The silence was worse than the drums.
It wasn't peace. It was the kind that crawled under your skin, heavy and alive, pressing until even the sound of breathing felt too loud.
Aria moved through the wasteland with her cleaver dragging behind her, the metal whispering across cracked stone. The blood on her hands had dried into a stiff crust; every flex of her fingers made it crack and sting. Her lungs burned. Her legs trembled. Her whole body was a map of pain.
And still, she kept walking.
The air was sharp and dry, carrying the faint tang of smoke and something older—iron, rot, dust. Around her, the world stretched endless and broken, a graveyard of stone where shadows clung like ghosts. Every ridge looked the same. Every step blurred into the next.
She tried not to think about the bodies they'd left behind.
Through the bond, Lysander's exhaustion pulsed beside hers. His pain was quieter but deeper—like a blade left to rust inside his chest. His breathing came shallow and even, the kind of steadiness that only existed because he was forcing it. He was still holding himself together, even when both of them were barely standing.
Aria hated that she could feel it. Hated that no matter how tightly she tried to close herself off, his pain still leaked through.
They walked for hours. The silence stretched so long she began to forget the sound of her own voice. The bond filled the space between them—muted, strained, fragile. Every flicker of thought felt amplified in the emptiness. Every memory. Every regret.
She wanted to speak—anything to make the air less heavy—but what was left to say?
We almost died? That was obvious.
We survived? That word had already lost its meaning.
Even asking what happened felt dangerous, like tugging on a thread that might unravel whatever still kept her sane.
So she stayed quiet.
The horizon finally cracked open into a canyon—a jagged wound in the earth that looked carved by something monstrous. The walls fell away steep and sharp, swallowing the light. Wind rose from below, cold and restless, carrying the sound of loose gravel sliding into darkness.
Lysander stopped at the edge, scanning the descent with eyes that still burned despite the weight pulling at him. His jaw tightened. Without a word, he started down the narrow path that wound along the cliffside.
Aria followed, careful not to look down. The rocks shifted beneath her boots, every step sending small stones tumbling into the void. Her body screamed to stop, but the bond tugged her forward—Lysander's focus cutting through her pain like a thread of iron.
The path twisted lower, the world narrowing into stone and shadow. Dust clung to her lashes; the air grew colder with each breath. Somewhere far below, the canyon breathed back—a low hum that sounded almost alive.
By the time they reached the canyon floor, the light had faded into a dull silver. Shadows moved like water along the stone.
Lysander stopped beside a boulder and sank down slowly, his back pressed against the cold stone.
Aria followed and dropped to the ground across from him. The moment she stopped moving, her body revolted. Her hands trembled. Her chest heaved. Every muscle screamed its protest.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
The silence wasn't empty this time—it was thick, almost alive, filled with everything they hadn't said. Aria pulled her knees close, pressing her forehead against them. Her breath came in shuddering waves.
She wanted to cry.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to forget.
But the bond wouldn't let her.
Every flicker of panic, every jagged edge of grief, every broken thought spilled through that invisible thread between them. It wasn't something she could hide or mute—it was like her soul had been laid bare, every fractured piece visible.
She felt Lysander flinch—not from anger, but from restraint. He was trying not to react, not to let his emotions bleed into hers. But the effort rippled through the bond like a tremor in still water.
His voice finally broke the quiet, low and rough.
"That… wasn't supposed to happen."
Aria lifted her head slowly, her throat dry. "You mean the fight?"
His eyes met hers, steady but shadowed. "The bond. Whatever that was back there."
The memory hit her like cold air. That impossible moment when their selves had blurred—when she'd seen through his eyes, felt his blade in her hand, heard his thoughts echo inside her skull. For those heartbeats, she hadn't just fought beside him. She had been him.
It had been powerful. Beautiful. Terrifying.
And then it had snapped apart, leaving them raw, shaking, hollow.
Her fingers tightened around her cleaver. "It felt like we were… something else. Something wrong."
Lysander didn't answer. He leaned his head back against the stone, eyes closing. His breathing slowed to a deliberate rhythm—the kind that sounded calm, but wasn't.
The bond pulsed faintly between them, unsteady, fragile.
For a while, they said nothing. The canyon stretched wide and still, the air cooling as night crept in. Somewhere in the distance, faint horns echoed through the wind—distant, but not gone.
The hunt hadn't stopped.
But for now, they could pretend the world wasn't closing in.
Aria tilted her head back, staring at the sliver of sky above. Pale light brushed the jagged canyon walls. Her heartbeat began to slow, though the bond still hummed beneath her skin like a quiet ache.
Lysander hadn't moved, but she could feel him thinking. Controlled, contained—yet something beneath that calm still burned.
She swallowed, her voice barely a whisper. "What happens if that… happens again?"
He didn't open his eyes. "Then we make sure it doesn't kill us."
The words should have comforted her.
They didn't.
The canyon exhaled around them, carrying dust and silence.
The wind moved through the canyon like a whisper that had lost its words.
It scraped along the stone, carrying dust and silence, and left behind only the shallow rhythm of two people who had forgotten how to rest.
Aria couldn't sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw flashes—the arc of her blade, the blood, Lysander's hand catching hers before the impact, the jolt through the bond when their lives had almost unraveled together.
She had fought before.
She had bled before.
But this was different.
This time, when she'd bled… she hadn't been the only one to feel it.
The fire between them was small—barely a flicker of blue light licking at the dry air—but it threw long, trembling shadows against the canyon walls.
Lysander sat opposite her, his face half-lit, half-lost to darkness. He hadn't spoken since that last quiet warning.
Aria watched him for a long time, her jaw tight with words she didn't want to say.
It was easier to look at the fire.
Easier to pretend the bond wasn't there, humming softly beneath her skin like an unwelcome heartbeat.
When she finally spoke, her voice was rough.
"You're too calm about it."
Lysander didn't look up. "Would you rather I panic?"
"Maybe," she shot back, then bit the word off. Her tone softened. "Just… something. Anything that makes you seem less—"
"In control?"
Her breath caught. He'd said it flatly, not cruelly, but it still cut deep.
"You nearly died," she murmured. "We both did. And whatever that bond thing is—it's not normal. You don't even seem… human about it."
Lysander finally looked at her. The firelight caught faint flecks of silver in his eyes.
"Maybe I can't afford to be."
The honesty in it startled her more than if he'd shouted.
It wasn't pride.
It wasn't coldness.
It was confession.
For the first time, he looked tired. Not just physically, but in that deep, bone-heavy way that came from carrying ghosts too long.
Aria dropped her gaze, anger and guilt tangling in her chest.
The bond pulsed faintly again, responding to the shift between them—her frustration bleeding into his, his weariness brushing softly against hers. It was maddening, too intimate, too raw.
"I didn't ask for this," she muttered. "Whatever this connection is. I didn't want someone else in my head."
"I didn't either," he said quietly. "But the System doesn't care what we want."
That truth hung between them like smoke.
Aria leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, fingers curling tight around her cleaver. "It's not just the link. It's what it means. If we share wounds, thoughts, if one of us—"
She stopped. The rest of the sentence trembled in her throat.
The idea of dying had always been sharp, personal.
Now it felt… shared.
Lysander's eyes softened, and for a heartbeat, the bond flickered with something she didn't expect—regret. Not pity. Not command. Just quiet sorrow.
"I won't let it happen," he said. "Not to you."
The words should have comforted her. Instead, they sank like stones.
"You can't promise that," she whispered. "You barely kept yourself standing out there."
He gave a faint, crooked smile. "And yet, we're both still breathing."
Aria let out something between a laugh and a sob, the sound catching in her throat. "That's your standard for success now?"
"It's a start."
The silence that followed wasn't sharp anymore. It softened—like the tension itself was exhausted.
Even the bond quieted, its pulse slow and even, matching the rhythm of their hearts.
The edges of their thoughts no longer scraped together; they blurred instead, easing into something almost… bearable.
Aria leaned back against the rock wall, her gaze drifting to the strip of night sky above. The stars were faint—muted by dust and distance—but still there.
"You ever wonder," she said softly, "if the System made this world cruel on purpose? Just to see what we'd do?"
Lysander's answer came after a long pause. "Maybe. Or maybe it's waiting to see who refuses to break."
She smiled faintly. "Sounds like something you'd say."
He glanced at her, one corner of his mouth lifting. "And what would you say?"
"That it already broke us," she murmured. "We're just too stubborn to stop moving."
The fire crackled—a soft, tired breath in the canyon's emptiness.
They sat there for a while, two figures surrounded by ruin, tethered by something neither understood nor trusted.
Yet for the first time since the fight, Aria felt a fragile thread of calm slip through the exhaustion.
The bond pulsed once more—faint, like a heartbeat shared.
Not demand.
Not pain.
Just presence.
And for that one fragile moment, it didn't feel like a curse.