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RHAEGAR

T he wind tears at my wings, cold and relentless, but I barely feel it.

Nora is in my arms, her heartbeat pressed against mine, and for a few stolen breaths, that’s all that matters. The ruin crumbles beneath us, swallowed in flame and shrieking magic, while the stronghold behind it erupts into chaos. Columns fall. Wards rupture. Dark elf sentries shout over the cacophony, blades drawn, eyes wild with confusion as the sky splits in hues of red and ash.

They don’t know what happened.

They never saw her.

They’ll never know how close the world came to burning.

She watches them as we rise higher—her face turned toward the destruction below, eyes wide not with fear, but with something like awe. Like peace. Her arms wrap tighter around my neck, a silent confession that she’s holding on not because she’s afraid… but because she’s free.

And gods help me, I want to believe it’s over.

I want to believe that we won.

Her voice is a whisper at my throat. “It’s done… she’s gone.”

I nod, unable to speak around the weight in my chest.

Medea is gone.

The tether is severed.

The ruin is dying.

And Nora is safe.

She exhales slowly, her forehead pressing into the hollow of my neck as I beat my wings harder, pushing us beyond the mountains, beyond the fire and the ruin and the past. Her magic curls warm against mine, steady in days. No whispers. No tremors. Just Nora.

And for a moment.

For one fragile, golden moment, I let myself believe.

Until I feel it.

It starts as a tug—deep in my chest, sharp and familiar. Like something ancient waking from the bottom of my ribcage. I falter. Just slightly. The wind stutters around us, and she lifts her head.

“Rhaegar?”

I push through, gritting my teeth as I correct our flight path, but the pain spreads. Quietly. Insistently.

Like cracks in stone.

Her brow furrows. “What’s wrong?”

I don’t answer.

Because I already know.

But I don’t want her to.

Not yet.

The wind shifts again, sharper this time.

My wings beat harder.

I can’t let her fall.

But I feel it now, the splintering.

Not in the air.

In me.

The skin across my arms begins to tighten, stiffen. The edges of my vision blur.

I hear it in the way the wind no longer answers my flight.

The way the magic inside me sputters like a dying flame.

And then I lose control.

The descent is sudden. Violent.

We plummet.

My wings seize mid-flight, bones locking with a sound I barely register. She screams my name, arms clutching me as we spiral. I angle us down, twisting with everything I have left to shield her. The trees rise like spears, the ground a blur of green and stone.

We hit.

The impact cracks through me.

My body takes the brunt—wings flared, stone shielding, arms locked around her.

We roll, the earth tearing into me, the last of my strength unraveling with every breath. The world tilts. My vision blackens.

But she’s alive.

I made sure of that.

She scrambles over me, dirt and tears smeared across her face. Her hands find my cheeks, shaking, trembling, frantic.

“Rhaegar. Rhaegar! What’s happening—why did we fall?”

I try to speak.

Fail.

Try again.

“My magic,” I whisper, voice rough with pain. “It’s… breaking.”

Her eyes widen, pupils blown wide with panic. “No. No, we’re past this. You destroyed the tether. We made it out. It’s over.”

“It’s not.”

Her hands press against the cracks in my skin—real cracks, now, spiderwebbing across my chest, down my arms. The stone isn’t shifting. It’s fracturing. Splitting from the inside.

She sees it.

And horror dawns.

“No,” she breathes. “No, no, no—what’s happening to you?”

I reach up. Brush my thumb along her jaw.

Slow. Gentle.

One last time.

“When I brought you back…” My voice breaks, and I cough, tasting ash. “You were gone. No breath. Almost no heartbeat. You were supposed to die, Nora.”

She shakes her head violently. “Don’t say that.”

“But I couldn’t let you go.” I smile, faint and broken. “So I made a bargain. The only kind Protheka recognizes.”

Her eyes gleam wet in the fading light.

Tears.

“I gave my life,” I whisper. “For yours. Even if I die now, you won’t die. Our bond will be severed the moment I die.”

What I didn’t tell her is my soul will burn forever, unable to rest and will forever wander in the void.

Her breath stutters. “That’s not—You can’t just?—”

“Nothing in Protheka is freely given,” I murmur, my voice quiet now, my chest aching with every heartbeat. “It always takes something back.”

She collapses over me, hands gripping my shoulders, shaking. “Then take it back. Give it to me. I don’t want it without you. ”

I manage a laugh. It’s rough. Soft. Real.

“You’ve always had it.”

She leans in, forehead pressed to mine. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t leave me.”

“I didn’t know what it was,” I say, fingers brushing her hair from her face, even as they begin to crumble. “That feeling. Why I kept choosing you. Saving you. Fighting beside you. It was always love, wasn’t it?”

Her sob rips through the surroundings like a dagger.

“ Yes. ” she chokes. “It was. It is. ”

I close my eyes.

Not to die.

But to remember the last thing I want to see.

Her.

“Then it was worth it.”

And I smile as the cracks deepen.

As the light inside me begins to flicker out.

She screams.

Her voice shatters the trees, the sky, the stars.

She holds me tighter, like her body alone can stop the breaking.

“I won’t let you go!” she sobs. “ You hear me? I won’t let you go! ”

But I’m already half-stone.

Already slipping from her grasp.

And still, I think I’d choose her again.

Even now.