The searing power crawled up my legs, ripping through muscle and bone until it locked around my ribs and crushed the air from my lungs. My heart stuttered, caught between beats.Every nerve sparked to life, every breath pulled into the rhythm of that pulse—steady, deep, unrelenting.
It felt like the power of the universe itself was moving through me.
My knees buckled and around me, the world spun as Steele’s hands steadied me.
My body convulsed, a white-hot inferno racing up my arms, through my chest, and into my heart. It was like being struck by a thousand suns and surviving long enough to feel each one burn. I looked down as the light pulsed beneath my skin, threading through my veins like molten fire. For a moment, all I could do was stare, unable to breathe, unable to understand how something so vast could fit inside me and not kill me instantly.
“Steele—” I managed to groan, breathless and gasping through the pain.
“Kieran,” Steele breathed out, a tremor in his voice. “We don’t have time, Princess. I have to start now. I need you to hang on.”
Then, as if the universe itself heard his words, dozens of stars fell toward us at once, streaking from the heavens in a blazing descent. Their molten light surged toward me, drawn as if gravity itself had shifted and I was their center now that one had already found its home.
Steele’s voice tore through the bond, raw and thunderous, and a tear fell from my eye as I prepared to feel all of them finding a place within my body.
21
STEELE
The momenther body began to convulse in my arms, I dropped to my knees and lowered her onto the courtyard stone with a gentleness that felt so at odds with the chaos howling around us.
Her weight sagged against me, twitching with every new burst of light that surged through her veins—golden fire arcing beneath her skin like starlight trying to escape. Her breath hitched once, then fractured entirely, body writhing as if her actions no longer belonged to her.
“Kieran.” Her name caught in my throat like a knife. “Kieran, look at me.”
But her eyes were glassed, flickering beneath half-closed lids. She didn’t respond. Her lips were parted, and I could see the faintest shimmer of light behind her teeth as if the stars themselves were burning her from the inside out.
Too much. It’s too much. She’s not built to hold this.
I gripped her arm with one hand and kissed her forehead as I pulled my runic dagger forward. “Stay with me, Princess. Just hold on a little longer. Please.”
The metal of the blade was already warm to the touch—humming with stored power, waiting for my command. I started the first rune on her forearm with deliberate strokes, recallinga rune meant to ground and stabilize. A pattern I’d memorized since my apprenticeship, one I could draw blindfolded, drunk, or bleeding out, and mixed it with the one Bastian had said tasted good.
But as soon as the final stroke landed, her skin hissed, flared and burned it away.
“No—no, no, no…” I adjusted, pivoted to a rune meant for endurance magic and made the second attempt. The rune glowed for a breath, clinging to her like itwantedto hold and then singed her skin.
A jagged cry ripped from Kieran’s throat. Her back arched violently as a new surge of light crashed down from above us and slammed through her. The air around us warped with the heat; the stone beneath my knees cracked at the impact. Her wings spasmed beneath her against the ground, feathers wilting from the heat bleeding off her. I couldsmellit now: the scent of burning silk and ozone, of starfire eating flesh from the inside.
My hand trembled against her cheek as I tried to soothe her.
“You’re not leaving me. Do you hear me? I haven’t said it yet—I haven’t told you,” My breath fractured, my words breaking apart around the sentiment. “I love you, Kieran.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
“I love you too.” Her voice was a whisper, more breath than sound. “You don’t have to save me to prove it. It’s okay if you can’t create the rune… I don’t blame you, Steele.”
She was…absolving me of the guilt she already knew would eat me alive. That was the selfless, brave woman that fucking owned me.
A whimper tore out of my throat before I could stop it.
“Don’t you dare say goodbye,” I ground out as emotions flooded me at the thought of losing her here and now because of my own inability.
My dagger rose again to her arm, trembling as I tried to summon another rune. But my vision blurred and I blinked rapidly, furious at the tears that clung to my lashes, clouding the precise lines Ineededto draw.
I shoved my forearm across my face, wiping them away with a harsh swipe.
“I can’t see—Ineedto see you—fuck?—”
