How could I possibly use a rune from someone who had never known that? This rune was forher, a shape that was wholly ours, made of her light and my resolve. Our love.
And in the silence of my own mind, it came. Not with a flash, but with a quiet stillness that felt like the eye of a storm. I didn't hesitate as it pulsed in my mind, knowing we didn’t have room for me to second-guess things now.
My eyes opened and my hand guided me toward the center of her chest and pressed the first stroke against her skin. My magic surged in answer, burning the line into place as the rest of the rune followed, uncoiling beneath my hand like it had always been waiting for this exact moment. This exact woman. This exact love.
And when the final line sealed, the rune ignited in a golden light that marked its acceptance. It shimmered over her heart, then sank into her skin, fusing with the threads of energy already warring beneath the surface.
Her chest lifted just slightly as her lips parted to gasp in a breath.
“Kieran,” I whispered, leaning down until my forehead rested against hers. “Come back to me. We finally found it.”
The rune had been accepted, but even as hope flared in my chest, fear followed.What if it still wasn’t enough?
So I did the only thing I could, I kept going. I dragged the dagger back into my grip and my hand hovered above the delicate curve of her shoulder above skin split in places where the light had tried to escape. The stars were still falling, one after another, crashing into her in a relentless bombardment. She was burning from the inside out, unraveling in real time, and all I could do was carve protection faster than the heavens could ruin her.
So I did. Rune after rune for strength and healing.
“You stay with me, Kieran. Do you hear me?” My voice cracked, but my hand didn’t waver. “You don’t get to give everything to this world and not get a future in return. Not while I’m still breathing.”
A sob clawed up my throat, twisting into a ragged sound as I forced it back down—a roar caught halfway between fury and despair.
The next rune went over her thigh, drawn with shaking fingers and absolute resolve. My power bled into her with every stroke, until I could feel it draining out of me—still, I kept drawing runes, finding strength where none should’ve been left. One after another until there wasn’t a part of her skin that didn’t glow with runes.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead and whispered, “I’m still here and so are you. Just hold on a little longer, Princess.”
The stars were still falling, but Kieran hadn’t given up, and neither would I.
Not while she still breathed.
22
KIERAN
The first thingI noticed was the absence ofeverything.
The world around me stretched into a pale, liminal expanse—formless, silent, infinite. The horizon had vanished, and the ground with it. I was standing in the center of nothingness.
Had I died?
The question never left my lips, yet it echoed through the air as if it had slipped straight from my mind.
I’d never given much thought to what the afterlife might be like, but I hadn’t imagined this: a world stripped bare, empty of anything familiar. The stillness was so complete it made sweat prickle at the back of my neck. I tried to move, but my limbs were sluggish, refusing to obey as a slow panic unfurled under my skin.
In the eerie silence, I reached out for my mates through the bond. Realization struck hard and absolute—the drop of my stomach sent a wave of nausea through me, the crack of my heart almost audible in the soundless expanse.
I couldn’t feel them. Not Ronan’s steady strength. Not Steele’s relentless focus. Not Gabe’s quiet devotion. Not Bastian’s wild, untamed energy. Not Niz’s unwavering loyalty.
Nothing.
The bond that had once linked us heartbeat to heartbeat was gone, cut so clean it felt like a limb had been removed. Panic seized my chest so hard it stole my breath. I forced my limbs to obey, the stiffness breaking like glass as I tore free of the stillness and spun, searching foranysign that my mates hadn’t been erased with the rest of the world. But there was only endless, unchanging nothingness.
Was this all that remained? Had the stars destroyed everything else?
Memory struck in jagged flashes, too sharp to hold onto. The descent of the stars. My name shouted through chaos and agony, a desperate plea for me to survive. Light tearing across a blood-soaked battlefield. My body burning from the inside out beneath a runic dagger.
I pressed a hand to my chest, half expecting to find a wound from the stars burning their way into me, or from Steele carving runes across my skin—but there was nothing. My body was smooth and whole. Even my leathers remained untouched, as if the battle had never happened at all.
There was something odd to my appearance, though. It was as if the edges of my body were blurred, faded like wisps of smoke. When I lifted my hand, the tips of my fingers flickered in and out of focus, as if I were on the verge of being erased.
