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RHAEGAR

T he wind carries the scent of scorched magic and distant decay as I guide Nora away from the artifact’s chamber. Her steps are uneven, and though she says nothing, her shoulders quake beneath the weight of what just happened—what she almost became.

I watch her out of the corner of my eye as we move deeper into the ruins. The lines of strain around her eyes. The twitch of her fingers, like they still feel the pulse of the artifact under her skin. She tries to hide it, but the glow from her palm betrays her. A fragment of that cursed thing has marked her. Claimed her. And I don’t know how long she has before it starts changing her from the inside out.

I should have never brought her here.

We don’t make it far before the air changes again.

Not the wind, but the silence.

It sharpens, condenses, until it snaps like a bone under pressure.

The Wraithborn scouts descend in a rush of silver-etched shadows and screeching armor, their hunger drawn by the artifact’s flare of life. Five. No, seven. Maybe more cloaked in the dust behind them. They move with inhuman precision, their weapons pulsing with soul-bound venom.

Nora barely lifts her hand when I shove her behind me.

“Stay back,” I snarl, wings flaring wide.

The scouts don’t hesitate. They don’t threaten or posture. They attack.

The first reaches me in a blink. I meet him with a blade of obsidian conjured from my own skin, magic reforged through pain. My power explodes, ragged and untamed, cutting the Wraithborn in half with a snarl that tears from my throat like a curse.

The others follow, and I lose myself in the bloodshed.

But the more I fight, the more I feel it—the unraveling.

My limbs shake. My vision blurs at the edges. My magic flares too hot, then too cold, then sputters like a flame dying under rain. My body wasn’t meant to hold this much power anymore—not after everything I’ve taken, everything I’ve been forced to become.

I break a Wraithborn’s spine with my bare hands, but my arms tremble. Another slashes across my ribs—I barely feel it. The wound burns black. Corruption creeps in. I can’t hold this form much longer.

And then everything goes quiet.

Not because the battle ends.

But because Nora screams.

A sound born of fear, fury, and something deeper—anguish.

I stagger, my legs giving way beneath me. My claws dig into the stone. My body begins to fracture, light pouring from my joints like the seams of a breaking vessel. My heart pounds like war drums.

Then she’s there.

Hands on my face. Magic in my throat. Lips against mine.

Not a kiss of love.

Not this time.

This is survival.

A desperate, brutal transfer of life.

Her magic slams into me like a stormfront, shoving back the unraveling, sealing the fractures in my skin with molten heat. I cry out from what I feel through her—what she gives without hesitation. What she bleeds for me.

Again.

My vision returns. My body stabilizes. And the Wraithborns’ disappear as magic swirls around us violently.

She collapses against me.

Her breath shallow. Her glow dimmed. Her hands trembling.

“Why?” I rasp, cradling her. “Why would you do that again?”

She smiles faintly, her lips cracked. “Because you’re mine.”

And it breaks something in me.

Because I know this can’t go on.

If she keeps giving herself to save me… she won’t make it to the final battle. She’ll burn out like a falling star—beautiful, bright, and gone far too fast.

I hold her tighter, pressing my forehead to hers, shielding her from the wind and ash with my wings.

She drifts off in my arms, trusting me to hold her while she sleeps.

And as the silence returns, I finally admit it to myself.

I have to find a way to sever the bond between her and Medea.

It must be done. Even if it means breaking her trust.

Even if I perish.

Because if I don’t… the woman I love will die saving a world that’s already tried to destroy her once.

And I will not let her be sacrificed again.