“Turns out being a Celestial Sentinel comes with perks. Like mental communication that ignores little things like magical torture devices. You look terrible, by the way. The flowers are nice, very artistic, but the whole ‘being dissolved into a building’ thing? Not your best look.”
“Thanks. Very helpful.”But gods, hearing their voice, their snark, their refusal to let the horror of this situation kill the humor, it was an anchor, something to hold onto.
Then, through our bond, I felt it.
The moment Kaelren stopped fighting. Stopped resisting. Let the corruption take him completely.
And became something else.
It should have terrified me.
It didn’t.
It feltright.Like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place.
He’d become death. And I was becoming life. Perfect opposites. Perfect balance.
For the first time since they’d strapped me into this apparatus, I felt something other than pain. I felt hope.
We might actually do this.
Then the temperature in the chamber dropped.
Not gradually. Instantly. Like someone had opened a door to the void itself. And speaking of doors, the ones entering the chamber were suddenly obliterated, leaving no barrier between me and my dark knight.
Auradelle’s head snapped toward the entrance, his face going pale. “No. That’s impossible. Malachar was supposed to—the wards should have kept you out—”
“Didn’t work,” a voice said, and even changed, even transformed into something other, I knew that voice.Kaelren.“Nothing works anymore.”
Despite everything—despite the pain and the dissolution and the apparatus trying to turn me into architecture—Ismiled.
The handsome bastard had pulled through.
Kaelren stepped into the chamber, and the corruption had transformed him completely. Solid black marks covered every visible inch of skin, writhing and pulsing with their own terrible life. His eyes were pure onyx, reflecting no light, only consuming it. Where his feet touched the floor, stone cracked and withered, life fleeing from his presence.
But when those eyes found me, something in them was stillhim.Still the man who’d saved me, trained me, chosen me.
Still the man whose sexy ass was coming for me.
“Elle,” he said, my name somehow carrying warmth despite the cold radiating from him.
“Kaelren,” I whispered back, and felt our bond surge with recognition, with love, with determination.
Auradelle stumbled backward, his composure finally shatteringcompletely. “What has happened to Malachar?”
“Malachar’s dead,” Kaelren interrupted, moving forward with predatory grace that made something in my chest tighten despite the agony. “The wards were nothing. And I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” His eyes never left mine. “Sometimes you have to become the monster to save what you love.”
“Guards!” Auradelle screamed. “Stop him!”
A dozen Bloomguard rushed forward, weapons raised. Kaelren didn’t even look at them. He simply gestured, and they fell. Not wounded. Not bleeding. Just… ended. Life draining from them like water from cracked vessels.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Kaelren asked Auradelle, his voice carrying that terrible finality. “Root and Bloom merged. Death and life. Corruption and purity.” He looked at me, and something in his expression made my heart clench even as hope bloomed brighter. “You wanted us to be catalysts. Fine. We’ll be catalysts. But not for your vision.”
That’s when the other doors—the ones leading from the upper levels—burst open.
Bryx stood in the doorway, bleeding from multiple wounds, Kevin beside him with a wing dragging, and—
“Mora?” I gasped, or tried to. It came out as more of a whisper.
