ELARA'S POV
The white light faded, and I could see again.
But I immediately wished I couldn't.
He stood at the edge of the altar, and my brain struggled to understand what I was looking at. He was a man—tall and powerfully built—but also... not. His edges blurred like smoke. His dark hair moved even though the wind had stopped. And his eyes—
His eyes were pure molten silver, glowing from within, ancient and inhuman and absolutely terrifying.
This was Morven. The Death God. The divine being every child learned to fear before they could even walk.
And he was staring straight at me.
"Well," he said, and his voice had layers to it—like ten people speaking at once, some young, some old, all resonating with power that made my bones vibrate. "This is unexpected."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. The presence of him pressed down on me like a physical weight, making it hard to think.
He stepped onto the altar, and where his bare feet touched the stone, frost spread in intricate patterns. He moved with liquid grace, circling me slowly like a predator studying prey.
"Three thousand years," he murmured, more to himself than to me. "Three thousand years of mortal sacrifices. They all begged. Screamed. Prayed. Promised me anything if I'd spare them." He stopped beside my head, looking down at me with those impossible eyes. "But you? You asked for revenge."
His hand reached toward my face, one finger extended. I watched that finger get closer and closer, knowing that when it touched me, I would die.
This was it. The end.
But I wasn't going to beg.
"Wait." The word came out steadier than I expected.
Morven's finger stopped an inch from my forehead. His eyebrows rose—the first human expression I'd seen on his face. "Wait? You command a god to wait?"
"I'm not commanding." I met his silver eyes, even though looking at them made my head hurt. "I'm asking. You're going to kill me anyway, right? At least tell me first—did you really send the plague? Did you kill all those people?"
For a long moment, he just stared at me. Then, impossibly, he laughed.
It was a terrible sound—bitter and cold and full of three thousand years of isolation.
"No, little mortal. I didn't send your plague. I've been imprisoned here since before your grandmother's grandmother was born. I have no power beyond this mountain." His smile was sharp and cruel. "But I let them believe I did. Let them fear me. Let them throw their sacrifices at my feet. It amused me in my cage."
The truth hit me like a slap. "So innocent people died, and you just... let them blame you?"
"Innocent?" His laugh grew darker. "There are no innocent mortals. Your kind are all the same—selfish, cruel, destructive. They killed my people, stole my power, locked me in this prison, and fed on my essence for three millennia. Why should I care if they suffer?"
"Because suffering is wrong!" The words burst out of me. "Because people like little Sarah and Mrs. Chen and all the others I healed—they didn't hurt you! They didn't even know you were real! They were just trying to survive!"
Morven's eyes narrowed. "You're defending the same people who threw rocks at you yesterday. Who called you a monster. Who cheered for your death."
"Some of them did. Not all." My throat tightened. "And even if they all did—that doesn't make what happened to them right. Nothing makes plague right. Nothing makes murder right."
"How noble." His tone was mocking. "The pure-hearted healer, kind even to her executioners. Is that why you're here, chained and bleeding? Because your kindness saved you?"
The words cut deep because they were true. My kindness had gotten me betrayed. Destroyed. Sacrificed.
"No," I admitted. "My kindness got me killed. But that doesn't mean I should become like them. Like Daemon and Celeste and Lavinia—people who hurt others because it's easier than being good."
Something flickered in Morven's expression. Just for a second, the cruelty faded and something else showed through—something that looked almost like... pain?
Then it was gone.
"Enough talking." He reached for me again. "You'll die quickly. That's more mercy than your kind showed mine."
"I didn't kill your people!" I thrashed against the chains. "I wasn't even born! None of this is my fault!"
"You carry their blood. That's enough."
His finger touched my forehead—
And the chains exploded.
Not broke. Exploded. The metal shattered into a thousand pieces, and the barbs that had been digging into my wrists for two days simply vanished like they'd never existed.
But that wasn't the shocking part.
The shocking part was the light.
It erupted from the altar beneath me—not blue like before, but blinding silver-white. The symbols Lavinia had been so excited about blazed like tiny suns, and the light wrapped around both me and Morven like living chains.
"No—" Morven tried to pull back, but the light held him. His silver eyes went wide with something I never thought I'd see on a god's face.
Fear.
"What is this?" he snarled, fighting against the light. But it only wrapped tighter, binding us together. "What did you do?"
"Nothing!" I screamed as the light grew brighter, hotter. "I don't know what's happening!"
The altar cracked beneath us. No—not cracked. It was opening, like a flower blooming, revealing more symbols underneath. Ancient symbols that hadn't been touched in thousands of years.
And they were all glowing with my blood.
Morven's face went from angry to horrified. "No. Not this. Not the Binding of Souls. That ritual was destroyed!"
"What ritual? What's happening?"
"Your blood—" He choked as the light squeezed tighter. "Your divine blood triggered the failsafe. The one ritual that can permanently bind a god to a mortal. We're being—"
His words cut off as the light exploded outward in a shockwave that shook the entire mountain.
I felt something tear inside me—not physically, but deeper. Like my soul was being split open. And in that open space, something else rushed in. Something massive and ancient and powerful and furious.
Morven.
I could feel him. Not just near me, but inside me. His emotions flooded through our connection—rage, fear, and underneath it all, crushing loneliness that had lasted three thousand years.
And I knew he could feel me too. My pain. My anger. My desperate will to survive.
When the light finally faded, we were both gasping for air. I looked down at my chest and saw a new mark—an intricate silver tattoo that started at my heart and spread down my arm in patterns that matched the altar's symbols.
Morven had the exact same mark in the exact same place.
"What did you do to me?" His voice shook with rage. He grabbed my shoulders, hauling me up. "What did you DO?"
I stared at the matching marks. At our connection that I could feel pulsing between us like a living thing. At his face, which was no longer cruel and distant but twisted with genuine terror.
"I don't know," I whispered.
But the altar knew. The symbols were still glowing faintly, and somehow I could read them now. Could understand what they said:
Two souls bound as one. Mortal life chains divine power. If one dies, both fall. Only true death can break the bond.
I looked up at Morven, understanding crashing over me.
"We're connected," I said slowly. "Your life is tied to mine now. If I die—"
"I return to my prison," he finished, his face going pale. "Trapped in the void between worlds. Powerless. Conscious. Forever."
We stared at each other in horror.
I'd survived my execution. But now I was bound to a god who wanted me dead—a god who couldn't kill me without destroying himself.
And he was bound to a mortal girl with maybe fifty years left to live.
"This is impossible," Morven breathed. "This can't be happening."
But it was happening. I could feel his heartbeat—could a god even have a heartbeat?—matching mine. Could feel his shock and rage mixing with my own exhaustion and pain.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard Lavinia screaming. The guards were shouting. The ritual had gone wrong—so completely, catastrophically wrong.
Morven's silver eyes met mine, and I saw my own fear reflected in them.
"What have you done to me?" he whispered.
I didn't have an answer.
The mountain trembled. Reality itself seemed unstable, like the binding had broken something fundamental in the world.
And through our new connection, I felt Morven make a decision.
His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. "We're leaving. Now."
"What? Where—"
He didn't answer. He just tore a hole in the air itself—like ripping fabric—and pulled me through into darkness.
The last thing I heard was Lavinia's scream of rage as her perfect ritual collapsed.
Then we were falling through nothing, bound together by magic neither of us understood, connected in a way that would either save us both or destroy us completely.