Elara's POV
"Seraphina is alive?" I gasp, the vision still burning in my mind.
Kieran grabs my shoulders, steadying me as I sway. "What did you see?"
"Dante's... there's a woman with him. Dark hair, cruel eyes. She's telling him I need to die." My voice shakes. "Seraphina Ashwood. She was supposed to be dead."
Kieran's face goes deadly serious. "The childhood love he mourned? She's alive?"
Through the bond, I feel Dante's shock. He saw the vision too—saw that I know his secret. But there's something else in his emotions. Not just shock. Confusion. Like he didn't know she was alive either.
"We need to move faster," Kieran says urgently. "If Seraphina is back and working against you, she won't wait. Dark witches don't play games—they strike fast and brutal."
We run through the wilderness, putting miles between us and the Southern territories. My new power makes me faster, stronger. I don't tire like I used to. But my mind is racing faster than my feet.
Why would Seraphina fake her death? What does she want? And why does she want me dead so badly?
We finally stop at a river to rest. I splash cold water on my face, trying to clear my thoughts.
"Tell me about the Northern territories," I say, needing a distraction. "What's it like there?"
Kieran sits beside me. "Cold. Wild. Free." He smiles slightly. "We don't have the politics and backstabbing of the South. If you have a problem with someone, you challenge them directly. We value strength, but also honor."
"It sounds better than anything I've known."
"It will be your home now. For as long as you need." He hesitates. "Elara, I need to ask you something. The bond connecting you to Dante—can he track you through it?"
I focus on the twisted thread linking us. "I don't think so. I can feel his emotions, his pain, but I don't think he can sense where I am. Just... that I exist."
"Good. That gives us time."
"Time for what?"
"To train you properly. To make you strong enough that when Seraphina comes—and she will come—you'll be ready." His golden eyes hold mine. "I won't let anyone hurt you again. I swear it."
The promise shouldn't affect me this much. I barely know him. But after days of rejection and pain, having someone offer protection without demanding anything in return feels like water in a desert.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask. "Really. You could have left me in that temple. Could have let Dante deal with his own mess."
Kieran is quiet for a long moment. "Three hundred years ago, I watched the Starborn being hunted and killed. I was young, weak, couldn't stop it. I've lived with that guilt my entire life." He looks at me. "When I felt you awaken, I saw a chance to fix an old wrong. To protect what should have been protected centuries ago."
"I'm not your redemption project."
"No. You're not." He smiles. "You're much more interesting than that."
Before I can respond, pain explodes through the bond.
I cry out, clutching my chest. It's Dante—his heart is stopping again, but this time it's different. Stronger. Like he's dying for real.
"Elara?" Kieran's voice sounds far away.
Through the bond, I see what's happening. Dante is in his chamber, surrounded by healers. Seraphina is there, her hand on his chest, dark magic pouring from her fingers.
She's not trying to save him.
She's killing him.
"If the Starborn won't die, then the bond connecting them must be severed," she purrs. "And the only way to break a cosmic bond is to kill one of the bonded."
Horror floods through me. If Dante dies, I die. The curse works both ways.
"No," I whisper. "No, no, no—"
I don't want to die. Not when I've just found my power. Not when I've just started to live.
But more than that—I don't want him to die either. Despite everything, despite the rejection and the cruelty, the thought of Dante's heart stopping forever makes my chest ache.
"Elara, what's happening?" Kieran demands.
"She's killing him. Seraphina is killing Dante, and if he dies—"
"You die too." Kieran's face goes pale. "Can you stop her? Through the bond?"
I don't know. I've never tried to use the bond to send power, only felt it drain me. But I have to try.
I close my eyes and focus on the twisted thread connecting us. Instead of pulling away from Dante's pain, I dive into it. I pour my Starborn power down the bond like water through a pipe.
In the Royal Stronghold, Dante gasps. Cosmic fire erupts from his chest, throwing Seraphina backward. She slams into a wall, her dark magic shattering.
"What—" she snarls, staring at Dante in shock. "How did you—"
"She's protecting me," Dante whispers, his hand over his heart where my power still glows. "Even after everything I did, she's saving me."
Through the bond, our eyes meet across the distance. For one moment, all the pain and anger and confusion falls away. We're just two souls bound together by something neither of us understands.
Then I pull back, severing the power flow.
Dante survives. His heart beats steady again.
But Seraphina is still alive, and now she knows I'm strong enough to interfere.
I open my eyes to find Kieran watching me with an unreadable expression.
"You saved him," he says quietly.
"I saved myself," I correct. "If he dies, I die. I had no choice."
But we both know that's not entirely true. I could have let him die and taken my chances with breaking the bond another way. I chose to save him.
"She'll come after you directly now," Kieran warns. "Seraphina knows you're the real threat."
"Let her come." I stand up, brushing off my clothes. "I'm done running from people who want me dead."
We continue north, but I can't shake the feeling that we're being watched. The trees seem to whisper warnings. My wolf—my cosmic, powerful wolf—paces restlessly inside me.
Something is wrong.
We're walking through a narrow canyon when I smell it—death magic. Dark, corrupted, wrong.
"Kieran—" I start to warn him.
Too late.
Rogues pour from the rocks above—dozens of them, their eyes glowing red with dark magic. But these aren't normal rogues. They're twisted, wrong, their bodies warped by the same evil I sensed from Seraphina.
"She sent them," Kieran snarls, shifting partially into his wolf form. "She sent her corrupted wolves to kill you!"
They attack from all sides. Kieran fights like a demon, tearing through rogues with brutal efficiency. But there are too many.
I raise my hands and cosmic fire explodes outward. Ten rogues disintegrate instantly. But more keep coming, and I can feel my power draining. I've been awake less than a day—I don't have full control yet.
A massive rogue lunges for my throat. I throw up a shield, but it breaks under his weight. He's going to kill me—
Kieran's jaws close around the rogue's neck, ripping him away. "Stay behind me!"
We fight back-to-back, his ancient warrior skill combined with my raw cosmic power. Slowly, we're winning.
Then I see her.
Seraphina stands at the canyon's edge, watching with cold satisfaction. She raises her hands, and the air turns black with dark magic.
"You should have let him die, little star," she calls down to me. "Now you'll die together—slowly, painfully, and he'll feel every second of your suffering through that bond."
The dark magic crashes down like a tsunami.
I throw up a shield, but it's not strong enough. The magic breaks through, wrapping around my throat like hands, choking me.
Through the bond, I feel Dante collapse, gasping for air he can't get.
We're dying together.
Kieran roars and charges toward Seraphina, but more rogues block his path.
My vision darkens. My lungs burn. The Starborn power flares inside me, trying to save me, but I don't know how to use it properly yet.
I'm going to die in this canyon, and take Dante with me.
But just as consciousness starts to slip away, something else happens.
The cosmic fire inside me erupts—not outward, but inward. It floods through the bond connecting me to Dante, and suddenly I feel him. Really feel him.
His memories crash into mine. I see everything—his father's death, his rage, his grief, the lies Lord Marcus fed him about my family. I see him signing my parents' execution order, believing he was punishing traitors.
But I also see something else.
I see the moment the mate bond snapped into place. See the flash of joy in his eyes before fear and prejudice crushed it. See him fighting with himself even as he spoke those rejection words, his wolf howling in protest.
He didn't want to reject me.
But he did it anyway because he was afraid. Afraid of being weak. Afraid of what people would think. Afraid of loving someone he'd been taught to hate.
The revelation should make me angrier.
Instead, it breaks something inside me.
The cosmic fire explodes outward in a wave of pure power. Seraphina screams as it hits her, throwing her off the canyon edge. The rogues disintegrate. The dark magic shatters.
I collapse into Kieran's arms, gasping.
"Elara!" He cradles me against his chest. "Are you hurt?"
"I saw," I whisper. "Through the bond. I saw everything."
"Saw what?"
But I can't answer. Because through the bond, Dante is speaking, his voice raw and broken:
"I'm sorry. Elara, I'm so sorry. I know it's not enough. I know I destroyed everything. But I need you to know—I didn't want to reject you. I was a coward. And now you're paying the price for my weakness."
His words echo in my mind as Kieran carries me away from the battlefield.
And I realize the terrible truth: understanding why Dante rejected me doesn't make it hurt less.
It makes it hurt more.