All Chapters of Rosie's Bloom: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Aria POVThe fortress didn’t wake to thunder. It woke to silence.No gulls. No wind. Just that hollow stillness that comes before something ancient remembers how to move.I stood at the balcony, eyes fixed on the horizon. It looked like dawn, but wrong the sky burned from beneath, red light blooming under the water instead of above it.Mira gripped the railing beside me. “It’s too quiet,” she whispered.“It’s listening,” I said.The air trembled, barely enough to stir my hair. Then it came the first sound. Not thunder. Not wind. A low, rolling vibration that crawled up through the stone and into my bones.It was the sea. Breathing.The mark on my chest answered with a single, slow pulse. Once. Twice. Then steady syncing with the rhythm of the tide below.“She’s calling,” I said softly.“Who?”I didn’t answer.Far across the courtyard, horns began to sound. Wolves poured from the barracks, armor glinting in the half-light. And in the east tower, I saw Ares gold light sparking

Aria POVThe fortress wasn’t quiet after the wave split it was waiting.Waiting for the world to decide whether it still belonged to us or to the sea.I gripped the balcony rail as the last shards of silver faded from my skin. My power flickered, refusing to settle like a flame trembling in someone else’s breath.Mira was shouting behind me, but her voice sounded distant, as if I were hearing it through water.Because all my senses were fixed on one thing:Ares.Not his shape, not his stance but the light.Golden. Ancient. Awake.It pulsed through him like a heartbeat not quite his own.“What are you doing?” I whispered, though he was too far to hear. “Ares… stop.”But he didn’t.He stepped forward again toward Clara, toward the sea, toward a storm that had been hers now answering to him.The air changed when he moved.Not a wind. A shift. A rearranging of what the world understood.I felt it in my bones before I saw it in the sky.The moon. It dimmed.As if unsure whi

Aria POVThe world didn’t break quietly.It shattered with a roar that stole the air out of my lungs.Silver light surged out of my body wild, unrestrained, and far stronger than anything I’d ever released. The force knocked the courtyard off its foundations, tore through stone, and split the ground into violent jagged lines. The blast didn’t feel like something I controlled. It felt like something that had been waiting begging to escape.Dust rose in thick waves, turning the world into a swirling fog of white and glowing sparks. My breath trembled. My legs shook. My mark my cursed, burning, cracking mark pulsed like a second heartbeat under my skin.I pressed my hand over it, but the pain wasn’t pain anymore.It was a warning.A promise.A reminder of the power inside me that I never asked for.“Ares!” I shouted into the dust. “Ares where are you?!”My voice sounded small against the echoing rumble of the collapsing earth. I turned, squinting through the haze, searching for even a si

Aria POVClara’s hand glowed faintly where it pressed against Ares’ back, her water-born seal pulsing in slow, rhythmic waves. I hated how gentle it looked. I hated even more how Ares’ breathing finally eased under her touch. The gold in his spine dimmed from violent spikes into softer, flickering threads.But the worst part?I hated that she was right.I had been making it worse.Ares sagged forward, bracing one hand on the ground, the other clutching at my arm. His skin was still burning, the heat rolling off him in ripples, but at least he wasn’t convulsing anymore. I didn’t know whether to thank the goddess or scream.“Stay still,” Clara murmured, her voice far too soft. “Let it settle.”Ares groaned but didn’t fight her. Not this time. And that more than anything made my stomach twist.She had been waiting for this moment.Ares’ weakness.My hesitation.Her chance to prove she could do something I couldn’t.And damn her, she had taken it.The water around her hand contracted agai

Aria POVSleep never came.I stayed beside Ares until the pack medics forced me out, insisting he needed uninterrupted rest. They didn’t understand the bond how distance wasn’t silence but pressure. A constant thrumming under my ribs, faint but unignorable, like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.By the time dawn bled across the sky, the pull was a dull ache behind my sternum.Clara was already waiting in the courtyard again.“You look tired,” she said.“I’m fine.”“You’re lying.”“Then stop asking obvious questions.”Her lips twitched in what might have been amusement. Or pity. I wasn’t sure which one irritated me more.The morning air was sharp, biting, but my skin was warm with the silver humming beneath it. Not painfully just restless. Like it wanted out. Like it wanted him.“Start where we ended,” Clara said.“Hold the line,” I murmured.“Good.”She lifted her hand and the same ring of water rose around us, forming a boundary on the stone. I stepped into the center. The bond pulsed im