Most hosts die. The curse is too much for mortal vessels to contain. I have witnessed three attempts in my years as temple keeper—two dead within minutes of the transfer completing, one survived but was never the same. The divine rage changes what it touches. It does not gentle itself for willing hearts. Be certain before you begin.
"Changed how?" I ask, though part of me already knows.
Rhystan leans over my shoulder to point at another section, close enough that his breath stirs the hair at my temple. "It completes what's already happening to you. The contamination—the hardening scales along your scars, the purple tint under your nails, the red ring that shows in your eyes when you're angry—all of it happens at once. Forced transformation instead of gradual adaptation. Minutes instead of months." He straightens, putting distance between us again. "If you survive, you'll be fully hybrid. Not omega anymore. Not quite human. Something new."
"I'm already changing." I hold up my hand, letting him see the violet shadows beneath my nails, the way the skin along my scarred knuckles has taken on a faintly iridescent sheen.
"Not like this. This would force the full transformation while you're simultaneously absorbing three hundred years of accumulated divine curse. While pregnant with twins who share your blood." He doesn't soften it, doesn't try to make it easier to hear. "The strain could tear you apart from the inside."
"Our daughter dies if I don't try." Flat. Certain. Not asking for his opinion. "That's not a choice, Rhystan. That's just math."
His jaw flexes, but he takes it the way he's been taking everything—straight on, without flinching.
"There has to be another?—"
"There isn't." I turn back to the book, start sounding out the ritual words under my breath. The old tongue is harsh on my lips, consonants scraping against my teeth like swallowing thorns. "When can we do this?"
"Kess—"
"When?"
He's quiet for a moment, and I can practically feel him recalculating, adjusting to terrain he can't change. Then his expression settles into focused determination.
"Days. Maybe a week to gather everything properly. We need blessed silver—I'll send riders to the temple today, have them ride through the night if necessary. My blood, fresh, which I can provide. The stabilizing herbs the mystic should have in her stores, but if not, there are traders in the eastern markets." He pauses. "And you need time to learn the words perfectly. One mistake—one mispronounced syllable—and the curse transfers wrong. Goes to our children instead of you."
"Then I practice until there's no chance of mistakes."
"You will." Not a question—a statement. Confidence in me that I'm not sure I've earned. "But you'll do it right. We're not rushing this and killing all three of you because we skipped a step."
The alpha command in his voice shouldn't be reassuring. Shouldn't make something in my chest unknot slightly, some tension I didn't know I was carrying.
"Fine. We do it right. But we do it fast."
"Agreed." He's already moving, already planning, the gears turning behind those golden eyes. "I'll have the components gathered within the week. You focus on the words."
The days blur together after that, but certain moments stand out sharp and clear.
The first time I speak the ritual words aloud and Rhystan stops me after three syllables—"The stress is wrong, you're hitting the second syllable too hard, it changes the meaning from 'willing vessel' to 'empty vessel'"—and makes me repeat the phrase forty times until my tongue learns the difference.
The afternoon the blessed silver arrives, enough to draw the binding circle three times over, and I watch Rhystan inspect each piece with the careful attention of a man who knows imperfection means death. He rejects two pieces for flaws invisible to my eyes and sends a rider back for replacements without hesitation.
The morning the mystic draws his blood—fresh from the vein, dark and hot, filling spelled vials that glow faintly in the dim light of her chambers. He doesn't flinch when the needle goes in, just watches the blood flow with an expression I can't read. When she's finished, he rolls his sleeve down and returns to the library without comment.
The evening I practice too long and my voice gives out entirely, reduced to a rasp that can barely form words at all. He brings me honeyed tea—just honey and chamomile, I check, breathing deep over the steam—and sits with me in silence while I drink it. Doesn't try to fill the quiet with words. Just exists beside me, solid and present, until my throat stops burning.
The circle gets drawn and redrawn in the throne room—the only space large enough for the ritual's requirements. Silver dust in precise geometric patterns, shapes nested within shapes within shapes, each line measured and remeasured because the binding must be perfect or it shatters and takes us all with it. I watch Rhystan do the work himself, refusing to delegate something this important, his hands steady as he pours the silver in hair-thin lines that never waver.
Through all of it, we exist in this strange suspended state. Working together but nottogether. Close but never touching.The bond humming between us like a plucked string that never stops vibrating.
He brings me tea every evening. Just chamomile and honey, nothing else—I check every time, breathing deep, searching for any hint of bitter herbs or hidden betrayal. And every time, it's exactly what he says it is.
I drink it anyway. Not because I forgive him—I don't, might never fully—but because some stubborn part of me wants these days to taste less bitter than they could. And because my throat is raw from practicing words that might kill me, and the honey helps.
The night before the ritual, I can't sleep.
I lie in my chambers staring at the canopy overhead, watching shadows dance and flicker as candles burn low in their holders. One hand rests on my belly where the twins are restless—more restless than usual, as if they know something is coming. The boy kicks sharply, aggressively, testing the boundaries of his space. The girl's movements are softer, a flutter rather than a strike, like she's trying to make herself small. Trying to hide from her brother's growing instincts.
Ten weeks until the curse activates fully. Less, maybe, if we're unlucky.
