Lyra's POV
I can't sleep.
The room Kael gave me is cold and empty. Just a bed, a small table, and a window that shows nothing but darkness outside. The walls are black stone that seems to swallow light instead of reflect it.
But it's not the room that keeps me awake.
It's the bond.
Even with walls between us, I can feel Kael somewhere in the fortress. His emotions press against my mind like a weight I can't shake off. Pain. So much pain. And underneath it, a loneliness so deep it makes my chest ache.
How does he live like this? How has he survived three hundred years carrying this much suffering?
I roll over and press my face into the pillow, trying to block him out. But it's impossible. The Soul Bond connects us now, and I'm learning something terrifying: Kael Nightborne isn't the monster everyone thinks he is.
He's something worse.
He's a good man who's been broken so badly, he forgot how to be human.
A scream rips through the fortress.
I bolt upright, my heart hammering. The scream comes again—raw, agonized, inhuman.
It's Kael.
Through the bond, I feel his nightmare slamming into him like knives. He's reliving every death he's ever caused. Every person he's killed. They're dying again inside his mind, and he feels each one like it's happening for the first time.
This is his curse. This is what he lives with every single night.
I'm out of bed before I can think twice. My bare feet slap against cold stone as I run through dark hallways, following the bond like a rope pulling me toward him.
The screaming stops suddenly, replaced by harsh breathing and the sound of something breaking.
I find his door and push it open.
Kael's room is destroyed. Furniture overturned. Walls cracked like something exploded. And in the center of the chaos, Kael sits on the floor with his back against the bed, his head in his hands. He's shaking.
"Get out," he growls without looking up. "I told you to stay in your room."
"You were screaming."
"I'm always screaming. You'll get used to it." His voice is rough, broken. "Now leave before I make you leave."
Through the bond, I feel what he won't say: he's terrified I'll see him like this. Weak. Shattered. Human.
"I'm not leaving." I step into the room and close the door behind me.
His head snaps up. His silver eyes are wild, dangerous. "I said GET OUT!"
"No."
For a long moment, we just stare at each other. Then Kael laughs—a bitter, hollow sound. "You're either very brave or very stupid. I could kill you right now. The bond wouldn't stop me."
"But you won't." I take another step closer. "Because you're not the monster you pretend to be."
"You don't know what I am."
"I know you saved me when you didn't have to. I know you're in pain every second of every day and you still keep going. I know—" My voice cracks. "I know you feel alone even in a room full of people. Just like me."
His expression shifts. For just a second, the cold mask cracks and I see the real Kael underneath—lost, hurt, barely holding on.
"Don't," he whispers. "Don't try to understand me. Don't try to fix me. I'm not worth saving."
"That's not true."
"Yes, it is!" He stands suddenly, and the temperature in the room drops. "I've killed thousands of people, Lyra. THOUSANDS. Men, women, creatures who begged for mercy. I killed them anyway because that's what I'm good at. That's all I'm good at. So don't stand there with your kind eyes and gentle voice and think you can heal me like one of your patients. I'm not broken—I'm damned."
His words should scare me. But through the bond, I feel the truth beneath them: he doesn't believe he deserves kindness. He's punished himself for three hundred years because he thinks suffering is all he deserves.
"You're wrong," I say quietly. "You're not damned. You're just tired."
Before he can respond, my hands start glowing. Not on purpose—they just do. Silver light fills the room, soft and warm.
Kael flinches back. "Stop that. Don't use your power on me."
"I'm not trying to!" But the light grows brighter. I feel something pulling me toward him, like my power has a mind of its own.
I take another step. Then another. Until I'm standing right in front of him.
"Lyra, don't—"
I reach up and touch his face.
The moment my glowing hand connects with his skin, everything changes.
Power floods through the bond—not just mine, but something ancient and vast that's been sleeping inside me. It pours into Kael like water into a dry well.
He gasps, his eyes going wide. "What are you—"
Then his face goes slack with shock.
Because for the first time in three hundred years, his curse goes quiet.
The screaming in his head stops. The weight of all those deaths lifts, just for a moment. He can breathe without drowning in pain.
"How..." His voice breaks. "How did you do that?"
"I don't know." My hand is still glowing against his cheek. Through the bond, I feel his overwhelming relief, his desperate hope that maybe—just maybe—this isn't temporary.
"The curse can't be stopped," Kael says, but his voice wavers. "The Oracle herself laid it on me. Nothing can break it."
"I'm not breaking it. I'm just..." I search for the right words. "Sharing it. Taking some of the weight."
His silver eyes search mine. "You'd do that? Carry my curse with me?"
"You saved my life. And you're in pain. Of course I'd help if I could."
For a long moment, Kael just stares at me like I'm something impossible. Then he steps back, breaking contact. The moment my hand leaves his skin, I feel his curse slam back into him with full force.
He doubles over, gasping.
"No!" I reach for him again, but he catches my wrist.
"Don't." His grip is gentle despite his strength. "Don't make this worse by giving me hope. I've lived without hope for three hundred years. It's easier that way."
"That's not living. That's just surviving."
"It's all I know." He releases my wrist and turns away. "Go back to your room, Lyra. Training starts at dawn. You need rest."
"Kael—"
"That's an order." His voice goes cold again, distant. The walls come back up. "I'm not your friend. I'm your jailer. Don't forget that."
He walks out of his own room, leaving me standing there alone.
But through the bond, I feel the truth he's trying to hide: I scared him. Not because I hurt him, but because for those few seconds when I touched him, he remembered what it felt like to not be in pain.
And wanting that again terrifies him more than death ever could.
I return to my room slowly, my mind racing. My power did something to Kael's curse—something nobody thought was possible.
What else can I do that I don't know about yet?
I'm almost to my door when I hear voices. Low, urgent, coming from somewhere below the fortress.
I follow the sound to a staircase leading down. At the bottom, I see Kael standing in a large room filled with weapons and armor. He's not alone.
A woman with short black hair and sharp eyes faces him. She's beautiful in a dangerous way, like a knife.
"You're insane," the woman says. "The girl is a half-breed. She'll turn on you the moment her powers fully awaken. Just like the Shadow King did."
"Zara—"
"No, Kael. I'm serious." The woman—Zara—steps closer. "I've known you for two hundred years. I've watched you suffer, watched you turn yourself into a weapon just to survive. And now you're bonding yourself to some girl because you feel guilty about her mother? This will destroy you."
"Maybe." Kael's voice is quiet. "But I owe Selene."
"Selene is DEAD. And if the rumors are true—if Calista really did murder the Moon Goddess—then that girl downstairs is the only witness left. The moment Calista figures that out, she'll send assassins. She'll send armies. And you can't fight the entire Celestial Court, even with all your power."
My blood runs cold. Calista murdered my mother?
"Then I'll fight anyway," Kael says.
"Why? Since when do you care about anything except your next mission?"
There's a long pause. Then Kael says something that makes my heart stop:
"Because when she touched me tonight, I felt human again. And I'd forgotten what that was like."
Zara's expression softens. "Oh, Kael. You're already attached to her, aren't you?"
Before he can answer, I hear a sound behind me—footsteps, fast and getting closer.
I turn just as someone grabs me from behind. A hand clamps over my mouth before I can scream. A knife presses against my throat.
"Found her," a man's voice whispers. "The half-breed is alone. Taking her now."
Through the bond, I feel Kael's instant panic.
But it's too late.
A cloth soaked in something sweet and chemical covers my nose and mouth. My vision blurs. My legs give out.
The last thing I see before darkness swallows me is Kael bursting through the doorway, his silver eyes blazing with fury and fear.
Then nothing.