(Kael POV)
The moment the castle screamed, I knew she was gone.
The alarms were not sound alone—they were pain. They tore through the marrow of the fortress, through the bindings I had etched into every stone, every shadow, every living corridor. The castle did not cry for intruders.
It cried for her.
I was already moving before the echoes faded, my body reacting faster than thought. Guards shouted. Steel rang. Torches flared to life.
"Elowen," someone called.
Her name felt wrong in another's mouth.
I reached the gate and felt the seal rupture—her seal. Not broken. Not destroyed.
Opened.
That realization froze me for half a heartbeat.
She had done it instinctively.
Her power had responded to desperation.
Good.
And terrible.
The forest beyond the walls breathed cold air into the courtyard like a living lung. Her scent lingered—fear, grief, fury, and something else beneath it.
Awakening.
I stepped through the gate and dismissed the guards with a raised hand.
"No one follows," I ordered. "This hunt is mine."
They obeyed without question.
They always did.
The ground beyond the castle bore the faint scorch of magic—unrefined, wild, ancient. Elowen had no control yet, but the power answered her anyway.
That power had always frightened me more than any enemy.
I followed the trail into the trees.
The forest resisted me.
Not physically—but magically. The branches bent in subtle ways, paths shifted, illusions layered over reality. Someone had touched this land recently.
Someone skilled.
Someone who did not want me to find her.
My jaw tightened.
A cultist would have fled.
A hunter would have masked their presence.
A mage would have challenged me.
I knelt and pressed my hand to the soil.
The ground whispered.
Blood had been spilled here recently—but not Elowen's.
Lyra's.
My chest tightened.
The symbol burned into Lyra's body had been crafted well. Too well. The mimicry was precise enough to fool Elowen—and most demons.
But it hadn't fooled me.
Because the mark lacked intent.
My magic binds. Protects. Claims.
That mark had consumed.
It was hunger magic.
Cult magic.
I rose slowly.
"They want her broken," I murmured.
Of course they did.
An awakened ancient core sealed inside a human vessel was myth made flesh. The cult would tear kingdoms apart to control her.
And now—
They had turned her against me.
The forest grew colder.
I felt her again—faint, distant, but alive. Her fear pulsed along the bond like a wounded heartbeat.
She was running.
Good.
Running meant she wanted to live.
But she was not alone.
The air shifted.
A ripple—subtle, elegant.
Magework.
I followed it and stopped abruptly when I saw the residue.
Silver runes.
Not cult sigils.
Older.
Refined.
Female hand.
My lips thinned.
So.
Someone had found her already.
I followed deeper into the forest until the trees parted into a shallow clearing. The ground was disturbed—footprints overlapping, one light and frantic, the other deliberate.
They had spoken here.
I could feel it.
The mage had touched Elowen's wrist.
The bond flared in response, sharp and furious.
My grip tightened into a fist.
Jealousy was an ugly thing.
Possession was worse.
I did not like others touching what was mine.
But rage would not serve me now.
Strategy would.
I closed my eyes and extended my senses outward—not seeking Elowen directly, but seeking the lie around her.
And I found it.
A fragment of magic clinging to the air like rot beneath perfume.
The cultist had been here too.
Watching.
Waiting.
I exhaled slowly.
So this was their plan.
Kill Lyra.
Frame me.
Drive Elowen into the open.
Let her awaken through grief and hatred.
Then harvest her.
Clever.
Stupid.
They had underestimated one thing.
Me.
I straightened and turned back toward the castle—not to abandon the hunt, but to prepare for war.
They had crossed a line that could not be uncrossed.
Elowen might hate me now.
She might fear me.
She might run from me.
But she was still alive.
And that meant I still had time.
I would let her believe I was the monster—for now.
I would let the mage circle her.
I would let the cult reveal itself.
And when they did—
I would burn them from the world.
Not for vengeance.
Not for pride.
But because they had touched what was mine.
And no one touches what belongs to me.