Chapter 20
It happens so fast that I’m momentarily stunned.
Up close, I see the brutality of Kaelzar’s torture.
The chain’s barbed links biting deep. They tear into his flesh instead of cutting it clean, grinding under invisible command, pulling and tightening in a relentless rhythm that carves into him with every motion.
Blood streaks down his chest, seeping into the sheets, and I see him rising, most likely planning to escape again.
I have to help him.
I have to stop him from thinking of that damned Goddess who keeps tightening her hold, forcing his suffering again and again.
Before I can think, before I can stop myself, I cup his face and press my lips to his.
It’s a terrible idea. Madness.
But my body moves before my mind can catch up.
Kaelzar goes completely still.
For a breathless moment, nothing happens. Even the chains go quiet.
Doubt creeps into my chest. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if this was a mistake. I should—
But then, his hands, which had held still with the precision of someone battling himself, finally move. One cradles my face, slow, hesitant, as if he isn’t sure he’s allowed to touch me. The other wraps around my shoulder.
And then, with a deep, relieved sigh, Kaelzar exhales into me. His lips part, slow, tentative, like he’s tasting freedom for the first time.
A jolt shoots through me, unraveling at the bottom of my stomach.
His lips move against mine. Slow, like he’s memorizing the sensation, savoring it.
“I take it back,” he growls into my mouth, voice wrecked.
“What?” I whisper back, already breathless.
“What I said after the first challenge. About not being yours.” His voice lowers, threaded with a rasp that feels like it reaches through me.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers curling just enough to unravel something vital inside me. My eyes flutter shut, breath stalling.
“I am yours, Trouble,” he says, rough and unsteady. “Say it again,” he demands against my lips. “Say it like you did in the temple. Word for word.”
And I do. Not because I’m told, but because I want to. Because the words pulse in me like a heartbeat.
“You’re mine,” I repeat as heat blooms in my cheeks. “So only I decide what you do with your mouth.”
His breath hitches, a sound caught between a growl and a sigh.
“Now tell me,” he says, low and reverent. “What do you want me to do with my mouth?”
Control begins to fray, followed by restraint, then reason, unraveling inside me in slow, silken threads. It’s like a freer, fiercer self I never dared to meet has taken control and now she wears my skin.
“Do with it as you please.”
His mouth crashes against mine again, hungrier now. His fingers tangle in my hair, pulling me closer when the ache at my side makes me gasp.
The raw sound seems to snap Kaelzar back to himself. He jerks away, eyes darting to the blood soaking through the bandage at my side. The stitches must have torn open.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Kaelzar growls, pushing off the bed.
His face twists in horror and regret. The sight makes my chest ache. Did he really hate my touch that much?
Humiliation and anger clash inside me. I push back until my spine hits the wooden headboard.
“What were you thinking?” he growls.
I grit my teeth. “I was thinking how much laundry you’ll have to do after bleeding all over my sheets.” My hand presses against my damp bandage. “Though helping you only ever seems to make me bleed.”
The words leave a bitter taste.
His furious gaze shifts, locking on my hair. That’s when I remember what this kiss truly meant.
My hands tremble as I pull a few strands forward. I don’t have to search long. A deep red bleeds through another too-thick lock, swallowing the white. But even as the color spreads, I can’t stop noticing how much it seems to bother him. As if all the shame it carries belongs to him, not me.
“You just started winning people’s hearts,” he says, voice rising. “And you do this to yourself? Waste yourself on me?”
I stare at him, too stunned to form words.
He starts pacing, one hand dragging over his mouth. The gesture looks unthinking, but all I can see is that he’s wiping away the taste of me.
Suddenly, he stops pacing. In two strides he’s in front of me, towering over where I sit on the bed.
His hands close around my shoulders, firm but shaking, and his eyes lock onto mine, burning so intensely I have to fight the urge to look away.
“There can’t be anything between us,” he says, voice breaking. “Do you understand?”
Hearing these words feels like my own Decay magic reaching for my heart and withering it from the inside. I didn’t ask for anything from him. I didn’t even mean the kiss that way. Did I? It was just to help him. It meant nothing. It had to mean nothing.
But the burn behind my eyes says otherwise. My chest tightens, breath trembling as that familiar voice in my head claws its way back up—the one that always whispers I’ll never be enough.
Not for my father, who never forgave me for being his daughter.
Not for Ryker, who never chose me over tradition.
And not for my Godbeast, who looks like he’d rather crush my heart beneath his heel than ever hold it gently in his hands.
Anger floods in to fill the hollow space. It’s easier. It always is. Fueled by it, I lean forward until our noses almost touch. “The real waste,” I say coolly, “was all the time I spent under the same roof with you. I think it’s time for you to take—”
A violent rush of magic seizes me before I can finish.
My body folds in on itself. The pressure flares outward.
In the chaos of the last few minutes, I lost track of the storm I’d been holding back.
Now it surges free, grinding against my bones, burning through my veins.
My arms and legs tremble with the ache, and a whimper slips past my lips as the magic tears for release.
Kaelzar moves. He carefully scoops me up again with startling ease, wrapping me in the blanket as though I weigh nothing.
“Kaelzar, what—” My protest turns into a squeal as he shifts me in his arms and begins to move.
The air around us thickens almost immediately, the space growing heavier, more oppressive. It’s as if we’ve walked into a dense spiderweb that clings to my skin and hair, wraps itself around me and then presses into my lungs.
The darkness comes next like an abyss that swallows all senses. Sound vanishes first, then time itself seems to stretch.
My thoughts scatter. I can’t see, can’t hear, can’t breathe properly. The air is sharp, prickly, foreign, as though it carries a poisonous charge. My chest tightens, my breaths come short and panicked.
My hands fly up, gripping his neck in desperation. He’s the only real thing in this void, the only thing tethering me to myself. Beneath my fingers, his skin is warm, his chest steady as it rises and falls.
“Kaelzar,” I whisper, my voice shaky and small. “I can’t… I can’t breathe….”
“Hold on,” he rumbles, his voice low and steady. Unshaken. As if this place belongs to him.
My heart thunders in my chest, and my magic writhes uneasily inside me, reacting to the foreign sensation of the shadows. I squeeze my eyes shut, focusing on the warmth of his arms, the strength in his grip. He feels unshakable, an anchor in the hailstorm.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, the oppressive weight lifts.
The prickly air dissolves, and I gasp, my lungs greedily drawing in the familiar, clean air. Dim light filters back into my vision, and the world reassembles itself in jagged, rocky shapes.
Kaelzar sets me down gently against the hard stone wall of a vast cavern. My legs feel like jelly and my mind spins, trying to make sense of my surroundings. Magic roils deep within me, agitated by my confusion.
“What... what just happened?” I stammer, my voice trembling.
Kaelzar says nothing. He melts back into the shadows, leaving me alone before I can gather my thoughts.
The disorientation ebbs slowly, but it leaves behind a hollow, stretched feeling, like my body has been unraveled and stitched back together wrong. The memory of the shadows lingers, an endless, suffocating expanse that feels both unnatural and alive.
Kaelzar emerges from the darkness moments later, carrying a large, bloodied wolf in his arms.
The creature’s jaw hangs at an unnatural angle, its labored breathing filling the cave with a heavy, pitiful sound.
“What is that?” I hiss, struggling to sit up despite the pain in my side.
Kaelzar places the wolf between us with a deliberate gentleness that belies his usual brusqueness.
“You didn’t want to take an innocent life,” he says, his voice steady but unyielding. “Then take the life of something already suffering.”
My mouth falls open. My gaze flicks to the wolf, its matted fur and broken body a portrait of agony. I slide back against the wall.
“We have to help it,” I whisper, my voice trembling.
Kaelzar’s sharp features harden. “It’s an old wolf,” he says, gesturing to its weathered coat. “Perhaps it was injured protecting its young, or by another predator. Its jaw is shattered. Its spine is broken. There’s no saving it. The only mercy left is to end its suffering.”
“Then why didn’t you end it?” I snap, my eyes burning with unshed tears.
His lip curls in a faint snarl. “Its death doesn’t have to be wasted. Take its life and use it to heal yourself.”
Defiance blazes in my chest.“I will not kill—”
“You seem to have forgotten what I told you,” Kaelzar interrupts, “I will stop at nothing to see you win this Trial.” His gaze lingers, waiting. Daring me to prove him wrong.
But I say nothing. The silence is answer enough.
Without another word, he steps back into the shadows and vanishes, leaving me alone with the dying wolf.
I stare at the empty space where he stood, disbelief coursing through me.
My breath quickens as I look down at the wolf. Its amber eyes meet mine, clouded with pain, yet something in them feels almost… pleading. Tears blur my vision.