Asher — POV She was burning. Not from fire. From power. I caught her before she hit the floor, and the moment my arms wrapped around her, I felt it—the aftermath of what she’d just done. The magic is still rolling through her blood like a second heartbeat, gold and untamed and alive. Her skin was hot to the touch, her breath shallow, her lips pale. But her eyes—gods—her eyes were open. And they were looking at me. “You idiot,” I murmured, brushing a smear of ash from her cheek. “You brave, reckless idiot.” She tried to laugh. It was more of a croak. “She’s gone?” I nodded. “Burnt. And if she’s not, she’ll wish she was.” Demian appeared at my side, armor charred, a cut leaking down his temple, sword still gripped like he didn’t trust the fight was over. “That was a tether?” he breathed. “I thought the whole damn mountain was about to come down.” “Not the mountain,” Isabella rasped. “Just the monastery.” My chest squeezed. She sounded exhausted. No. She sounded drained.
Isabella – POV The moment her words hit the air, the ground trembled beneath my boots. “You should’ve died with your mother, girl.” I didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Because that voice—cold, ancient, laced with something not of this world—wasn’t just threatening. It was memorable. “You knew her,” I said quietly. The woman didn’t smile. Her lips parted just enough to show sharpened teeth—unnatural, jagged things that looked carved by centuries of darkness. “I ended her.” My pulse roared. The bond between Asher and me flared again, a wild heartbeat in my chest. Gold fire raced up my arms. I didn’t need answers. Not now. I needed her on her knees. “Then you already know what happens next,” I whispered. And I struck. The fire exploded from my fingertips like a thrown sun. It hit the altar dead-on—splintering stone, shattering shadow—and for a breathless second, I thought she’d burned with it. She didn’t. She vanished. Black mist swallowed the spot where she’d stood. The fla
Isabella — POVI found the corner of the ruined chapel and sat hard.Not out of weakness.But because if I didn’t sit, I’d shatter something.My hands were coated in blood — some of it mine, most of it not. My armor hung crooked on one shoulder, dented and blackened. The wind was too quiet, like the earth was scared to breathe.And my heart? It was a drum against the cage of my ribs.But I wasn’t alone.Mason was there before I spoke his name. Before I even thought it. He crouched in front of me like he was afraid to touch me — not because I was fragile, but because I wasn’t.“You’re bleeding,” he said.I shrugged.“Isabella.”His voice was a low command, wrapped in velvet, wrapped in warning.I looked down at the gash across my side. “It’s shallow.”He didn’t answer.He just reached forward and pulled my tunic up enough to see it.Then he growled.A real, chest-deep, bone-echoing growl that made the world tilt. His fingers ghosted across the skin beside the cut like even touching it
Corrin — POVThe path to Duskmere wasn’t paved in stone.It was carved in memory—an old road the mapmakers had tried to forget, half-consumed by forest and shadow, too brittle to be real, too stubborn to vanish.We followed it anyway.Every step forward felt like walking deeper into a past none of us had chosen.Duskmere had once been a mining town. Iron-rich. Brutal. Built on the backs of workers who broke long before the rocks did. Then it went silent. Some said the earth gave up its last breath. Others whispered something older had crawled up from underneath and claimed the bones.I believed both.And as the trees thinned and the first collapsed rooftops came into view, I felt it.A stillness. Not peace.Something else.A warning.“We shouldn’t be here,” one of the younger scouts muttered behind me.Isabella didn’t turn around. “We’re not here to feel safe. We’re here to end this.”The wind hissed through the remnants of Duskmere like the ghosts were holding their breath.---Asher
Isabella — POVI found the corner of the ruined chapel and sat hard.Not out of weakness.But because if I didn’t sit, I’d shatter something.My hands were coated in blood — some of it mine, most of it not. My armor hung crooked on one shoulder, dented and blackened. The wind was too quiet, like the earth was scared to breathe.And my heart? It was a drum against the cage of my ribs.But I wasn’t alone.Mason was there before I spoke his name. Before I even thought it. He crouched in front of me like he was afraid to touch me — not because I was fragile, but because I wasn’t.“You’re bleeding,” he said.I shrugged.“Isabella.”His voice was a low command, wrapped in velvet, wrapped in warning.I looked down at the gash across my side. “It’s shallow.”He didn’t answer.He just reached forward and pulled my tunic up enough to see it.Then he growled.A real, chest-deep, bone-echoing growl that made the world tilt. His fingers ghosted across the skin beside the cut like even touching it
Corrin — POVThe path to Duskmere wasn’t paved in stone.It was carved in memory—an old road the mapmakers had tried to forget, half-consumed by forest and shadow, too brittle to be real, too stubborn to vanish.We followed it anyway.Every step forward felt like walking deeper into a past none of us had chosen.Duskmere had once been a mining town. Iron-rich. Brutal. Built on the backs of workers who broke long before the rocks did. Then it went silent. Some said the earth gave up its last breath. Others whispered something older had crawled up from underneath and claimed the bones.I believed both.And as the trees thinned and the first collapsed rooftops came into view, I felt it.A stillness. Not peace.Something else.A warning.“We shouldn’t be here,” one of the younger scouts muttered behind me.Isabella didn’t turn around. “We’re not here to feel safe. We’re here to end this.”The wind hissed through the remnants of Duskmere like the ghosts were holding their breath.---Asher