Elena had never heard silence this loud. The air inside Ember Hall pressed against her ears, a suffocating hush broken only by the faint hiss of fire crackling along the ruined walls. She wanted to move, to speak, but Damian's stare pinned her like a blade against stone.
"You should have run," he said, voice low, a tremor of fire in the words.
Her fists clenched, more t stop her hands from shaking than from anger. "And yet I didn't."
Damian's mouth twisted, not quite a smile, not quite disdain. "You don't know what that means."
"Then tell me ," she fired back. :All you've done is circle me with riddles. You say I should fear you, yet you keep saving me. If you wanted me gone, I'd be ashes already. So why am I still standing here?"
The flames nearest to him flared brighter, as though answering her. He broke their gaze, dragging a hand through his dark hair, every motion sharp, restrained.
"There's an oath on my blood," he admitted finally. "A vow older than kingdoms. I was bound the moment you breathed your first scream into this world. To protect the Shadowbinder."
The name again. The word that chased her through whispers in the storm. Elena's heart hammered.
"That's not me," she said, but the tremor in her voice betrayed her.
Damian's eyes, molten and merciless, snapped back to hers. "Then why do the shadows crawl at your feet?"
Elena froze. Slowly, she lowered her gaze - and felt her breath leave her chest. The darkness around her boots wasn't still. it stirred like smoke, curling into tiny tendrils that reached, grasping for the nearest flame.
"No..." she whispered, staggering back. The shadows followed her, slinking across the stone. "This isn't - can't be -"
Damian crossed the distance in a heartbeat, his hand clamping around her wrist. heat surged through her skin where his touch branded her. The fire in him met the darkness in her, and for a moment, the air hissed, like water striking coals.
"Listen to me," he growled. "You think you chose this? You didn't. It was written in the marrow of your bones. But if you deny it and if you run, you'll burn every village you try to hide in. The shadows will take you whole."
She yanked her wrist free, chest heaving. "So what then? I just accept that I'm some cursed thing bound to a man who speaks in flames?"
Damian's jaw hardened. "Not bound to me. Bound to destiny. I'm just the one cursed enough to stand beside you when it breaks."
His words should have frightened her, but instead, they twisted something deeper - something unspoken. For all his fire, for all his danger, he looked tired. Worn. As if carrying her fate had scorched him long before she arrived.
Elena stepped back, trying to breathe through the storm in her chest. She wanted to hate him, to call him liar. But her skin still tingled from where his fire had touched her, and the shadows licking at her heels whispered truths she could no longer ignore.
"What happens," she asked softly, "if I don't survive it?"
Damian's fire dimmed, just slightly, His voice, when it came, was quiet enough to crack her. "Then neither will I."
The night stretched on in a haze of unanswered questions. Damian led her deeper into Ember Hall, its corridors lined with scorch marks and crumbling stone, each room a ruin of what once might have been splendor. Yet beneath the destruction, Elena felt the weight of history pressing down. Whispers clung to the walls, stories of wars fought in shadow and fire.
"You live here?" she asked, her voice brushing against the silence.
"I endure here," Damian corrected.
They stopped in a chamber where the roof had half-collapsed, moonlight slicing through broken stone. He lit no torches; the fire lived in his veins, glowing faintly under his skin. Elena could not look away.
He sat against a wall of blackened marble, watching her. "Ask what you came to ask, Shadowbinder. You won't rest until you do."
She swallowed hard. "Why me?"
For a long time, he said nothing. Then: "Because darkness doesn't choose the willing. It chooses the ones who'll fight it hardest."
Elena let out a bitter laugh. "So I was doomed because I'm stubborn?"
The corner of his mouth twitched, almost amusement. "Perhaps. Or perhaps because you're strong enough to hold what would shatter others."
She turned from him, hugging her arms around herself. The shadows pulsed faintly at her feet, restless. "I don't feel strong."
"No one ever does," Damian said. His voice had softened, and when she glanced back, his firelight eyes no longer looked like a threat. They looked like a man who had burned alone for far too long.
The hours bled into silence. At last, exhaustion pulled her toward uneasy sleep. She dreamed of storms-lightning flashing across endless skies, shadows clawing toward her, fire breaking through to shield her. In every dream, Damian's eyes burned like twin suns, and his voice whispered: If you fall, I fall with you.
She woke before dawn, breathless, the remnants of the fire and shadow still clashing in her chest. Damian was awake too, sitting near the doorway, watching the horizon where the first silver of light broke.
"Do you ever sleep?" she asked, voice still heavy with dreams.
His reply was faint, but carried the weight of a thousand nights. "Not when you're in danger."
Outside, the storm had passed. The world looked deceptively calm, dew on the grass, pale sun stretching across the valley. But Elena knew peace was an illusion. Something waited in the dark, hunting her, whispering her name.
And they stepped out of Ember Hall together, Elena realized one truth she could no longer deny: She wasn't afraid of the shadows anymore. She was afraid of how much she wanted to trust the man who walked beside her.
And that, perhaps, was the greatest danger of all.