Elias stepped closer again, his voice low but sharp. “You will not take Rowena to the Moon Temple because she belongs only to me now.”I raised my hand, my power already burning in my chest. “You are wrong, Elias, because we will never let you keep her.”Ronan pulled Rowena tighter with the rope, his jaw locked. “If you think you will touch her tonight, you will be destroyed.”Elias laughed darkly, spreading his hands wide. “You think you two are enough to stop me when the child already belongs entirely to me.”I glared at him, refusing to step back. “It’s not Rowena we care about, Elias. It’s Ronan’s child inside her, and because of that, she will not go with you.”Ronan growled low, his voice filled with rage. “You think binding my child gives you power over us, but it only fuels my hatred for you.”Elias tilted his head and smirked wider. “Hatred will not protect you, Ronan, because your life is already nothing but a fragile thread.”I shouted sharply. “Stop your words, Elias, beca
“I need to think,” I whispered to myself, still standing alone in the quiet forest, my mind racing faster than my heartbeat.My eyes darted around, scanning the empty trees. “If Ronan is still out there, I have to find him right now without wasting any more time.”Then I froze, remembering his voice before we left the Moon Temple. “If we get separated, meet me at the temple’s southern wall,” he had said firmly.My chest loosened slightly, though fear still gripped me tightly. “That’s where he’ll be. That’s where I have to go right now.”I took a sharp breath. “I can’t walk slowly, and I can’t run like this either. I have to be faster than both.”My voice hardened. “I won’t let what I saw in that vision happen to him, not now, not ever if I can help it.”I clenched my fists. “The Moon Goddess wouldn’t have shown me that vision unless something terrible was already happening to him at this moment.”I shook my head. “If it’s not happening right now, then maybe it’s coming soon, and only
I gasped as the darkness around me twisted and thinned, pulling me away from Elias’s smirking face, the sound of his voice fading until there was nothing but silence.My body jolted like I’d been thrown, and suddenly I was back in the forest near the Hollow Shrine, the wet earth cold beneath my boots.“Ronan?” My voice came out sharp, louder than I meant, but there was no answer. “Ronan, where are you? I'm back.”I turned in a slow circle, scanning the trees and the clearing where we had been only moments ago, but he wasn’t there. Rowena wasn’t there either. The altar was empty, the blood on its surface already starting to fade as if it had never been real. The black mist that had surrounded her was gone, leaving only the still night air.“This… this doesn’t make sense,” I muttered under my breath, my heartbeat quickening. “He wouldn’t just leave me here.”I started walking toward the path we’d come from, but then stopped, my chest tightening with a wave of dread. “No… Ronan wouldn’t
I glanced around the strange emptiness of the bond. Then, all at once, my mind snapped open in a way it hadn’t before. Lyria’s words hit me hard, echoing loud and heavy in my head.“Damnit, I forgot before I entered the bond that Lyria had given me three options to keep Ronan’s child from being bound to Elias. So coming into the bond right now is definitely not going to work,” I whispered to myself, my voice shaking as I thought about the three options Lyria had given me earlier tonight.Ronan’s voice was not here with me, but I could still hear his promise inside my head, and that made my chest ache harder.“The first option,” I said to myself slowly, “was to find Rowena before the ritual ended, so we could perform the Rite of Severance.”I clenched my hands into fists, feeling the air inside this bond swirl faintly around me like a warning that my time was short.“That option is useless now,” I muttered, trying to stay calm. “The binding between Ronan’s child and Elias is already co
“She’s gone,” Lyria said, her voice trembling as she stared at the glowing Moonstone. “Rowena has already begun the dark ritual.”Ronan stepped forward fast, his voice filled with rage. “Tell me where she went, and I will end this before it’s too late.”The lead priestess shook her head slowly, her face grim. “We do not know exactly where Elias is hiding, only that she’s heading toward him.”“She can’t be far yet,” I said, my voice firm though my hands were shaking. “We can still catch her before she finishes.”“If we leave now,” Ronan added sharply, “we might reach her before she completes the bond that ties my child to Elias.”Lyria’s voice turned fearful. “You don’t understand how fast this ritual works. Once it starts, every second brings the end closer.”“I won’t let her do this,” I said, gripping Ronan’s arm tightly. “Not after everything we’ve fought through to stop him.”Ronan looked at me, his eyes burning. “We either stop her now, or we let this child become the weapon that
The words hung in the air, cold and sharp, sinking deeper than any blade. Kill Rowena. My mind reeled, trying to process the command. It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t a choice. It was a sentence, spoken with a cold and final tone, like a command from a god.“No,” I breathed, the word barely a whisper, but it felt like a shout in the suffocating silence.Ronan, who had been frozen beside me, finally moved. He took a half-step in front of me, his body a shield. “You want us to murder her? An unarmed woman carrying my child?”His voice was dangerously low, a growl of disbelief and fury rumbling in his chest. I could feel the heat of his anger, the protective instinct that flared to life not just for me, but for the life he had just learned he’d created.The lead priestess’s expression remained unchanged, her eyes like chips of ice. “It is not a murder. It is a necessary sacrifice. Her life, for the balance of the world.”“That’s not a sacrifice, that’s an execution,” I shot back, findin