The sanctum's alarms weren't sirens — they were voices.
Wails of trapped memories echoing through the obsidian halls, warning of danger the way a dying world might scream.
Kael pulled Lira behind him as the walls pulsed with frantic red light. Shadows coiled around his arms, hungry for violence, but he kept them leashed. Barely.
Footsteps thundered through the corridors. Not organized. Not united.
Chaos.
Lira clutched Kael's hand tighter. "Someone's coming from the east tunnel."
Kael didn't question how she knew — the bond hummed clear and sharp through her senses.
"Show me," he murmured.
She closed her eyes and listened. Not with sound, but with emotion.
Fear. Betrayal. Rage.
She pointed left. "That way. Someone's afraid for us. Someone else wants us dead."
Kael stared at her for a heartbeat — truly stared.
"You're adapting to the bond fast."
Lira swallowed. "I'm not trying to. It's just… loud."
Voices echoed again through the chamber. One familiar.
"Kael! Lira!"
It was Silas, one of the younger acolytes of the Forgotten — the only one who'd smiled at them when they arrived.
He ran toward them, pale and shaking. "You have to go. Now. The elder betrayed us. She—"
A blade of glass erupted from his chest.
Lira screamed.
Silas collapsed at their feet, eyes wide, mouth moving soundlessly as blood pooled across the glowing floor.
Behind him stood the elder — veil lifted, face cold and terrible.
"Run," Silas mouthed as his last breath left him.
Kael's shadows exploded.
---
The elder stepped forward, glass runes swirling around her fingers like serpents.
"You should have accepted your mother's path," she said. "But you chose sentiment. You chose weakness." Her gaze snapped to Lira. "You chose her."
Kael didn't speak. Didn't think.
He stepped in front of Lira, shadows forming a shield that hissed as the elder threw her first blast of crimson glassfire.
The impact knocked Kael back into Lira, but he held his ground.
"Why?" he growled. "Why betray your own people?"
The elder smiled. "Because your mother promised us a world of shadows. A world where the Bloodborn ruled. You were our weapon — and now you throw it away for a girl who doesn't even know what she is?"
Lira's heart hammered.
"I'm not a weapon," she whispered.
"Oh," the elder crooned, "but you are. You're the lock. And Kael is the key. When the bond completes, the Shadow Queen returns."
Lira froze.
Kael whispered, "Don't listen—"
The elder spread her arms.
"Let me show you the truth of your birth."
A surge of magic slammed into Lira. Kael lunged to stop it, but the force knocked them both apart.
Lira hit the glass floor — and the world fell away.
---
She wasn't in the sanctum anymore.
She stood in a lab of shimmering crystal, surrounded by hooded figures chanting softly. Her younger self — a tiny infant wrapped in cloth — floated above a ritual circle glowing with silver fire.
A man's voice echoed:
"She's stable. The Queen's essence has fused."
Another voice:
"We must hide her from the Varyn heir. If they ever meet—"
A third voice whispered directly into the child's ear:
"Live, little one, and remember nothing. Your purpose will wake when the heirs collide."
Lira staggered, gripping her head as more visions flooded her — her infant self left on temple steps, handed from one protector to the next, always hidden, always watched.
Not loved.
Prepared.
A vessel wrapped in human skin.
"No…" she gasped, tears burning her eyes. "That's not me. That can't be me."
But the bond pulsed through her chest — and she felt Kael's fear through it, raw and frantic.
"Lira! Come back!"
---
She snapped back into the sanctum with a sob. Kael was crouched over her, panic blazing in his eyes.
He cupped her face without thinking. "Lira. Look at me."
She did — and it broke him a little.
Her eyes were full of devastation.
"I wasn't born," she whispered. "I was made. I'm not even— I don't know what I am."
Kael's hand trembled against her cheek.
"You're Lira. That's all that matters."
"No," she cried, voice cracking. "I was created for one purpose — to complete you. To bring back your mother. I'm not real. I'm just—"
He grabbed her wrists, gently but firmly.
"Don't say that."
"You saw what they did," she choked out. "I'm only alive because your mother needed a lock for her resurrection! I'm not—"
He moved closer. Too close.
The bond tightened, flooding her with the steady, grounding thrum of him.
"You're not her tool. You're not her shadow. You're not her lock."
Kael's forehead touched hers, breath warm and unsteady.
"You are the only part of this cursed world that feels real to me."
Her breath hitched.
"Kael…"
"And if anyone — including fate — tries to take you away, I'll tear this city apart."
The bond responded instantly.
Heat. Light.
Then a slow, aching pull that wasn't magic at all.
She wanted to kiss him.
He felt the thought through the bond — his breath caught — and he leaned in—
A shatter of glassfire hit the wall beside them.
"Enough," the elder hissed.
Kael rose to his feet, pulling Lira behind him. His shadows writhed like beasts ready to devour.
"You don't want to do this," Kael warned.
"Yes," she said calmly, lifting her arms, "I do."
She unleashed a wave of red glassfire — powerful enough to disintegrate stone.
Kael countered with a tidal wave of shadow.
The collision shook the sanctum, blowing out entire pillars of crystal. Memories shattered in their glass prisons, scattering like stardust.
"Kael!" Lira shouted. "If you keep fighting her head-on, you'll lose!"
Kael snarled through clenched teeth. "Got a better idea?"
"Yes," she whispered.
She stepped forward and grabbed his hand.
The bond ignited.
Their magic fused — not shadow and glass, not fire and blood, but something new, something born from two souls stitched together by destiny and defiance.
Light erupted from their joined hands — black and blue, swirling like twin stars colliding.
They thrust their palms forward.
The blast hit the elder with devastating force, flinging her across the chamber and shattering her veil. She crashed into a pillar — and didn't rise.
The sanctum fell eerily silent.
Kael breathed hard, chest heaving. "Lira… are you—"
"I'm here," she whispered, squeezing his hand. "I'm with you."
His shoulders relaxed — the first real calm he'd shown in hours.
But before either of them could speak again, a new voice echoed through the ruined chamber:
"Well done, heir."
Kael froze.
Lira turned.
A tall figure stepped from the shadows, wearing black armor marked with the Council's insignia — a crescent carved into stone.
His eyes glowed silver.
Kael's blood ran cold.
"Father?"
Lira felt the bond spike with Kael's shock — and fear.
Because the man who stepped toward them…
was supposed to be dead.