Aria's POV
The Heart Chamber was made of mirrors.
Thousands of them, reflecting us from every angle—but the reflections were wrong. In one mirror, I saw myself at the academic review board, alone and crying. In another, Marcus kissing Vivian while I watched. In a third, my parents shaking their heads in disappointment.
Every failure. Every humiliation. Every moment I'd felt worthless.
"Don't look at them," Kael said, his hand tight in mine. "They're not real. They're just the trial showing us—"
His words cut off with a gasp. I felt the curse spike through the bond, sharp and vicious.
"Kael?" I turned to him and felt my stomach drop. He'd gone pale, sweat beading on his forehead. Blood trickled from his nose.
"I'm fine," he said, but his voice was strained. "Just the curse. It gets worse when—"
Another spike of pain. He stumbled, and I caught him.
"When what?" I demanded. "When you're in danger? When you use power?"
"When I worry about you." The admission came out like he was confessing a crime. Through the bond, I felt his anger—not at me, but at himself. "The curse activates whenever I feel anything for you. Care. Concern. Fear that something might happen to you. It's all the same to the curse. It's all love starting to grow."
My heart clenched. "You're already in pain because you care about me."
"I don't care about you." He pulled away, putting distance between us despite how it made the bond ache. "You're an obligation. A complication I'm stuck with until we break this bond."
"Liar."
His head snapped toward me, eyes flashing silver. "Excuse me?"
"You're lying." I stepped closer, watching him tense. "If I was just an obligation, you wouldn't have thrown yourself between me and James's attack. You wouldn't have used your power to shield me when the shadows grabbed me, even though it nearly killed you. You wouldn't—"
"That's just instinct," he interrupted. "I'm a warrior. I protect people. It doesn't mean anything."
"Then why does the curse activate?" I pressed. "You said it only responds to love and caring. If you felt nothing for me, it wouldn't hurt you at all."
Kael turned away, staring at one of the mirrors. In it, I saw Sera burning. Saw him reaching for her, unable to save her. His whole body was rigid with tension.
"You don't understand," he said quietly. "The curse doesn't wait for deep love. It punishes any affection. Any attachment. Any moment where I start to think of you as more than a stranger. And yes, that's happening. The bond makes it impossible not to feel connected to you. But that doesn't mean I want it."
His words stung, but through the bond I felt the truth underneath them—the fear. The terror of caring about someone again and watching them die.
"I know you're scared," I said softly. "I know you think everyone you love gets hurt. But pushing me away won't save either of us. We're bonded, Kael. We're stuck together whether you want it or not."
"Which is exactly the problem!" He spun to face me, and I saw the anguish in his eyes. "Don't you get it? The more time we spend together, the more the bond grows. The more I'll care. And the faster the curse will kill me. In three days, I'll be dead, and you'll have spent that time watching me suffer because I couldn't help caring about you!"
"So what?" My voice rose to match his. "You want to spend our last three days pretending you feel nothing? Treating me like I'm some burden you're forced to carry?"
"Yes! Because it's the truth!" But even as he said it, the curse flared. He gasped, pressing a hand to his chest, and I felt his pain echo through our connection.
"That's not the truth," I said, moving closer despite his warning look. "The truth is you already care. You cared from the moment we bonded. Maybe even before that. And you're terrified because caring means pain and pain means the curse is winning."
I stopped right in front of him, close enough to see the silver flames dancing in his eyes.
"But here's what you're not understanding. The curse doesn't just punish you for caring. It punishes you for fighting it. For trying to pretend you don't feel what you feel. That's why it's getting worse—because every time you deny what's between us, you make it harder for the bond to work the way it's supposed to."
"The bond is supposed to make us one," Kael said bitterly. "United. Accepting each other completely. But I can't accept this. I can't accept getting attached to another mortal who's going to—"
He broke off as a mirror shattered beside us.
We both jumped. From the broken glass, a figure emerged—shadow and memory given form. It was Sera, but wrong. Her skin was cracked and burning, her eyes accusing.
"You killed me," the shadow-Sera said. "You loved me and it killed me. Just like you'll kill her."
More mirrors shattered. More figures emerged. Theron, smiling cruelly. The Council members, cold and judging. Rogues Kael had fought. People he'd failed to save over centuries of war.
All of them surrounding us, their voices overlapping:
"Failure." "Monster." "Everyone you love dies." "You'll destroy her too."
Kael staggered under the weight of the accusations. Through the bond, I felt his guilt crushing him, centuries of it, too heavy to bear alone.
Without thinking, I grabbed his hand and pulled his attention to me.
"They're not real," I said firmly. "They're just your fears given form. Your guilt made solid. But they're not the truth."
"They are the truth." His voice was hollow. "Everyone I care about gets hurt. Sera died. The warriors under my command died. Even the people I tried to save—half of them died because I wasn't strong enough, wasn't fast enough, wasn't—"
"Enough!" I cupped his face, forcing him to look at me instead of the shadows. "You're right that people you've loved got hurt. But that wasn't your fault. Sera died because Theron sabotaged the ritual. Your warriors died in war. The people you couldn't save—you can't save everyone, Kael. Nobody can."
"But I should have—"
"No." I cut him off. "You did your best. You fought. You tried. And yes, sometimes that wasn't enough. But that doesn't make you a monster. It makes you someone who cared enough to try."
The shadows pressed closer, hissing. The chamber itself seemed to pulse with malevolence, feeding on Kael's guilt and pain.
"The trial is using your worst memories against you," I said. "It wants you to break. To give up. To believe you're not worth saving. But I don't believe that. And you need to stop believing it too."
"How can I?" His eyes were desperate, pleading. "How can I stop believing the truth? I am what destroyed everything I loved. I am—"
"You're the man who threw himself between me and danger repeatedly. Who used his last bit of strength to shield me even when it meant suffering. Who's fighting a curse that should have killed him already, just because some part of him thinks I'm worth it." I stepped closer, ignoring the shadows clawing at my legs. "You're not perfect. You've made mistakes. But you're not a monster. You're just someone who loves too fiercely and hurts too deeply when that love fails."
Through the bond, I felt something shift in him. The guilt was still there, but underneath it—hope. Fragile. Terrified. But there.
The shadows screamed and lunged.
Kael pulled me against him instinctively, silver fire exploding from his free hand. But the curse hit him hard, punishment for protecting me, for caring enough to act. He cried out and collapsed to his knees, taking me down with him.
"Kael!" I wrapped my arms around him as the shadows closed in. "Stay with me! Don't let them—"
"Can't," he gasped. "Curse is too strong. Shadows are feeding on it. Making it worse."
He was right. I could feel it through the bond—the curse and the trial working together, using his guilt to tear him apart from the inside.
The shadow-Sera loomed over us, burning and accusing. "You'll kill her just like you killed me. That's all you know how to do. Destroy what you love."
"NO!" The word tore from my throat. Oracle power exploded from me in a wave of silver light, slamming into the shadow-Sera. She shrieked and dissolved.
But more shadows took her place. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Every person Kael had ever failed, all demanding justice, all blaming him.
"Aria, stop," Kael managed. "Don't waste your power on me. Save yourself. Find a way out of here."
"I'm not leaving you." I pulled harder on my Oracle abilities, creating a shield around us both. "We're in this together, remember? Your problems are my problems."
"This isn't your fight—"
"Yes it is!" I looked down at him, at his gray eyes full of pain and resignation. "Because here's what you keep missing, Kael. You think caring about me is your weakness. You think it's making the curse worse. But what if it's actually our strength?"
"That doesn't make sense—"
"The Goddess said the trial tests whether our bond is built on true choice," I interrupted. "She said we have to prove we're choosing each other despite the cost. So what if that's the answer? What if we stop fighting the bond? Stop fighting the feelings? What if we just... choose each other, curse and all?"
His eyes widened. "That would make the curse—"
"Spike, yes. Probably kill you faster." I smiled despite the tears on my face. "But we're dying anyway if we don't pass this trial. So maybe the only way through is to stop pretending we don't care and start accepting that we do."
"You're suggesting we make the curse worse on purpose."
"I'm suggesting we trust the bond instead of fighting it." I held out my hand. "The Goddess said love is a choice. So let's choose it. Right here, right now, with all these shadows watching. Let's choose each other and see what happens."
Kael stared at my hand like it was a weapon. Through the bond, I felt his war—terror versus hope, self-preservation versus connection.
The shadows pressed closer, sensing his hesitation.
"Choose her and die faster," shadow-Theron whispered. "Or push her away and live a little longer. Either way, you both fail. Either way, you lose."
Kael looked at the shadows. At the mirrors showing every failure. At shadow-Sera, still burning in the corner of his vision.
Then he looked at me. Really looked at me. And through the bond, I felt something change.
He took my hand.
The curse exploded through him with such force that he screamed. Blood poured from his nose, his eyes, his ears. His whole body convulsed with agony as the curse punished him for choosing connection over self-preservation.
But he didn't let go of my hand.
"Together," he gasped.
"Together," I agreed, pouring my Oracle power into him, into the bond, into whatever was happening between us.
Our marks blazed with light—silver fire and Oracle power mixing, amplifying, becoming something new.
The shadows shrieked and retreated. The mirrors began to crack. The entire chamber shook as our combined power pushed back against the trial's darkness.
And then—
The floor dropped out from under us.
We fell into darkness, still holding hands, still connected by the bond that was either killing us or saving us.
I couldn't tell which.
We landed hard on cold stone. For a moment, we just lay there, gasping, too exhausted to move.
"Did we pass?" I whispered.
"I don't know," Kael said. His hand was still locked with mine, and through the bond I felt something different. The curse was there, still burning. But so was something else. Something warm and strong and growing.
Us. Our connection. The bond completing itself one painful choice at a time.
A door appeared in the darkness before us, carved with silver symbols that seemed to pulse with their own light.
The Heart Chamber's exit. We'd survived the first trial.
But as we struggled to our feet, another door appeared on the opposite wall. This one was carved with darker symbols. Ancient ones that made my Oracle blood scream in warning.
Through the dark door, I heard voices. Chanting. Magic building.
And one voice that made my blood freeze.
"The Oracle is beyond this door. Bring her to me. Alive. Kill the War Prince if he resists."
Theron.
He'd found us. Somehow, impossibly, he'd found us inside the temple.
Kael pulled me toward the silver door, but it was too far. We'd never make it before Theron's forces broke through.
"We have to fight," he said.
"You can barely stand. The curse—"
"Is killing me whether we fight or run." His eyes met mine, and I saw grim determination. "At least if I'm going to die, I'll die protecting you."
The dark door shattered.
Theron's warriors poured through—twenty of them, maybe more. All trained. All armed. All focused on us.
And behind them, Theron himself stepped into the chamber.
He smiled when he saw us, bloody and exhausted and trapped.
"Hello, little brother," he said. "Did you really think the Moon Goddess could protect you from me?"
He raised his hand, and I saw a seal glowing on his palm—the same kind that had bound Kael for three hundred years.
"I've been planning this for a long time," Theron continued. "The temple. The trial. All of it was a trap. The Goddess may not take sides, but she can be... convinced... to look the other way when justice is being served."
He looked at me, and his smile widened.
"Thank you for making this easy, Oracle. Walking right into my hands. Now, you can come with me willingly and watch me seal my brother away again. Or you can fight, and I'll kill him right here in front of you."
Kael stepped in front of me, silver fire sparking weakly on his hands. "Touch her and I'll—"
"You'll what?" Theron laughed. "You can barely stand. The Heartbreak Curse is hours from killing you. You have no power left. No allies. No hope."
He gestured, and his warriors advanced.
I felt Kael gathering the last of his strength, preparing for one final fight he couldn't possibly win.
The curse burned through him, punishing him for still choosing to protect me.
And I realized we were out of options.
Out of power.
Out of time.
"Kael," I whispered. "I need you to trust me one more time."
"What are you—"
I grabbed both his hands and opened the bond completely. No walls. No barriers. Just pure connection between us.
And I pulled on both our powers at once—his dying strength and my untrained Oracle abilities, mixing them together in a combination that should be impossible.
Light exploded from where we stood, so bright that Theron's warriors threw up their arms.
Through the bond, I felt Kael's shock. Felt him realize what I was trying to do.
"Aria, no! That will—"
But it was too late.
I'd already torn open a portal through reality itself.
And we fell through it together, leaving Theron screaming behind us.
Leaving the temple.
Leaving everything.
Falling into nothing with only each other to hold onto.
"Where are we going?" Kael shouted over the rushing void.
"I don't know!" I shouted back. "I just knew we had to get out!"
"You just opened a portal without knowing where it leads?"
"You have a better idea?"
Despite everything—the danger, the curse, the impossibility of our situation—Kael laughed. Actually laughed.
And through the bond, I felt it.
He wasn't just protecting me anymore.
He was choosing me.
Curse and all.
Then we crashed into something solid, and everything went black.