Lyra's POV
"I need to leave. Now."
The words burst out of me before I can stop them. My father is the Shadow King. The monster everyone fears. The creature that nearly destroyed the world.
And he knows where I am.
"Lyra, wait—" Kael starts, but I'm already pulling away from him.
"No! Don't you understand? If he's coming for me, everyone near me is in danger. I have to go somewhere far away where no one else will get hurt!"
"You're not going anywhere," Erebus says calmly. "Running won't help. Your father has been searching for you for twenty-five years. Now that your power has awakened, he'll find you no matter where you hide."
"Then what am I supposed to do?" My voice cracks. "Just wait for him to show up and destroy everything?"
"You're supposed to let us protect you," Kael says. His hand finds mine, and through the bond, I feel his determination. "That's why I'm taking you to my fortress. It's the most heavily protected place in any realm. Even the Shadow King can't breach its defenses easily."
"Your fortress?" I look up at him. "You mean your prison for me."
"I mean the one place I can keep you safe while we figure out what your father wants." His silver eyes are intense. "Unless you have a better idea?"
I don't. I hate it, but I don't.
Erebus nods approvingly. "The Cursed Fortress is wise. I'll place additional wards around it myself. And Kael—" His expression grows serious. "In three days, the full moon rises and your bond completes. When that happens, you'll both be vulnerable. Don't let anyone interrupt the process, or you'll both die."
Three days. That's all the time I have before my soul merges completely with Kael's.
Before I can process that terrifying thought, Kael opens a portal. Black smoke and silver light swirl together, forming a doorway to somewhere dark.
"Come on," he says quietly. "Let's go home."
Home. The word sounds strange coming from him.
I take his hand and step through.
The fortress hits me like a punch to the chest.
It's not the black stone walls or the shadows that cling to every corner. It's the feeling of the place—ancient, lonely, and so full of pain it makes my heart ache.
This is where Kael has lived for three hundred years. Alone with his curse, suffering in silence, with no hope of escape.
"This way." He leads me through empty corridors. Our footsteps echo in the silence. "Your room is in the east wing. It's the warmest part of the fortress."
"Warmest" is relative. The air is cold enough to see my breath.
We reach a door, and Kael pushes it open. Inside is a simple room—a bed, a table, a window showing nothing but darkness and distant mountains.
"The wards will keep you safe," he says, not looking at me. "Don't try to leave the fortress. The bond means I'll always know where you are, and the magic outside these walls will kill anyone who isn't me."
"So I'm a prisoner." The words taste bitter.
"You're protected." Finally, he meets my eyes. "There's a difference."
"Is there?" I step into the room, feeling the weight of everything that's happened crash down on me. "My family betrayed me. The gods want me dead. My father is a monster who's hunting me. And now I'm trapped in a fortress with a man I barely know, bound to him forever by magic I don't understand." My voice breaks. "When does any of this get better?"
For a long moment, Kael just stares at me. Then he does something unexpected—he steps into the room and closes the door behind him.
"It doesn't get better," he says quietly. "It gets survivable. You learn to live with the pain. You build walls around your heart. You stop hoping for anything except the next sunrise." He's standing close now, close enough that I can feel the cold radiating from him. "But Lyra? That's not living. That's what I've been doing for three hundred years, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Especially not you."
"Then why did you save me?" The question that's been burning in my chest finally comes out. "You said you owed my mother a debt. What debt is worth binding yourself to someone like me?"
His jaw tightens. "Your mother saved my life when I was young and stupid. I was seventeen, fresh from losing my entire family to demons. I wanted revenge so badly I made a deal with the Oracle—power in exchange for a curse. Your mother tried to stop me. When she couldn't, she used her own power to make sure the curse wouldn't kill me outright." His silver eyes are haunted. "I've been suffering for three hundred years because of my choice. But I'm still alive because of hers. So yes, I owed her. And the only way I can repay that debt is by keeping you alive."
"Even though it means suffering more?" I whisper. "The bond will make you feel everything I feel. All my fear, my pain, my—"
"I know." He reaches up and brushes a tear from my cheek. The touch is gentle, unexpected. "But maybe feeling something other than death for once won't be the worst thing in the world."
Through the bond, I feel what he won't say: he's lonely. So terribly lonely that even my fear and pain are better than the endless nothing he's lived with.
"Get some rest," he says, stepping back. "We'll start training tomorrow. If your father is coming, you need to know how to defend yourself."
He turns to leave.
"Kael, wait." I grab his arm. "You don't have to be alone anymore. The bond goes both ways. If I have to feel your pain, then you have to feel... this."
I push through the bond deliberately—not fear or anger, but something softer. Gratitude. Trust. The beginning of something that might one day become friendship, or maybe more.
He freezes. His eyes close, and his breath catches. Through the bond, I feel his shock, his desperate hunger for any kind of gentle emotion after centuries of darkness.
"Don't," he whispers. "Don't be kind to me, Lyra. I don't deserve it."
"Maybe not. But I'm giving it anyway."
For a heartbeat, we just stand there, connected by more than magic. Then Kael pulls away and walks out without another word.
The door closes behind him, and I'm alone.
I sink onto the bed, exhaustion finally catching up with me. My hands still glow faintly with silver light—a reminder of the power sleeping inside me. Power that comes from both my divine mother and my monstrous father.
What does that make me?
I'm about to close my eyes when I feel it—a whisper in my mind that's not Kael, not the bond, not anything I recognize.
Daughter.
The voice is deep, ancient, terrifying. It echoes inside my skull like thunder.
I've waited so long to find you. Your mother hid you well, but now your power calls to me like a beacon. I'm coming for you, little one. And when I arrive, you'll understand why your mother fell in love with me. Why she chose to give you life, even knowing what I am.
I try to push the voice out, but it's too strong.
Three days until the full moon. Three days until your bond completes. Tell the Reaper to enjoy his time with you, daughter. Because once I take you home, you'll never see him again.
The presence vanishes as suddenly as it appeared, leaving me shaking and terrified.
My father—the Shadow King—just spoke directly into my mind. Which means the fortress wards didn't stop him. Which means nowhere is actually safe.
I run to the door and throw it open. "KAEL!"
He appears instantly, sword drawn, eyes blazing. "What happened?"
"He was in my head." I'm shaking so hard I can barely stand. "My father. He spoke to me. He said he's coming in three days, and—"
I don't finish the sentence because the window behind me shatters.
A figure made of pure shadow pours through the broken glass, forming into the shape of a man. But this isn't the Shadow King—it's something else. A messenger.
The shadow-man's eyes glow red as it speaks in a voice like grinding stones: "The Shadow King sends his regards to his daughter. And a gift."
It throws something at my feet.
A severed head.
I scream before I can stop myself. It's one of the guards from the Celestial Court—the one who tried to execute me.
"Consider this mercy," the shadow-man says. "Your father is killing everyone who tried to hurt you. Every guard. Every warrior. Every god who voted for your execution. He's painting the Celestial Court red with their blood." The creature's smile is horrifying. "And when he's finished there, he's coming here. Nothing will stop him from claiming what's his."
The shadow-man dissolves, leaving only the severed head and the smell of death.
Kael immediately pulls me away from the window, positioning himself between me and any new threats. But through the bond, I feel his dread.
Because we both know the truth: if the Shadow King is powerful enough to send messengers through the fortress wards, to speak directly into my mind, to slaughter the Celestial Court...
Then three days might not be enough time to prepare.
And when he arrives, not even Kael's legendary power might be enough to stop him.