And yet… I couldn’t look away. His movements were too fluid, too graceful, every step deliberate—every flicker of golden light from him bent the jungle around him. I should’ve been praying for rescue. Instead, I was caught in the sick truth that if he struck, part of me wanted to feel it, wanted to know what it meant to be touched by something like him.
He was terror. He was awe.
And against every shred of my better judgment, I wanted him.
There was a magnetic pull in me that I was trying hard to fight. I didn't want to beattracted to him; I didn't want to be pulled into his orbit. All I wanted was to run. But where?
Iranhere, if how I got here could be called that. But he had found me with an uncanny ease, and part of me already knew he could do so again if he wished. So I stood there, staring at him, studying him, wondering.
He was the first to reach out; his hand moved toward me. My mind screamed at me to back away, but my body was frozen —it actuallycravedhis touch. It seemed to take forever and no time at all before his fingers gently brushed over the skin on my cheek. A shiver moved through me, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant. No, I'm lying, it was anything but unpleasant. It took an effort on my part not to lean into his touch. It was warm, soft, and, against all odds, reassuring.
His fingers lingered on my skin, a trail of fire, and then his voice shattered the moment. “You,” he said, low and dangerous, “should not exist here.”
His eyes narrowed, blacker than the void that had swallowed the planet. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you know what it cost me to find you?”
I blinked, thrown by the accusation. “Me?”
His hand dropped, and a curl of disdain twisted his mouth. “Yes, you. I was at the edge of the Dark Abyss, holding back an enemy that would flay this universe alive, and instead, I was dragged here. To you.” He paced a half-circle around me, his golden light brushing the vines back as though even the jungle bent to him. It began to flicker, going from pure gold to more of a rose gold. “Yourpresence ripped through the pull of Rotodex’s death and tore me from my duty.”
I stared at him, unsuccessfully holding back the heat rushing to my face. He made it sound like I’d invited him here, like I’d called him across that abyss.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I snapped. My voice cracked more from fear than anger, but he didn't need to know that.
“No,” he agreed, mocking, “you didn’t ask. But youarethe reason.” His gaze raked over me again, dark and merciless. “The balance. The fracture. My chains.” He let the last words drip with venom, like my existence itself was a betrayal, a curse.
The warmth of his touch still lingered on my cheek, mocking me as much as his words. Something inside me snapped. I jabbed a finger into his chest—hard enough that it stung my hand—and glared up at him. “Don’t you dare put this on me.”
My voice shook, not with fear but with fury now, the kind that had been clawing its way up my throat since the day the Cryons tore me from Earth.
“You want to talk about chains?” My finger jabbed him again. “Try being kidnapped off your own planet, dragged onto a spaceship like luggage, andsoldat an auction. Try standing next to a hundred strangers on a world you didn’t ask to see, wondering what disgusting reason you’ve been chosen for.” My breath came ragged, words tumbling over each other, each one hotter than thelast. “And now I’m here, on this—whatever this place is—and Istilldon’t know why.”
I shoved at his chest, furious at how solid he felt, how immovable. “So, forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for you, Mr. Golden-Glow. For all I know, it wasyouwho summonedmehere!”
The words echoed in the jungle, too loud, too raw.
I didn’t know where the anger was coming from—grief, terror, exhaustion—but I had never felt it burn this hot. I wanted to pummel him, to drive my fists into his perfect chest, to slap that infuriatingly handsome face until it wasn’t handsome anymore. I wanted to kick his carved-from-stone legs out from under him and damn him for existing at all.
Damn him for being so dangerously, unfairly, beautiful.
For a heartbeat,I could only stare at her. This fragile, furious mortal had jabbed her finger into my chest like I wasn’t an Arkhevari, Praetor of War, scourge of Nox Eternum. Not even my brothers would have dared. Among our kind, that gesture was an unspoken vow of blood.
And yet… she did it without flinching.
I should have crushed her hand. Should have unleashed my fury, reminded her exactly who I was. Instead, something low and dark twisted inside me, a spark of… admiration. Damn her. Damn this impossible pull.
My aura flared red with wrath but bled gray with confusion. I leaned down—she was so small—and locked eyes with her. “Do you understand what you just did?” My voice dropped to a lethal rumble. “Among my people, touching me like that is a death sentence.”
She held my gaze. Didn’t beg. Didn’t look away. Herchin lifted in defiance, as though she were challenging me—me, the mighty Zapharos himself. Intriguing. Infuriating.
I hated that I was drawn to her. Hated the quickening heat in my veins, the pull of something I’d sworn dead long ago. For eons, I’d believed the Aelyth to be nothing more than legend, scattered ash among the worlds I’d consumed. And here, impossibly, she stood before me. A living, breathing Aelyth. She was a miracle made flesh, light where there should have been none, warmth where only shadow had ever touched me—a beacon in the endless dark.
For us Arkhevari, she wasn’t just a myth. She wasthemyth. The promise whispered across dying stars, the balance our kind had bled for and lost. And now she stood before me, real, alive,mine.
I didn’t dare to breathe too deeply, afraid the dream would shatter. I didn’t dare to imagine what it might feel like to stop fighting the darkness every waking hour, to silence the endless war clawing inside my head, day and night.
What would it mean… to simply exist again?
Tobeinstead of merely survive?
