004

IVY POV 

 The hall of the Blackthorns was a throat of stone high, cold, and swallowing every sound my boots made. I stepped over the threshold and the heavy doors groaned shut behind me like they regretted it. Torch smoke drifted low, carrying the sting of pine resin and something darker, almost sweet, like blood left too long on iron. I tasted metal on my tongue and kept walking. Wolf pelts hung from the rafters, gray and black, eyes glassy, mouths frozen in last snarls. Their shadows jittered in the draft, snapping at my shoulders. I didn’t look up again; I was busy listening to my own heart argue with the silence. Each beat said, Turn around. Each echo answered, Too late. At the far end he waited, framed by a hearth wide enough to burn a coffin. Kael Blackthorn stood with his back to the flames, the fire licking outlines around him, and the first thing I noticed was that he held himself like a man leaning into a storm that only he could feel. His eyespaler than the smoke locked on mine, and the bond struck. It wasn’t gentle. It was a crack racing across winter glass, a sudden map of ruin. My knees wanted to fold; I locked them. His fingers whitened on the back of a chair, knuckles flashing in firelight. For a second neither of us breathed. Then he inhaled, rough, like surf dragging over shingle. “So the prophecy dragged you here after all,” he said. Voice low, almost casual, but I heard the strain underneath, a rope pulled to fraying. “I walked on my own feet,” I answered, surprised how steady I sounded. “The prophecy only gave the destination.” A twitch at the corner of his mouth almost amusement, almost contempt. “And you always obey scraps of paper?” “Only when they start bleeding in my dreams.” That silenced him. The fire popped, scattering sparks that died before touching the stone floor. Somewhere in the rafters a draft moaned, long and hollow. I felt the bond stretch between us, a living tether humming with questions neither wanted to ask. He pushed off the chair and started forward. Slow, deliberate, the way wolves circle when they aren’t sure if the trapped thing has teeth. I held my ground, though every instinct screamed to meet him halfway or bolt. When he stopped an arm’s length away, the air thickened. I smelled pine needles on his skin, and something rawer earth after lightning. “You should have stayed lost,” he muttered. “Easy to say when you’re not the one being hunted.” His gaze flicked to my throat, lingered on the pulse hammering there. “You think you’re safer inside these walls?” “I think I’m done running.” A lie, but it tasted better than fear. I watched the muscles in his jaw bunch. The bond pulsed again, feeding me an emotion that wasn’t mine—fury tangled tight with hunger. My stomach clenched. I took one step back before I could stop myself, and the moment I did, his eyes narrowed. “Afraid, little seer?” “Cautious,” I snapped. “There’s a difference.” “Not in my experience.” The tether yanked, hard. Heat surged up my spine, burst behind my eyes. Every torch in the hall guttered at once, flames flattening like palms pressed by wind. The pelts overhead stirred though no draft touched them. I felt my power rise, uninvited, a red tide climbing a cracked dam. My skin prickled as if stung by nettles. Kael’s face drained of color. He staggered, one hand going to his chest like I’d punched him with air. “Stop,” he rasped. “I’m not ” I started, but the words tangled. The power wasn’t listening to me; it was answering his heartbeat, the sudden spike of pain I hadn’t meant to share. The nearest torch died completely, spitting a coil of black smoke. Shadows lunged closer. He dropped to a knee. The sight cracked something inside me I didn’t want to name. I shoved the heat down, swallowing it like broken glass. Slowly the flames found their height again, wavering but alive. My ears rang. When I could focus, he was rising, shoulders heaving, eyes bright with something wild. “First taste?” he asked, voice scraped raw. I managed a nod. “Then we’re both dead,” he said, almost gently. The hall felt smaller, stones leaning inward. I wrapped my arms around myself to keep the tremor from showing. “Explain.” He dragged a hand through dark hair, leaving furrows. “The bond feeds on imbalance. You flare, I bleed. I lose control, you drown. Either way the rogues outside pick our bones once the howling stops.” Rogues. The word slipped cold between my ribs. “I thought Blackthorns ruled these forests.” “We did.” He glanced toward the high narrow windows, night pressing its face against the glass. “Until the border clans smelled weakness. My father’s death left a scar they keep tearing open.” There it was the first thread of vulnerability, frayed and blood-stained. I tugged it before caution could stop me. “And the prophecy says I’m supposed to heal that scar?” His laugh was short, humorless. “The prophecy says you’ll either save us or finish the job. It neglects to mention which feels worse.” I studied him: the tired lines around his mouth, the way his left hand kept flexing like it remembered a sword hilt that wasn’t there. He wasn’t the monster rumors painted, but broken things cut deeper than whole ones. I knew that from experience. “Why bring me inside, then?” I asked softer. “You could’ve left me on the steppe.” He met my gaze, and for a heartbeat the tether went quiet, listening. “Because when I tried to walk away,” he said, “my legs forgot how.” Honesty, raw as winter bone. It hurt to hold. I exhaled shakily. “So we’re shackled.” “For now.” A howl drifted from the distant trees, different pitch from the wind roughened, deliberate. Then another answered, higher, eager. Kael’s head lifted, nostrils flaring. The color that had returned to his cheeks drained again. “They’re testing the perimeter,” he murmured. “Closer than yesterday.” I felt the sound crawl under my skin, a warning vibration. My power stirred, restless. “You have sentries?” “Not enough.” He turned to me fully, decision hardening his features. “I need every blade. That includes the one the moon tethered to my ribs.” I flinched at the image. “I don’t know how to fight.” “You’ll learn.” He stepped nearer, close enough I could count the faint white scar slicing through his left brow. “Or we both burn out before the next new moon.” Another howl, nearer. Torches shivered though the doors were shut. My heartbeat synced to the rhythm of approaching paws without my consent. Survival, blunt and ugly, stared me down. Kael extended his hand, palm up, scarred, steady. “Truce,” he said. “Until the rogues are ash.” I stared at the offering. In the firelight the lines of his palm looked like roads on a map leading straight into darkness. My own hand rose without permission, fingers trembling. When our skin touched, the bond clicked, a key turning in a rusted lock. Heat flared, then settled into a low, constant thrum no longer clawing, simply waiting. “Truce,” I echoed, voice barely above the crackle of flames. Outside, the wolves sang louder, braver. Inside, we stood joined by necessity and something older, something neither of us trusted. His fingers closed around mine, sealing the fragile pact. I felt the weight of his pulse, and mine answered, two drums in the same desperate song. Neither of us let go.