RHYS'S POV
I hadn't planned on playing hero today.
The moonshade flowers I'm collecting don't care about my heroic intentions or lack thereof. They just bloom in the Border Forest's darkest groves, and I need them before my own unstable magic tears me apart from the inside.
Then I feel it—a pulse of corrupted energy that makes my teeth ache and my branded hands burn.
Someone's dying badly nearby.
I should walk away. I've spent three years avoiding complications, and whatever's producing that signature definitely qualifies. But curiosity has always been my weakness, and the magic feels wrong in an interesting way.
Wrong like it shouldn't exist. Wrong like someone tried to seal away power and failed spectacularly.
I find her collapsed beside a stream, more corpse than person.
An elf. Young. Female. And absolutely drenched in Shadow Binding curse energy.
"You've got to be kidding me," I mutter, kneeling to check her pulse.
It's there, but barely. Thready and weak, fighting a battle it's already lost. The curse is consuming her systematically—I can see it in the black veins spreading across her skin, in the way shadows leak from her fingertips even unconscious, in the frost spreading from where her body touches the ground.
Shadow Binding. I haven't seen it in years, not since the Guild's history lessons about ancient elven punishments. Back when the elves still acknowledged that dark magic existed before they decided to pretend otherwise.
It's brutal. Efficient. Almost always fatal within hours.
My first instinct is still to walk away. She's an elf, probably noble judging by the bone structure and the shredded remains of expensive clothing. Her people cast her out—not my problem.
But something makes me hesitate.
Maybe it's the way her hand is still reaching toward the water, even unconscious. Still fighting, even when fighting's pointless. There's something stubborn about it that I recognize in myself.
Or maybe I'm just tired of being alone.
"You're going to be so much trouble," I tell her unconscious body. "I can already tell."
I gather her up—she weighs almost nothing, all bone and fever—and carry her back to my camp. Her skin burns against my arms where we touch, the curse recognizing dark magic and trying to latch on.
Not yet, I think. We're not doing this yet.
I lay her near my fire and start gathering materials. This is going to hurt. For both of us.
The suppression ritual requires precision: dark runes carved into the earth in specific patterns, my own blood mixed with crushed moonstones, words in the old tongue that make my throat burn just to speak them.
My hands shake as I work. Not from fear—from pain. The Guild's parting gift, brands burned into my palms that make every spell feel like touching hot iron. Constant reminder that I chose wrong, that power without obedience is dangerous.
"Don't die on me now, princess," I mutter, mixing blood and crystal powder. "I didn't use my last bloodstone just to watch you stop breathing."
The ritual circle complete, I place both hands over her chest and speak the words of binding.
The magic hits me like a collapsing building.
Pain explodes through my body—the backlash from unstable dark magic meeting corrupted elven power. This is how I die, I think with bizarre calm. Trying to save someone who's already dead.
Blood vessels burst in my eyes. My vision goes white. The brands on my hands burn so hot I smell my own flesh cooking.
Then—impossibly—something shifts.
Her body responds to my magic. The curse writhing under her skin recognizes my darkness and reaches for it, not to attack but to stabilize. Her residual elven light, corrupted as it is, meets my shadows.
And they balance.
The backlash dissipates, absorbed into her curse's hunger for power. My magic flows smoothly for the first time in three years, channeling through her like she's a conduit designed specifically for this purpose.
The suppression spell locks into place. Her breathing steadies. The shadows retreat beneath her skin, caged but not gone.
I collapse back, gasping, staring at my hands in disbelief.
They don't hurt.
For the first time since the Guild branded me, my hands don't hurt.
I look at the unconscious elf princess, understanding dawning with all its terrible implications.
We're bound now. Her curse needs my magic to stay controlled. My magic needs her essence to stay stable. Symbiotic. Necessary. Completely inconvenient.
"We're bound now," I tell her, knowing she can't hear but needing to say it anyway. "Whether you like it or not, princess."
She doesn't respond. Just breathes steadily, the curse temporarily suppressed, alive because I couldn't walk away.
I should feel triumphant. I just performed a suppression ritual that should have killed me and came out better than before. But all I feel is tired.
Tired and weirdly hopeful, which is dangerous.
Hope gets you killed in the Border Forest.
I tend the fire, check her pulse again—stronger now, more stable—and settle in to wait.
When she wakes up, she's either going to thank me or try to murder me.
Given that she's elven nobility and I'm a dark wizard who just bound our life forces together without permission, I'm betting on murder.
"This is going to be fun," I say to the darkness.
The forest doesn't answer, but the curse does—pulsing once beneath her skin like a second heartbeat.
We're connected now, for better or worse.
Mostly worse, probably.