Ravian staggered but didn't fall. His hand, slick with his own blood, pressed against the wound Celeste had carved. Yet his laughter rolled through the chamber like thunder.
"Do you think steel can end me?" His voice reverberated, dark and taunting. "You still don't understand. My body is only a vessel. My power… lies in what I planted long ago."
Before any of us could react, Ravian's blood spilled onto the stone floor, spreading like veins of crimson. The ground pulsed. The air crackled. And then—I felt it.
A burning surge in my chest. My heart raced, not with fear but with something far more terrifying: recognition.
My blood answered his.
"No…" I stumbled back, clutching my chest. "What are you doing to me?!"
Ravian's eyes gleamed with twisted triumph. "I'm not doing anything, little flame. I only lit the spark. The rest was always inside you."
Kai's hand gripped my shoulder, firm, desperate. "Nyra—don't listen. Fight it. You're stronger than this."
But the burning grew worse. My veins felt like they were on fire, threads of scarlet light tracing up my arms. My reflection in a shard of broken glass on the floor revealed my eyes flickering—shifting between my own and Ravian's cold silver.
Celeste stepped forward, fury and fear mingling in her expression. "Don't you dare give in. You're not his weapon. You're ours. You're you."
The chamber walls trembled, stone cracking as Ravian raised his arms. His blood magic surged outward, intertwining with the power thrumming through me.
It felt like being torn in two—half of me wanting to resist, the other half craving the release, the destruction.
"Nyra!" Kai shouted. His voice broke, raw with desperation. "Look at me. Not him. Me."
I forced my gaze to his—dark, unwavering, filled with everything Ravian could never give me. And for a heartbeat, I fought back the fire.
But Ravian's whisper slithered into my mind, poisonous and unyielding.
"You can't run from what you are. You are mine."
And then—my scream ripped through the chamber, shaking the walls as power finally broke free.
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