Semua Bab Bloodied Ashes: Bab 71 - Bab 80

Lira (POV)I woke cold.Not shivering—hollow. Like something had been carved out of me during the night and carried off while I slept.My skin was slick with sweat that had already dried, tight in places, raw in others. My thighs ached. My spine throbbed. The spiral beneath my ribs didn’t pulse anymore… but it itched. Deep. Like it was watching from under the skin, waiting to be noticed.I reached out blindly beside me, fingers curling against the furs.Empty.The fire had gone out. The air in the cave hung damp and stale, as if it hadn’t dared to breathe while we—I didn’t finish the thought. I couldn’t. It stuck somewhere between throat and marrow, where his name still lingered like smoke.I sat up slowly. Every part of me protested. My legs trembled under the weight of memory. There were bruises on my hips, faint bite marks blooming across my chest, and scratches down my side that weren’t mine. Not marks of violence. Not this time.Just hunger. Desperation. Tether-deep need that ha

Kael (POV)She didn’t speak when she woke.Didn’t look at me.Didn’t reach for her coat or ask what time it was or where we’d go next.She just stared at the edge of the firepit like it owed her an answer.I’d been awake longer—barely. I hadn’t moved. Sat across from her, boots half-unlaced, elbows resting on my knees like I could pretend I’d slept sitting up. Like I hadn’t spent the night watching her shake in her sleep.Not from cold.Once, the spiral under her ribs twitched, and she flinched. No cry. No fight. Just a shallow breath, dragged in like it hurt. She’d learned how to suffer quietly. That silence stayed with her even in dreams.By morning, the soot beside her had curled into a spiral.Not drawn.Not placed.Formed.As if the cave remembered her.I didn’t ask what she saw.Because if she told me—I wouldn’t stop it. Couldn’t protect her from it. And she didn’t want protection. Not anymore.Not from me.No holding. No stopping. No saving.So I let the silence settle around u

Lira (POV)I didn’t know the tether could survive a spiral burning.Didn’t know that power and pain alone weren’t enough. That even after all the blood, after the scream I tore through my own chest, after I felt it snap—Draven still lingers.Not as a voice. Not as a presence.But as a weight. Like a thread still tied to a corpse, pulling tight every time I try to breathe without him.We walk in silence, ash crunching underfoot. Kael’s close behind me, but not leading. He hasn’t tried to touch me since the fire. Not even to steady me. I don’t know if that’s mercy or punishment.The trees ahead lean toward each other like they’ve been burned from the inside out. Their bark spirals upward in warped patterns, bones buried beneath their roots. The path bleeds red where moss should be green.I stop.The wind shifts. The ache in my ribs doesn’t.And I finally say it.“I want it gone.”Kael doesn’t answer.I don’t look back, not at first. My throat feels thick, like the tether’s pulling up so

Lira (POV)The spiral pulsed at my chest. Not pain—pressure. Like it wanted an answer before I could breathe.I said nothing. Couldn’t.But Kael stepped forward.“Take me,” he said. Not to her. Not to me. To the Spiral. “If that’s the price. Take me instead.”The wind died. Even the trees seemed to lean in.“You don’t even know what you’re offering,” I whispered.“I do,” he said, and didn’t look at me. His voice didn’t shake. “You still have something to lose. I don’t.”That made me furious.“You think that’s noble? You think I need another man throwing himself into the fire like it redeems him?”He turned then. Finally met my eyes. And the grief there—gods, it knew me.“No,” he said. “I think you need someone who doesn’t run.”“You don’t get to choose that for me.”“Then choose it with me.” His hand hovered, not reaching, just there. “Let it take both of us. But it won’t take you alone.”The Spiral between us glowed faintly black. Not gold. Not red. Like burned-out love still alive i

Lira (POV)I tried to move again.Not just shift weight, but sit up—inhabit myself. My muscles resisted like wet rope pulled too tight for too long. There was no scream in them, no splintering break. Just strain. Ache. The dull, spreading kind that lived in scar tissue and memory.My elbow slid beneath me, braced against ash-caked stone. The motion lit a bruise along my ribs, and I sucked in a sharp breath, curling forward before I even meant to.Not pain. Not exactly. Just a reminder.I was still alive. But only barely here.My knees dragged beneath me, and the motion peeled dried blood from my skin in fine flakes—red gone to rust, dusted like a ritual offering across moss and bone-shattered stone. Some of it mine. Some of it not. The scent rose like something half-buried clawing to the surface.I spat into the moss, tasting iron. Copper and ash and something older than either. It clung to my teeth like guilt.Fire had been here.And before that—magic.I pressed my palm to my chest.