All Chapters of Blood ,Fire and Frost: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Rowan POV:I don’t leave the citadel.I tell myself it’s vigilance. Patrol. Habit.It’s not.It’s the ache.Not sharp. Not desperate. Just there—constant as my pulse. Selene’s scent lingers everywhere now, not because she’s marking the place, but because the Axis has folded her presence into its bones. Every corridor smells faintly of frost and fire, of restraint and warmth.Of her.Lucien finds me on the eastern rampart as the sun sinks low, staining the clouds the color of old blood.“You’re pacing,” he says.I stop, turning slowly. “I’m standing.”“Your boots have worn a groove into the stone,” he replies mildly.I snort under my breath. “Then the stone should learn faster.”Lucien’s mouth curves faintly—not amused, exactly, but aware. He leans against the parapet with infuriating ease, gaze flicking briefly toward the horizon before returning to me.“You’re angry,

Selene POV:The night does not give me answers.It gives me clarity.I sit on the floor of my chamber with my back against the stone wall, the crown resting in my lap instead of on my head. Moonlight spills across the floor in pale bands, catching the metal and turning it silver-blue. The Axis hums softly, not demanding, not urging—simply present, like it has learned the difference between hunger and patience.I wish I could say the same for my body.The heat in me is no longer subtle. It doesn’t spike or surge, but it doesn’t fade either. It lives in my blood now, a steady warmth that makes every breath feel deliberate, every movement feel weighted with consequence. I do not mistake it for weakness.But I no longer pretend it is neutral.Lucien was right. Rowan was right. Waiting has become a variable.I close my eyes and breathe through it, letting awareness settle instead of pushing it down. The Axis responds instantly—not tightening, not flaring,

Selene POV:I feel the moment command stops being enough.It doesn’t happen all at once. There’s no dramatic crack, no sudden collapse. Just a slow, grinding realization as the wardstone’s hum rises again—higher this time, sharper—and the Axis answers me with strain instead of harmony.They learned.The enemy tightens the lattice pinch with brutal precision, compressing not just power, but time. I feel it in the village—children crying again, adults clutching their heads, the ground vibrating like a held scream.Lucien’s reinforcement shudders.I’m still holding.But now I’m bleeding.Not blood—heat. Desire coils hard and tight in my body, no longer a quiet presence but a loaded weapon. The bond surges, hungry and alive, responding to the pressure like it’s been waiting for permission to burn.Rowan stands frozen at the threshold, hands clenched, eyes blazing. Lucien is rigid beside me, control drawn so

Selene:Recovery is not rest.I learn that quickly.My body regains strength in increments—enough to sit, then stand, then walk the length of my chamber without the room tilting—but my mind lags behind, snagging on memory the way cloth catches on thorns. Every time I close my eyes, I feel the echo of that moment when the bond answered fully, when the Axis bent and rewrote itself around my choice.It isn’t temptation that scares me.It’s familiarity.The ease with which power answered when I claimed it—how natural it felt to step into that depth. That is what I must learn to live with without letting it define me.Rowan brings me tea I don’t remember asking for. Lucien adjusts the wards to soften the ambient hum without dampening it completely. They move around me like gravity wells—present, careful, unassuming.I let them.That, too, is new.“I need to talk,” I say quietly, breaking the calm th

Selene:The first ripple reaches us through rumor, not magic.It arrives folded into council reports and trade ledgers, carried by messengers who don’t realize they’re delivering something far more dangerous than news. No wards fail. No villages cry out.Instead, people begin trying.I hear about a border city where a priestess attempts to “anchor” her power through devotion alone. A warlord two regions east binds himself to three consorts, believing intensity will make him untouchable. A coven fractures when one of their own insists that desire is the missing key to ascension.None of them succeed.Some barely survive.The Axis hums when I read the reports — not alarmed, not urgent, but aware. Like a sea responding to distant storms.“This was inevitable,” Lucien says quietly, standing at my shoulder as I stare down at the parchment. “You demonstrated a principle. Others will attempt to reproduce it without understanding the architecture.”Rowan’