Chapter Thirty Four - Blood and Bone ( Aria's POV )

The forest didn’t sing when we returned.

Even after we left the Shadow Keep far behind, silence clung to us like a second skin. The pack moved as one, alert, restless, half expecting Ronan’s shadow to rise from the trees and strike again. But nothing came. Not a whisper. Not a tremor.

Kael led the way, one hand never straying far from his blade. His steps were steady, but I could feel the tension in the way his shoulders locked with every sound. Lyra trailed behind, hood pulled low, the faint light of her runes nothing more than a pale ghost against the fading dusk.

And me...

I walked between them, feeling both lighter and more hollow than I’d ever felt in my life. The Veilstone had stripped Ronan’s bond from me. I could breathe without the weight of him pressing down on my ribs, could hear my heartbeat without the echo of his.

But something else had been taken too.

The bond that had been woven between me and the child was weaker now. Not gone, but thin. Like a fraying thread stretched too tight.

Every time the wind brushed against me, I found myself pressing a hand against my stomach, searching for that steady rhythm that had once been so sure.

And every time I found it fainter, the fear grew sharper.

By the time night fell, Kael led us into a narrow valley where the forest opened to a clearing ringed by stone outcroppings. A fire flickered to life within minutes. The pack moved with quiet efficiency, setting watch posts, sharpening weapons, tending wounds. The way wolves prepared for the next battle, even when the last one had just ended.

Kael sat at the fire’s edge, head bowed, hands braced on his knees. His shirt clung to him, still streaked with dried blood from the Keep. He’d refused to rest, and it showed in the deep shadows under his eyes.

Lyra crouched across from me, studying my face with that too, knowing stare of hers.

“You’re quiet,” she said softly.

“I’m tired.”

She tilted her head. “No. You’re afraid.”

I didn’t answer.

Her gaze dropped to my hand, pressed unconsciously over my stomach, and understanding flickered across her face. “You feel it too.”

My throat tightened. “It’s different now.”

“Of course it is,” she murmured. “You severed the bond Ronan forced. When magic is torn, something always bleeds. It’s a miracle the child is still here at all.”

I flinched.

She reached forward, her hand hovering over mine. “I didn’t say it’s lost. Only that it’s vulnerable now. That’s why we have to move quickly.”

“Move where?” I asked. “We’ve already torn the bond out of me. Isn’t that what we needed?”

Lyra shook her head slowly. “You cut him out, yes. But bonds like that don’t just disappear. They rot. And when they rot, they leave things behind.”

I stared at her. “Like what?”

She didn’t answer immediately. When she did, her voice was barely a whisper. “Like something that will eventually try to grow again.”

A cold shiver slid down my spine.

Kael rose then, approaching us with that quiet intensity that always preceded a fight. “Explain.”

Lyra met his gaze steadily. “The Veilstone severed Ronan’s hold, but not the scar he left. If we leave it, the remnants of his power will fester. It’ll either consume her from the inside…” she hesitated, “…or find something else to anchor to.”

Kael’s expression darkened. “The child.”

She nodded.

I could feel my heartbeat now, too fast, too loud. “You’re saying if we don’t stop it, he’ll come back through them?”

Lyra’s silence was all the answer I needed.

The pack’s murmurs died as Kael called them in. His voice was sharp, clipped, all Alpha now. “We’re heading to Blackthorn Ridge.”

A low ripple moved through the wolves. I didn’t know the name, but they clearly did. Lyra’s head snapped toward him. “Are you insane?”

“It’s the only place left,” Kael said. “The Blood Circle is still intact there. If there’s a way to burn the rot out completely, that’s where it’ll be.”

“That place is cursed,” Lyra hissed. “You know what happens to wolves who walk into it.”

Kael didn’t flinch. “I know. But I also know what happens if we don’t.”

Her jaw tightened. “And you’d risk everything on a ritual that killed your father.”

The words dropped like a stone. The fire crackled. The air thickened.

Kael didn’t respond immediately. When he finally did, his voice was low. “He didn’t die because of the Circle. He died because he went in alone. I won’t make that mistake.”

The wolves watched him silently, the way soldiers watch a king walk into a war no one comes back from.

We left before dawn.

The path to Blackthorn Ridge cut through what the pack called the Ashlands, burned forest from an old war between wolf and shadow. The ground was hard and gray, the trees little more than blackened spines clawing at the sky. It was the kind of place where sound didn’t echo right, where even the air seemed afraid to breathe.

Kael kept the pace brutal. No one complained. No one dared.

By nightfall, the Ridge loomed before us.

A jagged line of stone cut through the forest like the spine of some ancient beast. And at its heart, a circle of black stones carved into the earth, old as the moon itself.

Lyra’s face went pale when she saw it. “This place was never meant to be used again.”

Kael ignored her. His gaze locked on the altar at the center of the Circle, where blood had long ago dried into the stone. “Set the wards. No one crosses until I say.”

The pack fanned out in silence.

Lyra turned to me. “If we do this, there’s no turning back. The Blood Circle doesn’t take kindly to doubt. It was built to bind gods and monsters alike. It won’t spare her just because she’s innocent.”

I looked at Kael, at the hard line of his jaw, at the exhaustion buried behind his eyes, at the way his hand never once left the hilt of his blade.

Then I looked at the Ridge. The stones seemed to hum beneath the earth, low and dangerous, like they remembered the blood they’d tasted long ago.

“I don’t care what it takes,” I said quietly. “I’m not letting him touch what’s mine.”

Kael’s eyes met mine then. Whatever restraint had been holding him back cracked. He closed the distance in two strides, his hands cupping my face with a gentleness that didn’t match the violence around us.

“You’re stronger than you know,” he whispered. “But if anything goes wrong, I’ll drag you out myself. Even if I have to burn this place to the ground.”

My breath caught. “Kael....”

But he didn’t let me finish. “Do you understand?”

I nodded.

Lyra stepped forward then, pressing a hand against my stomach. Her runes glowed faintly, almost apologetic. “Once this begins, the Circle won’t care about our intentions. It will demand blood. The only question is whose.”

The ritual began at midnight.

The moon hung high, thin and sharp as a blade. The Circle blazed to life under Lyra’s chant, runes scrawled in old tongue burning along the stones. The ground vibrated, a low thrum that crawled up through my bones.

Kael stood just beyond the outer ring, blade drawn. The wolves formed a perimeter. No one spoke. No one moved.

I stepped into the Circle alone.

The air changed instantly. It wasn’t just colder, it was alive. The magic here wasn’t like the Veilstone. It wasn’t light or dark. It was hunger. Ancient. Endless.

The bond flared inside me, weak but still pulsing. I felt the rot Lyra had warned about, a thin thread of black, coiled tight around the child’s heartbeat like a thorned vine.

Lyra’s voice rose, words sharp as knives. The stones answered. Power surged up through the Circle, slamming into me with the force of a tidal wave. My knees buckled.

Then the whispers began.

Ronan’s voice wasn’t there, but something of him was. A remnant. A scar. It slithered through my mind like smoke.

You can’t cut me out, little seer.

I gasped, clutching my stomach.

Kael stepped forward, but Lyra threw up a hand. “Not yet!”

The black thread inside me writhed, tightening. The child’s heartbeat fluttered, unsteady. Panic ripped through me.

“No,” I whispered. “Not again.”

I reached inward, not with magic, but with everything left of me. Every heartbeat. Every breath. Every piece of me that Ronan had tried to take.

The Circle responded.

The stones bled light, red and gold and silver. Lyra’s chanting blurred into the roar of the wind. The bond snapped tight like a bowstring, and pain lanced through me so sharp I screamed.

The black thread fought. It twisted, burned, tried to claw its way deeper.

Kael’s voice cut through the storm. “Aria. Breathe.”

The sound of him anchored me. Pulled me back.

I dug deeper. Into the bond. Into the heartbeat. Into us.

And I tore.

The rot screamed as it ripped free, a sound too inhuman to be real. Light exploded from the Circle, slamming upward into the sky like a beacon. The black thread burned away, leaving nothing but ash in its wake.

I collapsed to my knees, gasping. The air around me settled, the stones’ hum dimming to a low, contented pulse.

Lyra staggered forward, face pale and wet with sweat. “It’s done,” she whispered. “He’s gone. For good this time.”

Kael was there before she finished the sentence, his arms wrapping around me, grounding me, holding me together when I could barely breathe.

For the first time since Ronan had entered my life, the bond inside me was silent. Not fractured. Not shadowed. Just mine.

Ours.

But as the firelight caught the stones of the Circle, I thought, just for a heartbeat. I saw something in the darkness beyond the ridge.

Watching.

Waiting.

And I knew, this war wasn’t over.

It had only changed shape.