Sophie's POV
I couldn't sleep. Even after the spirits vanished and the stone circle faded into a memory, the fire from the trial still burned in my veins. Not with pain—but with purpose.
Everything had changed.
The wolves had bowed. The moon had split the clouds for us. A symbol—the crescent pierced by a crown—was etched into the sky, and Kael had said it meant I had been accepted. Chosen.
But I wasn't sure what that truly meant. What it required. Or how long I had before something—or someone—came to tear it away.
I sat with my knees drawn to my chest, staring at the spot where Kael had stood hours earlier. He had gone to scout the edges of the glade, but the moment he left, the silence around me felt too loud. The forest pressed in like it was listening.
Like it was waiting.
I replayed his words over and over in my head.
"The prophecy doesn't just speak of a cursed prince. It speaks of a bride who walks through fire and binds the bloodline clean again."
Bride!
Not lover, Not mate, Not even bonded.
Bride.
Was I supposed to accept that? Claim a crown I didn't understand and stand beside a man I could barely hold onto in a vision?
I wanted to believe I was strong enough.
But deep down, I knew I wasn't the same girl who had left the village. That girl had feared wolves and prophecies and her own shadow.
Now… I feared who I might become.
Kael returned at dawn, his coat dusted in dew and leaves. He said nothing at first—just sat beside me and exhaled long and low.
I glanced sideways at him. "Did you find anything?"
"Tracks," he said. "But not animal."
My stomach twisted. "Hunters?"
"Worse," he murmured. "Followers of the Red Court."
I didn't know who they were, but from his voice, I understood they were not the kind of people who knocked politely or waited for invitations.
"Why are they following us?" I asked.
"They're not after us," Kael said. "They're after what you've awakened."
I looked down at my hands, still marked faintly with the ash from the Rite of Flame. The glow had long faded, but the sensation of power lingered, as though something ancient had taken root inside my skin.
"Then we need to run," I said quietly.
Kael didn't move. "No. We don't run anymore. The trial is over. You were chosen. That means we stand."
"Against what?" I asked.
He didn't answer directly. Instead, he turned to me, eyes locked to mine.
"Do you trust me now?"
I wanted to say yes.
I really did.
But trust wasn't a word you spoke once and expected it to stick forever. It was something you proved.
"I'm trying," I admitted.
And he nodded—just once. No hurt in his expression. No disappointment.
Just understanding.
That was Kael.
Silent where others shouted. Steady where others crumbled. He didn't push. He waited.
But the world wasn't going to wait with him.
We broke camp by mid-morning and began moving west through the denser part of the forest. The trees here were older, the bark darker, the leaves thicker. Sunlight barely filtered through, and the roots twisted across the ground like bones.
I stumbled more than once, but Kael never commented.
He just held out his hand whenever I faltered.
It wasn't romantic.
It was necessary.
But somehow, that meant more.
Eventually, the trail narrowed into a ravine. Moss clung to the rock walls, and water trickled somewhere unseen below. We paused only once to drink and rest, and that's when I asked the question that had been building in my throat for hours.
"Why didn't you tell me the prophecy involved me from the start?"
Kael didn't look surprised. He took his time answering.
"Because I didn't know if you'd survive long enough to understand it."
"That's not fair."
"I know."
I waited.
Kael finally turned toward me. "I was told not to tell you. The Guardian Spirit warned that if you knew too much too soon, the fire would reject you. You had to walk into it without certainty. That was the test."
"And if I hadn't?" I asked. "If I'd run?"
"You wouldn't be standing here," he said simply.
The bluntness stung.
But the truth of it made my hands tremble.
It had all been a choice. Mine.
Not his.
Not fate's.
Mine.
We made camp again by dusk, this time beneath the stone arches of an abandoned ruin hidden in the forest. Ivy crept across the broken stones, and vines draped from the collapsed columns like curtains. I sat against a fallen slab, staring into the crackling fire Kael had built.
He hadn't left my side since we arrived.
Maybe he didn't trust the ruins.
Or maybe…
He didn't trust what would happen if he gave me too much space.
I could feel the weight of his gaze even when I wasn't looking at him.
"You're not sleeping," he said.
"Neither are you."
He gave a soft grunt of acknowledgment. "Too much at stake."
"You think they'll find us?"
"Eventually. But not tonight."
The flames popped. A branch collapsed into embers.
Silence stretched between us like an invisible cord.
I turned to him. "If I accept the bond fully… what happens to me?"
Kael's jaw tightened.
"You mean—will it change you?"
"Yes."
"It already has."
That wasn't an answer. Not really.
But maybe that was the truth I needed.
"I'm scared," I whispered.
Kael reached over slowly, giving me time to pull away if I needed to. I didn't.
His hand cupped the side of my face. "I am too."
That admission broke something in me. He wasn't fearless. He wasn't invincible. He was a cursed prince holding the pieces of a world that had tried to destroy him.
And still… he looked at me like I was the one who held the key.
"I don't want to be a queen," I said quietly.
"You don't have to be," he replied. "Just be mine."
I fell asleep that night with his arm wrapped around me and my head on his chest.
And for the first time since the visions, the fire, the fear—I slept without nightmares.
But peace never lasts.
Not in a cursed forest, Not under a blood moon.
And certainly not when you've just awakened the bond the world tried to bury.
Because somewhere in the woods beyond our camp, I heard it— A second howl.
Not Kael's, Not mine.
Something older. And it was coming closer.