Runes across his body blazed white-hot, carved wards shrieking to resist—and failed.
Her voice dropped, close as breath.
“They’ve put a beast inside of you.”
Her hand slid deeper—into him, past bone and blood.
“To leash the Vargrún. And in my Silari. The audacity. The greed.”
Her lips curled, ancient and wrathful.
His knees buckled. Her words scorched through him.
“Even I cannot burn him out. You must learn to chain him… or he will break you.”
Kailorien’s hands shot up, clamped around hers, desperate.
“Auryn!”His voice cracked.
He expected fire. Expected to burn. Instead— the light wrapped around him. Warm. Shielding. The divine surrounded his hands, not to consume, but to protect. The thing that wasn’t Auryn smiled.
“The Aegis clings to a candle and calls it a sun. She is small, and you would bleed for her.”
Her skin fractured, glowing cracks spreading like porcelain breaking.
“This vessel will not last. You took me from the Cradle too soon. This body limps. Falters. Will you always carry something so small and malformed?”
“She isn’t small,” he snarled. “She iseverything.”
The Bond pulsed once—faint, like a memory. Amusement brushed him, cruel and cold.
“Then cling. Hold your doomed love, my Silari. You will tire of it. And soon, you will come home, to mend our broken Garden.”
Her eyes dimmed. The gold drained away. And Auryn fell into his arms.
A burned star. Bare, bloodied, streaked with runes that flickered once and died. Her weight was too heavy for her frame, too fragile in his hands.
“Auryn,”he whispered.“Auryn—”
Nothing.
Not in the Bond.
Not from her lips.
Her head lolled against him, and he saw a blotch at the nape of her neck.The scar.The brand. Hissing. Smoking. Raised purple flesh scorched past recovery. Something inside him cracked open.
His wards pulsed—brighter.
Red this time.
Rage.
… they have dared…
THEY HAVE DARED!
His eyes bled crimson, pupils slitting like a beast's. Mana poured off him in waves, warping the air. Stone bent. The chamber groaned.
