Page 7

7

NORA

I wake with his name on my lips.

The first breath is agony , like drawing in air after drowning. My lungs burn, my chest tight and aching , but the pain is overshadowed by something else—something cold and foreign curling inside me.

Magic.

But not mine.

My fingers twitch against the damp ground, clawing at the rich, dark soil beneath me as I try to orient myself. Everything feels too sharp, too loud. The air hums with power, whispering through the leaves in a language I almost understand.

A shadow looms beside me.

I know it is him before I even turn my head. The bond pulses, heavy and unrelenting, tugging me toward him like an invisible thread wrapped tight around my ribs.

I lift my gaze, and Rhaegar is there.

Watching.

Always watching.

His massive form is still half-formed , shifting in the dim light, flickering between stone and flesh. His golden eyes glow beneath his furrowed brow, molten and unreadable.

"You shouldn’t be alive," he says.

His voice is low, rough with something I can’t quite name.

I blink up at him, disoriented, my pulse too slow. My body feels wrong, like I’m inhabiting something that is no longer entirely mine.

"What did you do?" I whisper.

Rhaegar doesn’t answer.

His gaze sweeps over me, assessing, calculating, as if trying to decipher what, exactly, I have become.

I push myself upright, my body protesting the movement. My head spins , and I brace my palm against the earth.

And feel it pulse beneath me.

I still.

The sensation is subtle but unmistakable. The soil beneath my fingers shifts, recognizing my touch. The roots beneath the surface quicken , a ripple of movement I did not command.

My magic is different.

It is still mine, but it is also something else.

I swallow hard, panic clawing at my ribs.

"Rhaegar," I say slowly, carefully. "What. Did. You. Do?"

His jaw tightens , his claws curling into his palms.

"I saved you," he says simply. "You were dying."

Something dark flickers across his face, quick but unmistakable.

I shake my head. "This isn’t just healing." I press my hand to my chest, where the pain of the wound should still linger— but there is only warmth, only the faint hum of something thrumming beneath my skin like a second heartbeat.

My fingers curl, nails digging into my palm.

"You gave me something," I whisper. "Didn’t you?"

A muscle ticks in his jaw.

"The magic in this place is ancient," he admits. "I took what I needed to bring you back."

I stare at him. "You took magic from a cursed ruin and put it in me?"

He tilts his head, unapologetic.

"You were dying."

I squeeze my eyes shut, my pulse uneven, unsteady. Gods, what has he done?

I take another breath, trying to steady the chaos inside me. It doesn’t work.

Because beneath the fear, beneath the disorientation?—

I feel good.

Stronger. Sharper.

Magic hums through my blood , no longer the same soft, familiar warmth I have always known. It is brighter, colder, darker.

I feel more.

And that terrifies me.

"That power wasn’t meant for me," I say, barely more than a whisper.

"Perhaps not," Rhaegar concedes. "But it is yours now."

His golden gaze burns into me.

And I hate that some part of me likes the way he’s looking at me— not like I am weak, not like I am something fragile that needs to be protected.

He is looking at me like he is waiting for something.

Something new, dangerous.

I push to my feet, legs still unsteady, but stronger than they should be. The forest around us feels different. The trees bend toward me, the wind curling through my hair in a way that is too deliberate, too knowing.

I am not the same.

I meet Rhaegar’s gaze, and I see a flicker of wariness in his expression.

"You changed me," I whisper.

A slow, dark smile graces his lips.

"Yes," he murmurs.

"And now, little healer," he takes a step closer, voice dropping to something low and possessive , "I want to see what you can do."

The bond tightens , something old and reckless waking between us.

I do not know who I am.

But I think I want to find out.