1: The night it all started.

The Palace of Ouroboros did not feel like a home. It felt like a prison.

Elena pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the Moon Glow Balcony. Behind her, the hallway stretched silent, lined with doors that only opened for men in gold masks.

 Twenty-four years of purified air and machines that beeped while they measured the weakness in her blood.

She touched her chest. Her heartbeat was thin, like a bird trapped under her ribs. Always had been. The doctors said her heart was hollow. Said the air outside would kill her. She believed them because she had no reason not to.

"Just five minutes, Caspian." Her voice came out smaller than she wanted.

Behind her, Caspian shifted. The glow of his spear flickered across the marble floor. He was a High Warden. Supposed to be stone and steel. But she could hear his breathing fast, nervous.

"The High Priest will have my head if he finds you out here." His voice was low, tight. "The air… it's not safe for you, Elena."

She did not answer. She stepped out onto the balcony.

The cold hit her first. Not the clean, fake cold of her room. This was sharp. Real. It bit her cheeks and slipped down her collar. She sucked in a breath, waiting for her lungs to seize, for her heart to stop the way the priests always warned.

Nothing happened.

She breathed again. The air tasted like pine and old snow. It burned going down, but it was not poison. It was alive.

Her fingers curled around the iron railing. The metal was rough with frost. She looked out at the valley below it was darkness dotted with distant lights. She had only seen it in paintings before. The outside. The world that was supposed to kill her.

"They told me the outside would kill me," she said. "They said my heart was hollow. That the air was poison."

Caspian did not answer. She heard his spear tap the stone as he adjusted his grip.

She turned just enough to see him. He was staring at the tree line below the mountain, his jaw tight, his hand wrapped around his blade.

"The High Priest," he finally said, "does what he has to, to keep you safe."

"I don't feel safe, Caspian." She turned back to the railing. "I feel like a secret."

The stars above were not pretty. They hung low and jagged, like broken glass against a bruised sky. She had read about constellations once. Maps of light that travelers used to find their way. She wondered if anyone out there was looking up at the same sky.

"Why do a hundred men guard a girl who faints if she walks too fast?" she asked.

Caspian opened his mouth. Closed it. She saw the war in his eyes duty against whatever kindness had made him bring her here.

"Just look at the stars Elena," he finally replied. "That's all the 'why' you need."

Elena looked. But she did not see the shadow behind him.

No one did.

Sloane did not drop from the sky. He did not crash through glass. He stepped out of darkness at the end of the balcony, as if the night had spit him out. One moment nothing. The next, a man in a charcoal suit, his hands empty, his eyes on the girl at the railing.

Caspian never had a chance.

Sloane moved. No sound. No warning. He was just there, behind Caspian, one arm hooking his chin back, the other drawing a blade across his throat. Caspian's hands went slack. His body crumpled. His head hit the ground with a wet, hollow thud. Blood spread across the marble, black in the starlight.

Elena heard the thud. She felt something warm hit the back of her robe. She turned.

Caspian lay in two pieces at her feet. His face was frozen, no time to become afraid. His spear lay beside him.

The scream caught in her throat. It died somewhere between her lungs and her mouth.

She looked up at the man standing over the body.

He was not what she expected. No horns. No monster. He was handsome in a cold way. sharp features, cheekbones that cut the light, a jaw that looked like it had never smiled. His suit was clean, not a thread out of place.

But his eyes. His eyes were empty. No hate. No anger. Just a void. He looked at her like she was a job that needed finishing.

"Twenty-four years," he said. His voice was low, dry, like a man who had not spoken in decades. "You've been a problem, Little Savior. Time to close the book."

Elena's legs gave out. She stumbled back, her dress catching on Caspian's armor. Cold metal pressed against her leg.

"Savior?" The word came out a whisper. "I'm nobody. I'm just sick. Please dont hurt me".

"Sick." He laughed. A short, ugly sound. "You're a plague. And tonight, I'm the cure."

He lunged.

The blade was inches from her throat then...

CRACK.

It was not a sound in the air. It was inside his skull. Inside his bones.

Sloane's knees hit the marble. His dagger skidded across the floor. Golden light tore out of his wrist, burning through his sleeve. It condensed into numbers. Cold. Bright. Counting down.

23:59:59… 23:59:58…

He gasped, clutching his arm. He could feel it. His divinity leaking out of him like smoke. Every tick was a year of his life ripped away. His heart seized in his chest, a cold thing that had not beaten in five hundred years, now dying.

"What…" He looked up at the girl. She was pressed against the railing, hands over her mouth, shaking. "What did you do?"

Elena stared at him. The man who had killed Caspian was on his knees, bleeding light, looking afraid.

And something inside her moved.

It was not a choice. It was the heat that had lived in her blood her whole life the sickness the priests watched, the weakness the doctors measured suddenly finding somewhere to go. Her soul reached for the void in his.

She stepped forward.

Her legs shook. Her bare feet slipped in Caspian's blood. She did not look down.

Her fingers touched the brand.

The light stopped.

Sloane gasped. A drowning man breaking the surface. He sucked air into lungs choking in his breathe

23:58:12.

Frozen. as her skin touched his, the leak was plugged. He looked at her fingers around his wrist, then at her face. Wide eyes. Wet cheeks. She had no idea what she had just done.

A siren ripped through the night. Low and loud, bouncing off the mountain. Shouting followed. Armor clashing. Spears humming.

Sloane hauled her up. She cried out, trying to pull away, but he held on. He could not let go. The second her skin left his, the clock would start again.

"The Wardens are coming," he hissed. "If they take you back, they will drain you. If my brothers find you, they will finish what I started."

"Drain me?" Her voice cracked. "I need my medicine. I need the High Priest"

"The High Priest is a butcher." He yanked her closer. "And you are the meat on his table."

She tried to wrench free. Her fingers slipped. The timer flickered

23:58:11

 she froze and pressed back down. She understood now. Not what she was. But what she had become to him.

"You're my life support now," he said. "And unfortunately for us, that makes me your only hope."

"No." She shook her head, tears falling. "No, let me go"

He did not argue.

His hand came up. A quick blow, softer than he had ever hit anything. She went limp in his arms.

He caught her, one arm under her knees, the other keeping her hand pressed to his wrist. She was light. Too light. Her heartbeat pulsed against his chest, thin and fast, and with every pulse, the timer stayed frozen.

He looked down at her face. Pale. Bruised. A girl who thought she was a patient, not knowing she was a goddess.

In one last glance, he looked at the body of the only man who had tried to show her the stars then dash down the mountains into the forest.