Devin’s arm wrapped around my waist. “Now.”
I could still feel the spell humming in my veins. But something inside me—something ancient, sacred, and undeniably mine—whispered that this was only the beginning.
And I was ready.
14
~Devin ~
I’d never feared magic.
Not the twisted kind that danced from revenant blades, not the deathlight I carved from the Veil, not even the whispering rot that clawed at my soul when I reached too deep. I was born to it. Molded in it. I’d watched kingdoms fall under the weight of magic and never blinked.
But standing before the Void—emptiness radiating from the abyss—I understood what it meant to be afraid. The Void was the unspeakable darkness where true destruction lived. The Rift was a tear in the fabric of reality, the opening our enemies used to attack Lunaterra, to harvest souls. The magical gate our ancestors built inside the Spire was covered in glowing runes, magic and ritual used to hold the gate, seal the opening, keep our world safe from the ravenous dark entities that forced humans, like Cleo, to flee their home world, their ancient Earth.
The Rift loomed like a scar carved into reality itself. A towering arch of bone-white stone and obsidian black, each stone etched with runes that shimmered like breath on a wintermorning. Light and shadow warred across its surface in a constant dance, runes pulsing like the beat of a dying heart.
It wasn’t just a portal. It was a wound. A tear in the world’s skin that bled possibility and madness.
And it was awake. I could feel it watching.
Cleo stood beside me, her hair still laced with gold light from the spell she’d unleashed. Nova’s Requiem. The spell of legends. The power of ancient queens. She had become something radiant in that moment—something divine. Yet… her Starfire hadn’t touched me.
It had swept through the hall like a celestial tide, burning the lies off Jarrik and his sycophants, peeling the darkness from the Knight Eternal’s soul, and yet… it hadn’t grazed me. Hadn’t evennoticedme.
Why?
I’d watched her stand in the center of that storm, eyes blazing, skin crowned in flame, and felt her power roll over me like a promise. And still… nothing.
Not a flicker. Not a whisper of recognition. Was even her magic avoiding me? Was the darkness in me so deep it made me invisible to light?
“You’re brooding,” Cleo murmured, not looking at me. Her hand found mine, fingers slipping between mine with effortless familiarity. “That’s a new record. It’s been what—ten minutes since something crazy happened?”
I forced a smile. “Just taking in the ambiance.”
She snorted. “You mean the ancient soul-eating gate at the center of the world? The one we’re now supposed to have sex in front of?”
“That would be the one.”
Ahead of us, Elarra waited by the ritual chalice, which sat on a pedestal of what looked like petrified bone and crystal. Her hunched form seemed smaller here, the room swallowingher shape in shadow. She’d been strange from the beginning—flamboyant, madcap, brilliant. The kind of teacher who laughed during curses and offered cupcakes after necromantic theory.
I’d trusted her. She and Kassio were the last ones I trusted.
“Come,” she croaked. “Stand together. Hands over the bowl, lovers. Let the blood remember what the soul already knows.”
Cleo arched a brow at me. “That’s not creepy at all.”
We moved as one.
My hand trembled slightly as I unsheathed the ritual knife. Not from fear. From something older.Instinct.
I ignored it.
Cleo held out her hand without hesitation, eyes steady.
We cut.
Our blood mingled with the sacred herbs and wine already in the chalice, swirling into a deep crimson gold that shimmered with threads of both fire and shadow. What flowed from us wasn’t just blood. It wastruth.It was thebond.
