I stare into the darkness that swallowed him, my hands trembling. Tears I didn't know I had left to cry burn at the back of my eyes. He doesn't understand. He sees my life as a treasure, but he cannot see the truth: that a life spent watching him suffer in that monstrous form would be a curse far worse than any death. The days I spent with him were the most beautiful time of my life. And I find a purpose for mine in saving an honorable warrior.
“His love for you is a powerful, blinding thing.”
Kasian’s voice, soft as falling ash, makes me jump. I turn to face him.Love?The word is novel to me, it’s something I have only ever heard stories about. The idea that Xylon, the fierce protector, the broken soul I have come to care for, could feel such a thing forme… it seems impossible. What he feels is abond, I tell myself. A protector’s duty forged in the fires of our escape. A captive’s gratitude for a small kindness. It is not love. It cannot be.
And what do I feel for him? The question rises unbidden, demanding an answer. I have felt pity for the caged beast. I have felt compassion for his pain. I have felt a profound, soul-deep gratitude for the life he saved. But as I stand here, my heart still aching from the violence of his heartbroken retreat, I know those words are too small, too hollow. They do not capture the fierce, soaring thing that took flight in my chest when I saw a glimpse of his true face in the moonlight. They do not explain the desperate need I feel to see him whole, to see him free, no matter the cost.
I think back to the darkness of the kennels, to the moment Lord Jildred struck me. I remember the roar that followed—a sound not of a mindless beast, but of an intelligent, awakened soul, screaming its fury at an injustice done tome. That was the moment. The moment my compassion was forged into something stronger, sharper. The moment I saw the man inside the monster, and my heart, without my permission, chose him. It has been love all along.
The weary, apathetic guide I first met in the ruins is gone. His ancient, black eyes, which had held the weight of millennia with a chilling detachment, are now fixed on me, and at last, I see the ghost of a Vrakken who was once capable of something other than sorrow.
But the memory of Xylon’s roar, of the table shattering into a thousand pieces, echoes in the cavern of my own mind. That wasn't just the beast's rage. It was the agony of the man.
"He would see this as a betrayal," I whisper, the truth of it a sharp, painful thing in my throat. My fingers clench the rough fabric of my tunic. "He fought to give me a choice, a life. If I do this, I am telling him that his fight was for nothing. That I value his pain more than I value the life he saved."
“He sees only your potential loss,” Kasian murmurs, gliding closer, his midnight robes whispering over the stone floor, his words designed to cut through my doubt. “He does not see the eternity of his own damnation.”
He stops in front of me, his presence a column of cold, silent power. “I know something of that damnation,” he says, and his gaze drifts past me, toward the shrouded, dust-covered artifacts that fill this cavern.
“Her name was Lyra,” he says, his voice losing its silken edge, becoming rough with a grief so painful it feels like a living thing between us. “She was human. She loved the sun, and the feel of wild grass beneath her feet, and the sound of birdsong at dawn. She saw beauty in a world I had long since come to see as only shades of gray.”
He looks at me, eyes bottomless pits of memory. “Centuries ago, we came to this place. The Wildspont… its power has always been a lure. A group of Khuzuth sorcerers, ancestors of the one who hunts you now, sought to harness it. Lyra was caught in their ritual. She died, there, by the font.”
My breath catches. A story of Dark Elf cruelty, centuries old. Nothing changes.
“But the magic they unleashed was chaotic,” Kasian continues, his voice trembling with a barely controlled anguish. “She died, there, by the font. Murdered by the ancestors of the very sorcerer who created… him.”
The sheer, crushing weight of his tragedy settles over me. This place is not a tomb. It is a vigil.
“Her death bound me to this place,” he says, his voice now turning hard as ancient stone. “I became its keeper. Its guardian against the very darkness that took her from me. The curse that binds the one you love, Dina… it is an abomination. A creation of the same evil lineage, a blight upon the natural world. I have sworn to see such perversions of life unmade.”
His desperation is still a raw, open wound, but now it is forged into the shape of righteous purpose. He is not just a grieving lover; he is a vengeful warden.
“To undo a curse so powerful, the Wildspont requires a catalyst,” he explains, his ancient eyes locking onto mine. “Its magic must be fueled by a life force of immense purity and strength, an energy that burns brightly enough to scour the darkness away. It requires a heart free of despair.” The pleading in his gaze is a physical force. He sees something in me, something I don't understand myself.
The air deflates from my lungs. I am still a tool. A key. But now I am a key to fuel a cure.
“You have a faint trace of the old blood,” he whispers, as if sensing my recoil. “Thepurnablood. It is why you survived the hardships of your life with your spirit, your hope, intact. It is why your life force burns so brightly. It is why you are the only one who can power the ritual.” He leans closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush. “The exchange is not a brutal thing. For you, it would be a gentle release. A painless fading as your energy is given to the font, a final, noble act to save the man you love.”
He preys on me. He knows he does. He is using his grief as a weapon, using my compassion as the leverage to get what he wants. But the picture he paints… it takes root in my mind.
He sees the conflict in my eyes and presses his advantage, his voice turning hard, cruel. “Imagine his future, Dina, if you refuse. He will not let you sacrifice yourself, and so he will remain as he is. They will hunt him. The Dark Elves will never stop. Every day will be a battle, every night a flight. And with every passing year, the fire of the curse will burn away more of the man. The memories you have awakened in him will fade. His love for you will become a beast’s possessive instinct. He will forget his name, his clan, his honor. He will become nothing butthe monster, a creature of pure, mindless rage, trapped in an agony you cannot comprehend, for eternity.”
The image he conjures is a vision of hell. Xylon, his soul extinguished, his eyes holding nothing but the red haze of the beast. My Xylon. Gone forever. I cannot bear it. A sob escapes my throat, a sound of pure, helpless grief. My life, my short, brutal life, in exchange for sparing him that? It is no choice at all.
“I’ll do it,” I whisper, the words a surrender, a vow. My heart feels like a leaden weight in my chest, but my resolve is absolute. I will not be the author of his eternal damnation.
A wave of profound, shuddering relief washes over Kasian’s face. The desperate supplicant is gone, replaced once more by the ancient, weary keeper. He has won. “Behind his back,” I add, my voice gaining a shard of steel. “He would never allow it.”
“I know,” Kasian says softly. He reaches out and places a hand on my shoulder. His touch is impossibly cold, like marble. I feel a faint, chilling magic seep from his palm into my skin, a delicate, numbing tingle that spreads through my veins. It is not painful. It is… silencing.
“He will not sense you leave,” he promises, his voice a soft, final note in the echoing silence. “And when he wakes, his curse will be broken, and you… you will be at peace.”
16
DINA
The cold magic from Kasian’s touch lingers on my shoulder, a faint, numbing chill that is both a promise and a curse. It is the magic of secrets, of betrayal. It is the tool that will allow me to save the man I love by breaking his heart.
