Chapter 13

SAPHRA'S POV

The knock comes again.

Sharp....Commanding..... Unyielding.

I don’t move.

I sit on the edge of the narrow bed, staring at the door as if I can burn it down with my eyes alone. My hands are clenched in my lap so tightly my nails bite into my palms, but I welcome the sting. It keeps me anchored. It reminds me I am still here. Still myself.

“Saphra,” a voice calls from the other side. One of the guards. The same one as before. “You are summoned.”

For the fifth time.

I say nothing.

Silence stretches. I imagine their irritation growing, the way men like them grow offended when a prisoner dares to pretend she has choices. I breathe slowly, as if calm might harden into armour.

The knock comes again, louder.

“You will answer.”

No.

My jaw tightens. I swing my legs off the bed and stand, squaring my shoulders even though no one can see me. If they want me, they can come and take me.

The lock clicks.

The door bursts inward with a violent crack of wood against stone.

Two guards surge into the room, armoured, armed, already reaching for me. Instinct takes over. I lunge forward with a snarl, raking my nails across the nearest man’s face. He yells, more in shock than pain, and I use the moment to drive my knee up into his groin.

He grunts and stumbles back.

The other grabs my arm. I twist violently, kicking, scratching, thrashing like a cornered animal. I catch skin, hear fabric tear. My heel connects with a shin. A fist clips my shoulder, hard enough to make my vision blur.

“Hold her!”

They overpower me through sheer size and training. Hands lock around my arms, iron bands dragging me toward the door. I plant my feet, screaming, rage tearing out of me in raw, wordless sound.

“Let go of me!”

They don’t.

They haul me into the corridor, my bare feet skidding against the cold stone floor. Servants scatter at the sight of me, eyes wide and heads bowed. Whispers follow in our wake like ghosts.

I don’t care.

I fight every step of the way until my throat burns and my limbs ache, until fury turns sharp and exhausted. By the time we reach the towering doors of Lucien’s study, my chest is heaving and my skin feels too tight for my body.

The doors swing open.

They throw me inside.

I stumble but don’t fall. I straighten slowly, breath ragged, heart pounding like a war drum in my ears.

Lucien stands behind his desk.

He is rigid, his spine straight, hands braced against the dark wood as if it is the only thing keeping him still. His face is carved from stone, but his eyes...his eyes are a storm barely contained.

The guards release me and retreat, closing the doors with a decisive thud that echoes through the room.

Silence crashes down between us.

“How did you know her name?” he demands.

No preamble. No courtesy. His voice is low, taut with fury. “My mother. How did you know her name?”

I laugh, a sharp and disbelieving sound torn from my chest. “That’s what you dragged me here for?”

His jaw tightens. “Answer me.”

I take a step forward despite myself. "Tell me how you were inside my memories.”

His eyes flare.

“I was not inside your—”

“Don’t lie to me!” The words explode out of me. “I felt you. I saw you. You were there the night my father died.”

Something dangerous flashes across his face.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about!” My hands curl into fists. “You stood in my home. You held the blade. I felt it when it went into him.”

The air between us crackles.

He comes around the desk in long, controlled strides. “That is impossible.”

“Then explain it!” I shout back.

Our voices rise together, colliding, echoing off the stone walls. He advances. I retreat, step by step, until there is nowhere left to go.

My back hits the bookshelf with a solid thud.

I suck in a breath.

He slams his palm into the wood beside my head.

The impact sends a violent shudder through the shelf. Books leap and tumble, leather-bound volumes raining down between us. Both of us flinch back instinctively as they crash to the floor, piling up in a chaotic heap like a hastily built wall.

Silence falls again.

We stare at each other across the barrier of fallen knowledge.

His chest rises and falls heavily, as if he has just run miles instead of crossing a room. His fingers flex at his side, betraying how close he is to losing control.

My fists are clenched so tight they tremble.

For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.

Then his shoulders stiffen further, and whatever restraint he has left locks into place.

“Get out,” he says, voice clipped, barely leashed. “Before I do something, I can not undo.”

I don’t wait to be told twice.

I turn and leave.

I walk out the study like the hounds of hell are at my heels, my breath tearing in and out of my lungs as I race through corridors I barely register. I don’t stop until I reach the servants’ wing, until I duck into the small library I know I’m allowed to enter.

I slam the door shut behind me and lean against it, shaking.

Across the palace, I know somehow Lucien is doing the same thing.

Separating himself.

Searching for answers.

I force myself upright and move to the shelves. My hands skim spines worn smooth by generations of servants seeking scraps of forbidden knowledge. Folklore. Old magic. Dream-omens. Bonds whispered about but never studied by those without power.

I pull books at random, stacking them on the table, on the floor, anywhere there is space. I read hungrily, desperately, eyes scanning pages by candlelight as hours slip by unnoticed.

Shared dreams.

Soul echoes.

Sympathetic magic.

My pulse quickens as I read passage after passage describing rare phenomena and connections formed through bloodshed, through fate, through magic that does not ask permission.

Then I find it.

A thin, dust-choked book wedged between two larger tomes. The ink is faded, the language archaic, but the meaning is unmistakable.

Incomplete bonds can result in psychological entanglement between the parties. Emotions may bleed through. Memories may surface unbidden. Distance does not sever the connection.

My hands go numb.

I read it again. And again.

Warnings follow. Madness.... Loss of self.... The erosion of boundaries until one can not tell where one soul ends and the other begins.

“No,” I whisper.

Across the palace, Lucien stands in his own vast library, yanking books from shelves no one else is allowed to touch. Ancient treaties..... Forbidden rites..... Mate bonds dissected by scholars who feared them as much as they revered them.

He finds the passages that confirm it.

Bonded pairs may share pain and fear.

His breath stutters.

He throws a book across the room. It slams into the wall with a violent crack, pages fluttering like wounded birds to the floor.

In my library, my vision blurs. My fingers curl around the fragile page, and before I can stop myself, I tear it in half.

The sound is soft.

Final.

I stare at the torn edges, at the truth bleeding through the room around me. Books lie open everywhere, their words screaming the same conclusion in a dozen different ways.

The impossible has happened.

We are bound.

Not by choice.

But by blood, by trauma, by a bond that should never have been forged and now refuses to be ignored.

I sink into a chair, trembling, denial warring with the cold certainty settling in my bones.

Somewhere in the palace, Lucien stands amid shattered silence, fists clenched, rage and terror twisting together in his chest.

Neither of us wants to believe it.

But the evidence surrounds us.

And there is no escape from what we have become to each other.