Ella stayed frozen, chest tight, eyes fixed on where he had gone under. The heat of the hot spring pressed into her head, dizzying, her skin prickling as the steam bubbled. Something ancient stirred beneath the surface, a magic that felt older than the mortal realm, and every instinct she had screamed that this water wasn’t ceremonial at all.
She turned and started for the steps, not knowing what else to do.
The gold threads in the water curled toward her wrists like molten bindings.
“Shit.”
The spring seized her and dragged her under in a single, merciless motion, her body plunging in after him without her permission.
The pool’s golden veins wrapped around her wrists like chains, and the water closed around her head, into her chest, suffocating, turning the world briefly into blackness.
When the water calmed and Ella could see again, she scanned the pool frantically, searching for Jakobav but not knowing which way was up. Finally, she found him caught in the depths, his body bent by the pull, his ribs bound not by Bryn’s stitching but by threads of light coiled around his chest like serpents. Each pulsing contraction drove him deeper, forcing the air from his lungs, breaking him piece by piece.
Fuck. Why isn’t he fighting more?
He was going to suffocate and drown if he didn’t move.
She kicked toward him despite the water’s pull rocking her in every direction. The gold threads pulsed, constricting tighter, and she swore she heard them whisper:Broken. Let him fall.
Panic cleaved her in two.
No. This can’t be happening.
Every nerve in her body sparked as she reached for him. She tore at the golden threads with her bare hands, pain streaking through her palms as if the fire of her Orchid blood was colliding with the sacred magic of the pool. Heat flared under her skin, her tattoo burning so bright it lit the water around them in pale green-gold light. The threads hissed, recoiled, then tangled again, more of them, endless, knotting across his ribs until his chest shuddered once and stilled.
I can’t let Maeren lose another to this cursed water—gods, not again.
And if he drowns here, what then?
What of the prophecy? The relic I’ve chased across kingdoms?
Prophecy be damned—I need him alive.
She sealed her mouth over his, forcing breath into him, the intimate press of lips made fierce and desperate by the certainty that he was slipping from her. He jerked beneath her touch, and his eyes opened, wild and glazed, locking with hers through the water. She fisted his hair floating around him in waves, tugging gently as if it could help force the air into his lungs.
Suddenly, he responded with a bite that was soft but had pierced her skin nonetheless. He’d tasted her, even here, and she felt it…that strange prickle of his Blood-Scent magic brushing across her.
The threads quivered but didn’t tighten; instead theyseemed to be listening.
Then came the other voice that wasn’t Jakobav’s, and it wasn’t her own; it was the pool itself. The realms, speaking through the current:Not just him. Take her. We want her. We have not tasted the fireblood of Orchid in centuries. Take her. Take her. TAKE HER.
The golden threads ripped away from his chest and coiled around hers instead, spearing through the water like a net. They wrapped her wrists, her throat, her ankles, dragging her down with a hunger that was not Dravaryn’s, but older, darker, and endless.
Her lungs convulsed, her body twisting as she reached for him, and her only anchor was his fingers still laced with hers.
He was weak, bleeding, broken, but he didn’t let her go. His jaw clenched, his lips bared, and then he moved with a savagery that appeared both instinct and choice, tugging their laced fingers close to his face with all the force he seemed to have left. His mouth closed over her wrist, teeth driving deep until blood bloomed in the water like a living flame, seeping outward until the water seemed to burn bright red.
He drank her in, deeper than ever before, and her entire body blazed as though he were siphoning the sun from her veins.
The pool recoiled, and the threads loosened, as if confused, writhing like they were tasting her magic inhisblood and breaking the pattern they’d sought to weave. Jakobav seized their hesitation and surged upward, pulling her with him, as if reforged in the furnace of her veins.
Her lungs strained, her vision searing at the edges, and with brutal clarity, she understood: if Jakobav faltered, the spring would claim her whole, pulling her into its depths like a prized treasure, never to see the light again. But Jakobav’s grip was iron, his arm banded around her waist as he kicked with the strength of a man who refused any fate but his own.
The water churned in their wake, the whispers howling now, a cacophony of rage and desire:She is ours. She is ours. She is ours.
The last of her breath spilled from her lips, but then his mouth found hers again, fierce and consuming, giving her the air he had stolen from her just as he had stolen her blood. It was not a kiss, not entirely. It was survival, and yet it singed through her soul, as if it were both.
They broke the surface in a violent rush, gasping into air and steam, her body clinging to his. Above the water, the arena held its breath. Then a single scream split the stillness, answered by another, until the stands roared to life like a storm given voice.
