Chapter 5

• Rhea
• The fortress was never silent even in the deepest part of night, it hummed with life.
• Rhea didn’t sleep.
• She lay on her side, facing the door, her breath even, her fingers curled loosely under the blanket she hadn’t asked for. The warmth pressed against her skin but it didn’t sink in.
• Her body was still but her mind was not.
• Images drifted at the edge of thought.
• A girl with the same face, different eyes.
• Steel tables and firelight behind glass.
• The sound of breathing that wasn’t hers.
• Sometimes, she remembered enough to hurt but never enough to scream.
• Footsteps passed her door sometime before dawn.
• Not Lucien.
• Someone else. Lighter and hesitant. The kind that didn’t want to be heard but didn’t know how to disappear, either.
• She closed her eyes, listening.
• The steps paused, then kept going.
• The rune by the door didn’t respond.
• Good.
• Whatever they were looking for, it wasn’t her.
• This time.
• By morning, the air had shifted again.
• She felt it in her chest before she heard the knock.
• That low, grounded pressure meant he was close.
• Lucien didn’t wait for her answer.
• The door opened.
• He looked tired and thinner like the night had scraped something from him and hadn’t put it back.
• He said nothing.
• Just stared at her for a moment longer than he should have.
• “Get dressed.”
• No explanation. No soft tone.
• She moved.
• He took her through the eastern hall, passed guards who pretended not to stare and torchlight that flickered against runes etched into the floor.
• Every step deeper into the fortress felt like stepping backward through time.
• She didn’t ask where they were going.
• The tension in his shoulders said enough.
• They descended.
• They moved past the council room with its blackstone pillars, the war archives sealed by claw-scarred doors and places Rhea hadn’t even felt from the surface.
• The air grew colder like it had stopped being air at all
• Lucien finally stopped at a sealed door. No handle.
• Just a single crescent rune, weathered and cracked.
• He pressed his palm against it.
• The stone pulsed dimly
• Then it opened with a hiss, like it hadn’t been touched in years.
• The room beyond was circular and empty except for a ring of stone at its center, carved in symbols Rhea didn't recognize.
• Lucien entered first.
• She followed, slow and deliberate, her steps soundless against the stone.
• She stayed outside the circle.
• “This is where they buried the last of the Bloodbound,” he said.
• His voice wasn’t angry.
• It was hollow like something inside it had already died once and this was just the echo.
• She looked around.
• No bodies
• No scent of decay
• No markers
• Just silence and underneath it all, she heard a heartbeat that wasn't hers
• Lucien walked the ring’s edge, boots scuffing across silver-ash dust.
• “They said it was sealed,” he murmured.
• “But the runes have been shifting.”
• He turned to her.
• Not yet with suspicion but his sharp eyes were searching.
• “What are you waking up?”
• She didn’t answer.
• Not because she didn’t want to but because there was no way to explain what didn’t make sense in her own head.
• There were no words for the itch under her skin when she neared the stones.
• For the way her pulse slowed near runes.
• For the hum in her ears when silence got too deep.
• It had been since before she’d even known how to lie.
• Lucien stepped into the circle.
• Nothing happened.
• Then he looked at her.
• “Come here”
• She didn’t move.
• His voice dropped lower. “I need to know what happens when you do”
• A long breath, then she stepped forward.
• One foot.
• Two.
• The moment her boot crossed the edge..
• The runes lit up.
• Not with fire but moonlight
• The markings spiraled out from where they stood to every direction, blooming like ripples across water.
• Lucien didn’t flinch but his jaw tensed. His hand rested lightly near his side, close to the hilt he hadn’t drawn.
• The light crept under their feet, then she felt it.
• A pull from below
• It wasn’t painful not at first
• Her knees buckled.
• Lucien moved before she fell, arms braced around her, catching her as if he’d been ready for this.
• Her breath stuttered.
• Her fingers curled into his coat but her eyes stayed open.
• “Rhea..” he called out but she wasn't hearing him
• She was hearing something else.
• Voices
• A language she had no name for, soft and insistent
• Wrong in a way that felt familiar and then,
• A face.
• Hers but not.
• Paler and younger, silver-white eyes and a scar across the throat.
• A mouth moving but no sound
• Her hands clutched Lucien’s shirt.
• With cracked voice “there was another”
• He held her tighter “Another what?”
• Her mouth closed, then opened again.
• “Another me”
• He froze.
• She looked up, barely.
• The light from the runes reflected in her eyes.
• Lucien stared at her, silent.
• Then slowly, almost unwillingly his gaze dropped.
• Down to the glowing runes under her knees and saw the light wasn’t silver anymore.
• It was turning red.
• Not just beneath her.
• Beneath him too.