KAEL'S POV
The ash stung my lungs as I forced myself upright. Every muscle screamed, my ribs grinding like broken glass, but pain was nothing compared to the hollow silence pressing against my chest.
The bond.
The bond was wrong.
I staggered to my feet, the ground still trembling beneath me. The Ashen Arena—once endless, burning, alive—was collapsing around me. Pillars of obsidian fell into a churning abyss. The wolves of smoke had dissolved, leaving trails of silver sparks that hissed like dying stars.
But none of it mattered. None of it meant anything.
Because I couldn't feel her.
The tether that had burned between us since the moment fate bound our souls was a frayed wire now, sparking faintly in the dark. Her presence wasn't gone—not completely—but it was distant, like hearing her voice from the bottom of a well.
I dropped to one knee, palms digging into the scorched stone.
Ayla…?
The silence that answered was worse than any wound I had ever taken.
