Raven's POV
The forest floor bit into my feet through worn boots. Each step sent jolts up my shins—nine-year-old bones weren't meant for this. Hours of running. My calves screamed. Riyan's breath came in sharp gasps beside me, and I could taste copper at the back of my throat every time I swallowed.
We had to keep moving.
The air was cold enough to sting my lungs, but sweat still plastered my hair to my neck. Every twig snap made my heart kick against my ribs—not hammering, just this sick, irregular thud that made my stomach flip. I'd never noticed my heartbeat before. Now I couldn't stop feeling it.
Behind us, somewhere in those trees, he was still coming.
My mana container felt like a hollow space just below my sternum—empty and aching. That's how it always felt after you drained it. But there was something else now, a slow trickle, like cold water dripping into a basin. The sensation was almost painful in its slowness. Drop by drop. My body was rebuilding what I'd burned through in our escape, pulling energy from somewhere deep I didn't fully understand yet.
Riyan stumbled. I caught his elbow without thinking.
His eyes met mine. Red irises, pupils blown wide with fear. I wondered if mine looked the same.
We didn't talk. Talking meant breath we couldn't spare, and it meant noise. So we moved in silence, picking our way through undergrowth that tore at our clothes and skin. A branch had opened a cut along my forearm hours ago. The blood had dried brown and tacky.
The bird calls seemed too loud. A jay shrieked somewhere to our left, and I flinched so hard I nearly tripped. Everything was a threat. Every shadow between trees could hide him. Every rustle of wind through leaves could be footsteps.
We were children. We should have been safe.
Instead, we were prey.
The memories wouldn't stop. The dark room. The cold metal. His voice promising things that made my skin crawl even now. We'd escaped, but those memories clung to us like we'd rolled in something foul. I couldn't shake them. Couldn't outrun them.
Riyan's hand found mine. His palm was slick with sweat, trembling slightly. I squeezed back.
Then the forest sounds changed.
Not a snap or a rustle—something heavier. Deliberate footfalls crunching through dead leaves. The rhythm was wrong, uneven. Someone injured but still moving with purpose.
We froze.
"Hide." Riyan's whisper was barely breath against my ear.
We dove for the nearest cover—a dense thicket of brambles and low bushes. The thorns bit into my arms as I pressed myself down, making myself small. The leaves closed around us, but I could still see through gaps in the foliage. My heart was doing that sick thudding thing again, so hard I was sure he'd hear it.
He emerged from between two ancient oaks.
Worse than I remembered. His face had gone gray, skin stretched tight over bones. Blood had soaked through bandages on his torso—dark, wet patches spreading. His eyes were wrong. Sunken and feverish, darting around the clearing with an intensity that made my bladder clench.
But those eyes locked onto our hiding spot like he'd known exactly where we were.
The smile that spread across his face wasn't human. Just lips pulling back over teeth.
"Looks like I have found you." His voice was wet, gargling. "Princess of Reyas, the Experimental Subject... and Prince of Asura."
The way he said it made my skin try to crawl off my body. We weren't children to him. We were things. Objects with labels.
Riyan's hand squeezed mine so hard my fingers went numb.
Then Riyan moved.
He exploded out of the bushes, hands already moving through the gestures. Fire bloomed from his palms—not the careful practice flames from our lessons, but everything he had. Desperation made it bright, made it hot. The air shimmered and crackled.
The blast caught the man center mass.
He hadn't expected it. Couldn't dodge. The fire punched into him and he went down with a sound that was half scream, half something worse.
"Run!" Riyan hauled me up by the arm and we were moving again, crashing through brush, branches whipping our faces.
"We can't—" I gasped. My lungs felt shredded. "Can't keep running. We have to—to tire him out. He's injured. We're recovering. We can—"
But I heard it behind us. Rustling. Getting closer.
We stopped.
I don't know which of us made the decision. We just both knew. Running wasn't working. We had to end this.
We turned and faced him.
"Together," Riyan said. His voice didn't shake.
"Together."
My mana container wasn't full. Not even half. But there was enough. That slow trickle had given us enough.
I reached for my affinity. Lightning answered—the Raw Power crackling up my arms, making my hair stand on end. Static electricity danced between my fingers. The sensation was like holding onto something alive, something that wanted to explode outward.
Beside me, Riyan's fire built. I could feel the heat radiating off him in waves. Fury of Flames. His specialty.
We wove them together. Fire and lightning, merging into something greater than either alone. The air pressure changed. My ears popped. The smell of ozone was so thick it coated my tongue.
The kidnapper saw it coming. Even through his pain and blood loss, survival instinct kicked in. He raised his hands, pulling from reserves he shouldn't have had, building his own defense.
Our combined attack met his barrier in a collision that turned the world white.
Thunder didn't just boom—it felt like the air itself split open. The sound was physical, slamming into my chest, reverberating in my bones. Heat and electricity warred against his shield, competing forces grinding against each other.
For three seconds—maybe four—the magics held in perfect tension. Neither giving ground.
Then our power broke through.
The explosion threw him backward. His body hit the ground hard, limbs sprawling at wrong angles.
Riyan and I stood there, chests heaving, vision spotty from the brightness.
Move, I thought at him. Stay down.
He moved.
Impossibly fast for someone who should be dying. One second he was on the ground, the next he was behind me. His hand clamped around my wrist—not tight enough to hurt, but firm. Unbreakable.
"Asura Prince." Blood bubbled at the corners of his mouth when he spoke. "Leave from here. My Lord doesn't want to hurt you. This is about the girl. Just the girl."
For one terrible heartbeat, I thought Riyan might actually consider it. Might choose himself over me.
I should have known better.
Riyan grabbed a stone from the ground—river-smooth, probably the size of his fist. He swung it with all the strength a nine-year-old body could muster, bringing it down on the kidnapper's skull with a wet crack.
The grip on my wrist released.
The man stumbled, his eyes unfocusing.
"Fuck off!" Riyan's voice broke on the words, fury and fear mixing into something raw. "We're leaving together, and you can't stop us!"
The kidnapper fell to his knees. But his hands were still reaching for me. Still grasping. Still muttering about Lords and experiments and subjects.
I looked at the stones scattered around the forest floor.
I chose a bigger one. Heavier than Riyan's. The weight of it settled into my hands—rough granite, cold, dense. Real.
"Ven, wait—" Riyan's voice changed. Uncertain in a way that cut through the adrenaline haze.
But I couldn't wait.
This man would keep coming. Or others would come. His Lord would send more. We'd never be safe if I didn't finish this.
I raised the stone.
Brought it down.
The sound it made when it connected with his skull was nothing like I expected. Not a crack. Something wetter. Something that made my stomach turn even as my arms raised the stone again.
I brought it down again.
Again.
My arms went numb somewhere around the fourth or fifth impact. The sensation disconnected from my brain—like I was watching my hands from far away, watching them rise and fall with mechanical precision. The stone grew slick. Heavy. My fingers started to slip.
I don't know how many times I hit him.
I just know that at some point, he stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Stopped being a threat.
The stone fell from my hands. It hit the ground with a dull thud that seemed too quiet after everything else.
I stood there. My whole body was shaking—not big movements, just this fine tremor running through every muscle. I looked down at my hands. They were red. Sticky. The blood was already starting to dry at the edges, turning brown.
I'd killed someone.
Nine years old, and I'd killed someone.
The thought didn't feel real. It was too big. Too impossible. But there was the evidence, right there on my hands, soaking into the lines of my palms.
My vision blurred. The edges went dark and fuzzy.
"Ven..." Riyan's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. "Ven, you—"
I turned to look at him.
He flinched.
That small movement—that tiny backward jerk—hurt more than anything the kidnapper had done to us. Worse than the cold metal. Worse than the dark room. Worse than running until my feet bled.
Riyan was afraid of me.
Something in my chest cracked. A physical sensation, like ice breaking.
The tears came before I could stop them. Hot and shameful, spilling down my cheeks and dripping off my chin. My throat closed up around sobs I couldn't voice.
"I'm sorry," I choked out. The words fractured. "I'm sorry, I just—he was going to—we had to—"
I couldn't finish. Couldn't explain. My hands were still shaking and Riyan had flinched away from me and I'd killed someone and nothing would ever be the same.
Then Riyan moved forward.
He closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against him despite the blood covering both of us. His grip was tight. Fierce.
"It's okay," he whispered. His voice shook, but the words were steady. "It's okay, Ven. You protected us. You... you saved us."
"I killed him." The sob tore out of me. "I killed him and I couldn't stop and—"
"You had to." His arms tightened. "He would've kept coming. You did what I was too scared to do."
A pause. Then, barely audible: "Thank you."
Those two words broke me completely.
I collapsed against him, my whole body wracked with sobs that felt like they'd tear me apart. He held me through all of it. Didn't let go. Didn't pull away. Just held me while I cried for everything we'd lost.
When the sobs finally quieted to hiccups and shaking breaths, Riyan pulled back just enough to look at my face. His red eyes were wet with tears he'd been crying silently.
"You're braver than me," he said quietly. "I couldn't finish it. But you did. You protected both of us."
"I'm not brave. I'm terrified."
"Me too." He managed a watery smile. "But we're alive. And he's not."
Something warm bloomed in my chest. Not happiness—how could there be happiness now?—but something else. Something new.
Riyan had been paralyzed by fear, and I'd been the one to push through. I'd protected us when it mattered.
Not because I was stronger. But because the thought of losing him was more terrifying than anything else.
"Let's go, Yan," I said softly.
His eyes widened at the nickname. Then his expression softened.
"Yeah, Ven. Let's get out of here."
He took my hand—the same hand that had just killed—and held it without hesitation. Without disgust. Just held it like it was natural.
We stumbled through the forest together until we found buildings. People. Safety.
When our families arrived—Principal Rai Zeus and Cris Descartes—I collapsed into my mother's arms. But even as she held me, my eyes found Riyan. He was looking back at me over his father's shoulder.
Our gazes met and held.
We'd survived. Together.
Present day.
I still feel the weight of that stone in my hands sometimes. The rough granite surface. The way it grew slick.
People call my devotion to Riyan an obsession. Unhealthy. Possessive.
They don't understand.
They weren't there in that forest. Didn't see him flinch, then step forward anyway. Didn't feel his arms around me when I was covered in blood and shaking apart. Didn't hear him whisper "thank you" when I was nine years old and had just become a killer.
He saw me at my worst—my most monstrous—and he didn't turn away.
I killed for him.
He accepted it. Accepted me.
And that's why Riyan Descartes will always be mine.
Not because I'm crazy. Not because I never grew up.
But because in that moment, when I was breaking apart, he held me together.
And I've been his ever since.