Semua Bab Bound To Ruin: Bab 41 - Bab 48

I tried to sit again.The tremor in my arms started instantly. My muscles screamed, hollow and brittle, as if they'd forgotten how to hold me. Nausea surged up my throat, hot and bitter. My stomach turned in on itself, and I let out a pained groan before I could stop it.Ruarc’s hand flew to my back, steady and warm. “Don’t,” he said softly, almost pleading. His voice was rough with worry, like saying the word out loud cost him something.Eirseth was not so gentle.“You did something incredibly stupid.” His voice cracked the silence like a blade drawn too fast. “You were gone. Dead. I don’t know why you thought your pitiful human body wouldn’t be affected by that.”The words landed like stones, cold and sharp—but they didn’t sting the way he wanted them to. I heard what lay beneath: fear cloaked in anger, grief wrapped in disdain. He’d grieved like a soldier—by striking out, by building walls.I didn’t flinch.A smile pulled at my lips, wry and slow. “After seeing the version of you s

I woke to warmth and weight I didn’t expect. Ruarc was gone. Calyx, too.It wasn’t their absence that startled me. It was the fact that the only one who remained was Eirseth.The chair he’d claimed was tucked just beside the bed, his frame draped over it like some war-forged relic that didn’t know how to rest. One arm across his midsection, the other across his face. Eyes closed. But I knew better. There was no true sleep in him—just waiting. The kind of stillness that held teeth just beneath the surface.My chest tightened with something I didn’t have the words for. I hadn’t expected him to stay. Had expected Ruarc’s warmth curled at my back, or Calyx’s steady silence in the shadows. But not Eirseth. Never Eirseth.I rubbed at gritty eyes, voice cracking against the hush. "Is there some kind of unspoken rule that everyone has to disappear the second I fall asleep?"His voice drifted up from beneath his arm, dry and sharp as ever. "Does the dog’s absence bother you that much?"I stiff

I found Ruarc outside the kitchen, pacing. Not with urgency, but with the kind of restless energy that builds when guilt has no place to go. He moved like a caged thing. When he saw me, he froze mid-step, breath catching just slightly. He didn’t speak.His eyes dropped to my bandaged hand, lingered a second too long, then flicked back to my face. The silence between us pulsed with unsaid things. Still, he didn’t ask.I held up the plate in my hand—the one he’d left for me hours earlier, now cold but intact."I didn’t eat it. I wasn’t ready. But I brought it back for you."Ruarc blinked like I’d spoken another language. His shoulders tensed. He didn’t come closer, didn’t soften. But something inside him shifted.I took a breath to steady myself, then set the plate down on the stone counter. The sound was louder than expected, echoing faintly in the quiet hall. "I know you made it. Thank you."Still, silence.So, I stepped forward, closing the distance like it was made of glass and memo

He didn’t hear me at first.The chamber echoed with the rhythm of his strikes—sharp, punishing, relentless. Fists slammed into the gnarled trunk of the petrified tree, the sound vibrating through the stone like war drums. Magic hissed across his knuckles, flaring each time they met bark that refused to break. Sweat traced the lines of his spine, glistening across his shoulders, darkening the waistband of his pants. His chest heaved with every breath—too fast, too ragged, like he didn’t trust himself to stop.He wasn’t training. He was purging. Trying to excise whatever still lived under his skin—shame, pride, hunger. Maybe something softer he didn’t have a name for. I could see it in every line of his body, in the way his jaw locked and his movements sharpened with something more desperate than anger.When the branch finally cracked beneath his fist, he didn’t wince. He just sagged forward, bracing his forehead against the bark like he needed it to hold him up. His breaths came in une