Lyra woke to stillness.
But not the peaceful kind.
The air was waiting.
Magic hovered over her skin like a whisper — a thread she didn't remember weaving, pulling softly at her chest, urging her to move, look, feel.
She turned slowly.
Kael was still asleep — or at least, that's what she thought.
His chest rose and fell, bare and powerful, glowing faintly under the flicker of her runes. But it was his face that caught her breath.
Not the sharp edges. Not the demon mark carved beneath his right eye.
But the look of... rest.
He looked human when he slept.
Which terrified her more than when he didn't.
She rose quietly, trying not to disturb the thin thread of peace.
But as she stepped away—
His voice, low and raspy: "You always walk like you're about to leave."
She froze.
"Force of habit," she said without turning.
Kael sat up, stretching slowly, the lines of his body moving like shadowfire.
"You dream again?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You cry?"
"No."
He smirked. "Liar."
Lyra crossed to the basin near the spring and splashed cool water on her face. Her reflection in the pool shimmered with faint silver light — her magic still unsettled.
Kael stepped beside her, silent for once.
Then he said, "Something's wrong with the wards."
She stiffened.
"What do you mean?"
"They're holding," he replied, "but they're humming. I can feel it through my skin."
Lyra reached out, her palm brushing one of the glowing glyphs etched into the stone.
A flicker of light. A pull.
Pain.
She hissed, jerking back.
"What—"
Kael caught her wrist gently.
A faint burn curled in the center of her palm, shaped like an ancient sigil — a rune she hadn't drawn.
"I didn't cast that," she whispered.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Then someone else did."
"No one else knows this place."
He didn't let go of her wrist. "Someone bound it to you."
"To us," she said, her voice shaking.
Because even as she stared at the mark—
It glowed in time with Kael's heartbeat.
They stood like that for a long moment.
His hand wrapped around her wrist.
Her skin humming like it knew him.
Her breath came faster. Not from fear.
From something worse.
Want.
Kael stepped closer. His voice dropped.
"Maybe the bond formed the night you healed me."
"Impossible," she whispered, eyes locked on his.
"Unless it was never just a healing," he said.
Silence.
The air between them buzzed — not with tension, but with something deeper. Old magic. Soul-deep energy.
Then Kael said, voice low, "Lyra... have you ever heard of an Echo Bond?"
Her throat tightened.
"Yes."
An Echo Bond was rare.
Sacred.
Unbreakable.
Two souls that collided in a moment of magic and need, tied together by fate and fire. It meant their powers had chosen each other.
It meant… they were bound.
"I didn't mean for this," she whispered, taking a step back.
Kael didn't follow.
"I know."
"But it's dangerous—"
"I know that too."
"Then why aren't you running?"
Kael's gaze didn't waver.
"Because maybe I've been looking for something to anchor me. And maybe... you're it."
She didn't answer.
Because every part of her — magic, body, breath — wanted to believe him.
But belief had gotten her sisters killed.
Trust had made her a fugitive.
And this?
This was too much, too fast, too real.
She turned and walked away.
But she felt the bond thrum between them with every step.
That night, she couldn't sleep.
Not because of the shadows.
Not because of the memory of blood-carved warnings.
But because she could feel his heartbeat in her palm.
Somewhere far across the stars, a sigil glowed on a warship's glass.
The hunter queen smiled.
"They've bonded," she said, stroking the blade beside her throne. "How lovely."
Her voice dripped with poison.
"Now we know how to break them."