Aria's POV
We landed in an alley that smelled like garbage and blood.
I hit the ground hard, my knees scraping on rough stone. Kael caught me before I could face-plant completely, but he let go the second I was steady. Through the bond, I felt his anger—cold, sharp, and getting worse by the second.
"Where are we?" I asked, looking around. The alley was dark and narrow, squeezed between two buildings that looked like they'd been built by someone who'd never heard of building codes. Everything was crooked and stained, and somewhere nearby I heard shouting and glass breaking.
"The Fractured City," Kael said, his voice tight. "A sanctuary for outcasts and criminals. Immortals who broke celestial law and can't go home. Rogues. Assassins. Things worse than Void Hounds."
"That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"It's supposed to keep you alive." He started walking toward the mouth of the alley. "Stay close. Don't talk to anyone. Don't make eye contact. And for the love of the gods, don't use your Oracle power unless you want every predator in this city to know exactly where we are."
I hurried after him, my wet clothes clinging uncomfortably. "You said this was a sanctuary."
"Sanctuary doesn't mean safe. It means Theron's forces can't officially hunt us here without starting a war. But there's nothing stopping them from hiring someone else to do it."
We emerged onto a street that looked like it belonged in a nightmare. Buildings leaned at impossible angles. Street lights flickered with green and purple flames instead of normal light. Creatures I couldn't name walked past us—some looked almost human, others definitely didn't.
And everyone was staring at us.
"Why are they looking at me like that?" I whispered.
"Because you're mortal," Kael said. "Humans don't come here. The ones that do usually end up sold, eaten, or worse."
My stomach dropped. "Maybe this wasn't a good idea."
"Too late now." Kael grabbed my hand, and I felt his power surge through the bond—a warning to anyone watching. The crowd backed off slightly. "We need to find shelter before word spreads that a War Prince and an Oracle Keeper just appeared in the city."
"Won't they recognize you?"
"Not if I'm lucky. I've been sealed away for three hundred years. Most of the people here are younger than that." He pulled me down a side street. "We just need to stay hidden long enough to figure out our next move."
"Which is what, exactly?" I was getting tired of running without a plan. "We can't hide forever. Theron has an entire army. Marcus and Vivian have whatever resources they're using. And I still don't know how to control this Oracle power that everyone wants."
Kael stopped so suddenly I almost ran into him. He turned, and the look in his eyes made my breath catch. Anger, yes. But also fear. Real, bone-deep fear.
"Do you want to know what our next move is?" he said quietly. "We find a way to break this bond. We separate. And you go back to being a normal human while I disappear somewhere Theron will never find me."
My chest tightened. Not from the bond, but from something else. Something that felt suspiciously like hurt.
"You want to break the bond?"
"Of course I want to break it!" His voice rose. "You think I wanted to be chained to a mortal? You think I wanted to feel your fear and your pain and your—" He broke off, pressing a hand to his chest where the curse was burning. "Every moment we're together, the curse gets worse. Every time I care whether you live or die, it tears me apart. This bond is killing me, Aria."
"Then teach me how to break it," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "You said Oracle Keepers can manipulate bonds. If I learn how—"
"You can't learn in a day what takes years to master. And we don't have years. We barely have days before Theron or the curse finishes us both."
"So what? You're just giving up?" The anger I'd been holding back since Marcus's betrayal, since Vivian's lies, since my entire life fell apart—it all came flooding out. "You survived three hundred years in darkness, but you can't survive being bonded to me? I'm that terrible?"
"It's not about you—"
"Yes it is!" I poked his chest, right over where I knew the curse burned. "You're scared. Not of Theron or the curse or anything else. You're scared of me. Of this bond. Of caring about someone again after what happened to Sera."
Kael's eyes flashed silver. "Don't talk about her."
"Why not? She's the whole reason you're like this. She died because your brother betrayed you, and now you think everyone you care about will die too. So you push people away. You'd rather be alone and miserable than risk losing someone again."
"You don't know anything about it."
"I know what it's like to be betrayed by someone you trusted!" My voice cracked. "I know what it's like to lose everything and feel like you'll never be whole again. I spent six months drowning in that pain, Kael. Six months thinking I was worthless because everyone told me I was."
Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
"Then you showed up, and suddenly I had a purpose again. Suddenly I mattered because this bond made me matter. And now you want to take that away? You want to break the one thing that makes me feel like I'm not completely alone?"
Kael stared at me. Through the bond, I felt his shock, his guilt, and underneath it all—the same desperate loneliness I carried.
"Aria—"
A sound cut through the tension. Footsteps. Running. Multiple sets, coming fast.
Kael shoved me behind him, silver fire already sparking along his hands. "We need to move. Now."
"What is it?"
"Bounty hunters." He cursed under his breath. "Someone recognized me. Or sensed your power. Either way—"
Three figures dropped from the rooftops, surrounding us. They looked human at first glance, but their eyes glowed red and their teeth were too sharp. One of them smiled, and I saw fangs.
"Well, well," the leader said. "The rumors were true. Kael Ashenveil, back from the dead. And with a mortal Oracle, no less. There's a bounty on both your heads. Alive preferably, but dead works too."
"How much?" Kael asked calmly.
"Fifty thousand gold for you. A hundred thousand for her." The hunter's smile widened. "Seems someone really wants that Oracle power."
"Theron," I whispered.
"Or Marcus and Vivian," Kael said. "Does it matter? Money is money." He looked at the hunters. "I'll make you a better offer. Walk away now, and I let you live."
They laughed.
Then they attacked.
Kael moved like lightning, his silver fire exploding outward. But I felt his exhaustion through the bond, felt the curse burning through his chest. He was fighting on fumes, and there were three of them.
One of the hunters got past his defenses and lunged at me. I screamed and threw my hands up.
Oracle power exploded from my palms—wild, uncontrolled, terrifying. It hit the hunter and sent him flying into a wall. He didn't get up.
The other two hesitated, reassessing. Through the bond, I felt Kael's surprise and something that might have been pride.
"Aria, when I say run—"
"I'm not leaving you!"
"STUBBORN MORTAL—" He didn't finish. The curse chose that moment to spike, doubling him over with a gasp. Blood trickled from his nose.
The hunters saw their chance. They moved together, coordinated and fast.
I didn't think. I just grabbed Kael's hand and pulled on the bond with everything I had, the way we'd done against the Void Hound.
Power surged between us—his and mine, mixing and amplifying. Silver fire and Oracle light merged again, that impossible combination that shouldn't work but did.
We released it together.
The blast hit both hunters at once, and they went down hard. For a moment, everything was silent except our ragged breathing.
Then I heard slow clapping.
Someone stepped out of the shadows at the end of the alley. A woman with midnight-black hair and eyes like violet flames. She wore armor that looked like it was made of starlight and shadows, and power radiated from her like heat from a fire.
"Impressive," she said, her voice smooth as silk. "Two people bonded for less than a day, and you're already fighting like you've trained together for years. That's either incredibly lucky or incredibly dangerous."
Kael tensed. "Lyssa."
"Hello, War Prince." The woman—Lyssa—smiled, but it wasn't friendly. "Three hundred years, and the first thing you do is bond yourself to a mortal and make enemies of half the immortal world. I'd say you haven't changed, but clearly you have. The old Kael would never have let the Heartbreak Curse slow him down."
"What do you want?" Kael's hand tightened on mine.
"The same thing everyone wants. To know if the rumors are true." Lyssa's violet eyes fixed on me. "Is she really an Oracle Keeper? Did she really break your seal and absorb its power? And most importantly—" She stepped closer, and I saw hunger in her gaze. "Can she break other seals too?"
My blood ran cold. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't you?" Lyssa laughed. "Sweet little mortal, you broke a divine seal placed by the Celestial Council. Do you have any idea how rare that is? How valuable that makes you?"
"She's not for sale," Kael growled.
"Everything's for sale in the Fractured City. You should know that." Lyssa tilted her head, studying us. "But I'm not here to buy or sell. I'm here with a proposition."
"Not interested."
"You will be." Lyssa's smile turned sharp. "Because I know something you don't. Something about why Theron really wants your Oracle. And trust me, War Prince—it's not just about the power she carries."
Kael went very still. "What are you talking about?"
"Not here. Too many ears." Lyssa glanced around the alley. "Meet me at the Broken Crown in one hour. Come alone—well, as alone as someone soul-bonded can be. And I'll tell you exactly what your dear brother is planning."
"Why would you help us?" I asked.
Lyssa's violet eyes met mine, and I saw something ancient and dangerous in them. "Because three hundred years ago, I served under Kael Ashenveil when he was the greatest War Prince the Celestial Court had ever seen. And I've spent every day since watching his traitor brother run our world into the ground."
She turned to leave, then paused.
"Oh, and one more thing. You were right earlier, Oracle. Breaking the bond would kill you both. Soul bonds aren't meant to be broken—they're meant to be completed. The curse knows this. That's why it's getting worse."
My heart stopped. "What do you mean, completed?"
Lyssa looked back, and her smile was equal parts knowing and sad.
"A soul bond isn't just about connection. It's about transformation. You two aren't just linked—you're becoming one being. Same power. Same heart. Same soul." She paused. "The bond will keep strengthening until you either complete it fully or one of you dies. And completing it?"
She laughed softly.
"That requires you to accept each other completely. To choose this bond over everything else. To—in every way that matters—become each other's other half." Her eyes flicked to Kael. "Which means the War Prince who swore never to love again has to do the one thing that will kill him."
She vanished into the shadows, leaving us standing in the bloody alley.
I looked at Kael. He was staring at the spot where Lyssa had disappeared, his face carved from stone.
"Kael?" I whispered. "What did she mean? How do we complete the bond?"
He turned to me, and the look in his eyes made my blood freeze.
"We fall in love," he said quietly. "Completely. Irrevocably. We have to choose each other above everything—above fear, above survival, above sense. We have to want this bond more than we want to live."
"But the curse—"
"Will kill me the moment I love you." He laughed, and it was the saddest sound I'd ever heard. "That's the cosmic joke, Aria. The only way to save us both is for me to do the one thing guaranteed to destroy me."
He stepped back, and the distance made the bond ache.
"So yes. We're stuck together. And one way or another, it's going to kill us both."
Before I could respond, before I could tell him we'd find another way, a scream echoed through the Fractured City.
Then another. And another.
The street lights began to flicker and die. Darkness spread like spilled ink, swallowing everything it touched. And in that darkness, I heard a voice I recognized.
Marcus.
"ARIA! I know you're here! You can't hide from me! You can't hide from what you are!"
Through the dying light, I saw them. Marcus and Vivian, leading an army of enhanced humans and rogue immortals. They'd found us. They'd brought a war to the Fractured City.
And from the other direction, I felt something worse. Something cold and powerful and familiar through the bond.
Theron was coming too.
We were trapped between two armies, both wanting me alive and Kael dead.
The bond pulsed between us, stronger than ever, pulling us together even as everything else was pulling us apart.
Kael grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes.
"Aria Chen," he said. "I need you to trust me one more time. Can you do that?"
I nodded, even though I had no idea what he was planning.
He pulled me close, so close I could feel his heartbeat syncing with mine through the bond.
"Then hold on tight," he whispered. "Because we're about to do something incredibly stupid."
Silver fire exploded around us as he pulled on both our powers at once—a blast so huge it lit up the entire Fractured City like a star going supernova.
And then we were moving, faster than thought, faster than reason, as Kael Ashenveil did what he did best.
He went to war.