Liora's POV
I'm going to die in the Shadow Wastes.
The thought hits me as I stumble through the dead forest, gasping for air. My lungs burn. My feet are bleeding. I've been running for hours, and the alarm bells from the Radiant Citadel are finally fading behind me.
But the wasteland ahead looks worse than anything I'm running from.
The trees here aren't really trees anymore—they're twisted black skeletons reaching toward a sky that's the wrong color. Everything is gray and purple and sick-looking. The ground crunches under my feet like broken bones. The air tastes like metal and smoke.
This is where magic comes to die.
This is where light gets swallowed up and never comes back.
And I just ran straight into it like an idiot.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," I mutter, wrapping my arms around myself. My prison clothes are thin and torn. The night air is freezing. Behind me, I can hear dogs barking in the distance. Theron's hunting hounds. They're tracking me.
I need to go deeper. Further into the Wastes where even the hunters won't follow.
I push forward, stepping over roots that look like grasping fingers. My light is flickering inside me—weak and scared. It doesn't like this place. Neither do I.
That's when I hear it.
A scream.
Not a human scream—something worse. Something that makes my bones vibrate and my teeth ache. It sounds like the world is being ripped apart, like reality itself is screaming in agony.
Every instinct I have says RUN THE OTHER WAY.
But I'm already surrounded by death. What's one more dangerous thing?
Besides, something about that scream sounds... familiar. Like pain I recognize. Like suffering I understand.
I follow the sound deeper into the Wastes, my glowing hands providing the only light in this awful darkness. The trees get thicker. The air gets colder. And then I see it—
A clearing filled with chains made of living shadow.
And wrapped in those chains, dying slowly, is a man.
He's on his knees, head hanging down, long silver-black hair covering his face. The chains are buried in his skin, pulsing with dark magic that's eating him from the inside out. Black veins spread across his bare chest and arms like poison. He's shaking, breathing hard, and every few seconds he screams again—that terrible, world-breaking sound.
I should run. I should absolutely run.
Instead, I step into the clearing.
"Hello?" My voice comes out small and scared.
The man's head snaps up, and I see his eyes—burning gold with pupils like a cat's. They lock onto me with the intensity of a predator spotting prey. Even dying, even wrapped in cursed chains, he looks dangerous.
"Get away from me," he growls, his voice like gravel and thunder mixed together. "Unless you want to die, little girl."
"You're hurt," I say stupidly. Because yes, obviously he's hurt. He's literally being eaten alive by dark magic.
He laughs, but it sounds painful. "Brilliant observation. Now leave before the curse spreads to you."
I should listen. I should turn around and find somewhere else to hide from Theron's hunters.
But Mother's voice echoes in my head: "Your light is precious. Use it to help those who suffer."
This man is definitely suffering.
I step closer. "I can help you."
"No, you can't." His eyes are getting dimmer, the gold fading to brass. "I've been dying for three hundred years. A little girl with glowing hands isn't going to fix that."
Three hundred years? That's impossible. No one lives that long.
Unless...
"You're not human," I whisper.
His smile is sharp and broken. "Finally, she understands. I'm the monster from your bedtime stories, little star. The big bad Prince of Shadows who supposedly destroyed the Lightborn. And if you're smart, you'll run before I destroy you too."
Prince of Shadows. The enemy from every legend. The villain who killed thousands.
I should be terrified.
Instead, I kneel down in front of him and place my glowing hands on his chest.
"Don't—!" he starts to shout, but it's too late.
My light floods into him.
And the world explodes.
The chains shatter with a sound like breaking thunder. Dark magic and bright light collide in a wave that throws me backward. I hit the ground hard, all the air knocked from my lungs.
When I can see again, the chains are gone. The man is standing—actually standing—staring at his hands like he can't believe they're real.
He looks different now. Taller. Stronger. The black veins are fading from his skin. His eyes are burning pure gold again, bright and fierce and absolutely terrifying.
He turns that burning gaze on me, and I realize I just freed something very, very dangerous.
"What are you?" His voice is different too—stronger, more powerful. He moves toward me with the grace of a hunting cat.
I scramble backward. "I'm nobody! Just a servant! I was trying to help!"
He keeps coming, step by step, until he's standing over me. Then he crouches down, his face inches from mine, and breathes in deeply like he's smelling me.
"Liar," he says softly. "You're Lightborn. True Lightborn, not those fake pretenders wearing stolen magic." His eyes narrow. "But that's impossible. We killed all the true Lightborn three centuries ago. I watched them burn."
"I'm the last one," I whisper, and my voice cracks. "They killed everyone else. My mother, my grandmother, everyone. I'm all that's left."
Something flickers across his face—an emotion I can't read. Then his hand shoots out and wraps around my throat. Not squeezing, but definitely threatening.
"Give me one reason," he growls, "why I shouldn't kill you right now. Your people imprisoned me. Tortured me. Left me to die slowly for three hundred years. Your people are the reason I'm cursed."
"My people are DEAD!" I shout back, and suddenly I'm not scared anymore—I'm furious. "Your people killed them! The false Lightborn killed them! Everyone keeps killing everyone, and I'm so TIRED of it! I just saved your life, you ungrateful—"
I stop talking because something impossible is happening.
A mark is burning itself onto my chest—right over my heart. It's glowing white-hot, half light and half shadow, forming a symbol I've never seen before. It hurts so badly I can't breathe.
The man releases my throat and clutches his own chest, his face twisted in pain. He tears open his shirt, and I see the same mark burning into his skin—the exact mirror of mine.
"No," he breathes, his eyes wide with shock and horror. "No, this can't be happening. Not with you. Not with a Lightborn."
"What is it?" I gasp, tears streaming down my face from the pain. "What's happening?"
"A soul-bond," he says, and he sounds absolutely devastated. "An ancient binding that links two people together permanently. Their lives, their magic, their souls—all connected."
The burning fades, leaving the mark glowing faintly on both our chests. I can feel something new inside me—his emotions, his presence, like he's standing next to my heart.
And from the horrified look on his face, he can feel me too.
"This is impossible," he says again, staring at me like I'm a ghost. "The soul-bond only activates between prophesied mates. Between the Daughter of the Fallen Light and the Prince of Night."
My blood turns to ice. "What?"
"You're not just any Lightborn." He reaches out and tilts my chin up, studying my face with new intensity. "You're the prophesied one. The one who's supposed to either save the world or destroy it."
His laugh is bitter and beautiful and completely insane.
"And I'm bound to you now. If you die, I return to that cursed prison. If I die, you die with me. We're stuck together, little star, whether we like it or not."
In the distance, hunting horns echo through the Wastes. Theron's men are getting closer.
The Prince—because apparently that's what he is—tilts his head, listening. "Those men are hunting you."
"Yes."
"They want to kill you."
"Yes."
"How many?"
"Probably all of them."
He looks at me for a long moment. Then he smiles—a sharp, dangerous smile that makes him look exactly like the monster from the stories.
"Perfect," he says. "I haven't killed anyone in three hundred years. I'm a bit out of practice."
He grabs my hand, and shadows explode around us—thick and cold and absolute. I can't see anything, can't hear anything except his voice in my ear:
"Hold on, little star. If we're bound together, I might as well keep you alive. At least until I figure out how to break this cursed bond."
The shadows swallow us whole, and the world disappears.
The last thing I think before everything goes black is: I just soul-bonded myself to the enemy of my entire people.
Mother would either be very proud or very disappointed.
I really can't tell which.