.

Later that night, we lie in silence again—on opposite sides of the chamber, the air between us thick with everything we haven’t said.

She’s not sleeping. I know it from the way her breathing stutters, uneven. Her body curls slightly toward me in the dark, even as she tries to pretend it doesn’t.

I turn onto my back, eyes fixed on the broken ceiling above us. Stars blink through the cracks. Distant. Indifferent.

A breeze whispers through the ruin.

Then stops.

And doesn’t return.

My muscles tense.

I sit up slowly, wings unfurling in silence.

Nora rises too, her magic already shimmering around her like frost.

“You feel that?” she whispers.

I nod once.

It’s not the Wraithborn.

It’s not the Unseen.

It’s something else entirely—older, more disciplined. There’s a pulse to it. Rhythmic. Controlled.

Feminine.

I step toward the edge of the ruin, narrowing my senses.

In the distance, past the bone-dry valley, I see them.

Figures moving through the ash. Robed. Tall. Eyes glowing faintly with magic born of life and fire.

Purna.

My blood runs cold.

They haven’t seen us yet. But they will.

And when they do, they won’t care what Nora remembers .

They’ll only see what she’s become.

And they’ll try to take her back.