CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE #2
"It is wrong," he said, his voice a low vibration. "The Veylaith feeds off fear. Don’t give it yours."
Branches creaked overhead, a whisper threading through the leaves like a dying breath.
I caught a flash of movement—too fast to place, a blur against the gnarled bark.
"Asher…"
"I see it." His hand brushed the hilt of his blade, calm but ready. "We keep moving. South, toward the shrines. The radius will shrink from the north first."
I nodded, my pulse steadying under the anchor of his voice.
We walked in silence for a while, the only sounds the crunch of our boots and the rhythmic thud of my heartbeat echoing through the bond. Every step sank us deeper into shadow where the air grew thick with pine and old, curdled magic.
Then—a chime.
Faint. Metallic. The sound of another team’s band flaring into the void, signaled back to the Astral Guard monitors.
"Eighteen," Asher murmured.
The Woods shivered around us, the leaves rustling with a sound that felt almost… pleased.
"Gods," I breathed, gripping his arm. "It’s like it can taste it."
His jaw tightened, a hard line in the gloom.
"Then let’s make sure it chokes on ours." He reached for my hand, his fingers sliding through mine and grounding me in the dark.
"Come on, firecracker," he said, a ghost of a grin flickering through the tension. "Let’s hunt."
We moved like shadows—silent, calculated, and lethal.
Every heartbeat and every whisper in the dark sharpened my senses until the Woods themselves seemed to breathe in time with us.
"Two ahead," Aether’s voice curled through the bond, his massive black ears twitching as his now-flame-tipped tail went still. "Eastward. Fire and earth. They reek of arrogance,"
I smirked. "Perfect."
Asher’s hand brushed my back, a fleeting touch of warmth. "Our first hunt," he murmured, the words humming through the bond like a promise.
We crept through the undergrowth until I caught sight of them—two wielders crouched near a fallen log, muttering over a map projection hovering in the air.
Their boundlings—a molten boar and a hulking stone bear—snuffled the dirt as if they were the apex predators here.
"Want to make an entrance?" I whispered.
He glanced at me, eyes glinting silver. "Always."
I flared my magic, heat shimmering through the clearing until the moss began to curl.
Their heads whipped up—too late.
I sent a burst of flame arcing across the air; it exploded against the ground at their feet, sending dirt and white-hot fire scattering.
The boar charged, its tusks ablaze, and Aether met it mid-lunge. His black claws flashed as a roar split the silence.
Zya materialized from the shadows behind the stone bear, her body a coiled ribbon of darkness that swallowed the light.
The wielders turned, panic flashing across their faces, but Asher was already there. His blade was pressed to the Fire wielder's throat, shadows crawling up his arms like living ink.
"Outmatched," he said quietly, "but I’ll let you try."
The Earth wielder lunged, jagged rocks shooting from his hands. I dodged, spun with fire licking my palms, and slammed a flame burst into his chest.
He flew back, coughing as he hit a tree. The Fire wielder retaliated, his heat colliding with mine midair—a roaring clash of gold and red.
The explosion lit the trees in a blinding strobe.
For a second, I couldn’t see—then a fist cracked across my jaw. Pain bloomed, sharp and white-hot, sending me reeling.
I staggered, tasting the metallic tang of blood.
Asher froze. His eyes went black.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, his voice dropping to a frequency that chilled my marrow.
“Asher—” I snapped, reaching out to catch his arm before he unleashed the absolute hell simmering behind his eyes. “He’s mine.”
He met my gaze, the tension coiled so tight I thought he might snap the very air between us.
He searched my eyes for a fraction of a second, seeing the fire already roaring there, and then he nodded once—a sharp, jagged movement.
I turned back to the Fire wielder, spat a mouthful of copper-tasting blood onto the moss, and let a slow, predatory smile spread across my face. “Let’s dance.”
He came at me again, wild and untrained, fueled by a desperation that made him sloppy.
I ducked under his heavy swing, the heat of his fist singeing the air above my head.
I caught his wrist in a grip of iron and drove my knee upward into his gut. He gasped, the air leaving his lungs in a wet wheeze. Before he could recover, I twisted, grabbed his collar, and sent a concentrated pulse of white-hot fire straight into his chest.
He hit the ground hard, smoke curling from his scorched armor as he wheezed into the dirt.
“Stay down,” I growled, my palms still smoking.
Behind us, the chaos of the boundlings was reaching its end. Aether had the molten boar pinned to the earth, his black, flame-tipped claws at its throat, while Zya held the stone bear’s head in her massive jaws, her silver eyes gleaming like molten metal.
The forest echoed with their low snarls and the crackle of dying magic until both boundlings shimmered, their forms collapsing into a desperate retreat—defeated.
The enemy bracelets flared a brilliant, final crimson. Two gone. Sixteen left.
Asher was at my side in a heartbeat, his hand finding my chin and tilting my head up.
His thumb brushed over the split in my lip, tracing the smear of blood there.
He froze.
The air between us thickened, something primal and ancient unfurling under his skin.
His pupils blew wide, the black swallowing the silver until he looked entirely other.
For a heartbeat, he just stared, his breath coming in rough, jagged hitches, like every ounce of his restraint was a thread about to snap.
“Asher—” I started, but he was already there.
His mouth crashed into mine—hot, consuming, and utterly desperate. The kiss was fire and possession.
I felt his tongue trace the blood on my lip before he tasted it, before he tasted me.
A low, vibrating growl rumbled deep in his chest—a sound that wasn't human, a sound that belonged to the shadows of the deep world.
The Woods narrowed to that single point of contact: blood, heat, and the faint tremor running through his massive frame.
I felt his hunger, sharp and aching, bleeding through the bond until it tangled with my own until I couldn't tell where my fire ended and his darkness began.
Then, suddenly, he tore himself back.
His chest heaved and his eyes were still black as ink, his hands fisted at his sides as if he were physically fighting something inside him.
“Gods,” he rasped, his voice raw and almost broken. “You—” He stopped, swallowed hard, and forced a breath through clenched teeth. The shadows clinging to his shoulders flickered violently, then died.
I touched my lip, the skin still tingling from his touch.
I could feel it through the bond—the sheer intensity of his need, his craving, the wild pulse of something dark and ancient clawing at the surface of his soul. It called to me. Gods help me, I wanted more.
He exhaled hard, forcing his gaze away from my mouth. “We need to move,” he rasped, his voice raw, almost guttural. “Now, darling. Before I forget what we came here for.”
He turned sharply, already stalking forward toward the south, the shadows coiling around his boots like thick, oily smoke.
I followed him, my heart slamming against my ribs and my pulse still echoing with the metallic taste of him. The Veylaith Woods pressed close, silent and watching, and all I could think was that I wasn't sure which would devour me first—the forest or the male leading me through it.
···
The forest stretched endlessly ahead, but I could feel the change—the faint, rhythmic hum beneath the ground, the pull of the radius tightening like a noose. Every hour, the magic would constrict, driving us all closer together until there was nowhere left to hide.
Aether padded ahead, his black, flame-tipped tail flicking. “The circle’s moving again,”he murmured through the bond. “North line’s collapsing. We’ve got maybe twenty minutes before it presses in another mile.”
"Perfect," Asher muttered, scanning the treeline with eyes that didn't miss a single shadow. "That’ll drive the others toward us."
His voice was steadier now, but the edge was still there—that barely contained hunger he thought I didn’t notice.
The same hunger that made my heart beat too fast whenever he looked at me.
We walked in silence for a while, the moss soft beneath our boots, the air humming with distant magic. Then Asher said quietly,
"When this is over…"
I glanced at him, my fire flickering low in my palms. "When what’s over?"
"The Trials," he said, eyes fixed forward.
"The Academy. The crowns. All of it." His tone was lighter, but there was something behind it—something fragile. "When we’re free of all this, I want to see the other kingdoms. The cliffs of Zephyrion. The coral palaces of Tideris. Take you anywhere that isn’t burning or bleeding. "
A soft laugh escaped me, the sound echoing strangely in the ancient woods. "You planning a vacation or an escape?"
"Both," he said with a grin. Then, lower. "You deserve something real. Something that’s ours."
I looked at him—the gleam of silver in his eyes, the small, rare curve of his mouth—and gods, I believed him. For a moment, it was easy to imagine a life beyond all this.
Then the ground snapped.
The world tilted—a shimmer of runes erupted beneath our feet—and before I could shout, the air was sucked out of my lungs. A blur of light, and suddenly we were hanging upside down, suspended in a web of glowing, magical vines.
"Asher!" I gasped, struggling against the constriction as the blood rushed to my head.
He twisted midair, his eyes flashing with sudden, lethal intent. "Trap spell," he growled. "Clever bastards."
Laughter echoed through the trees. Two figures emerged from the brush—a Fire wielder and an Earth wielder, both smug, both armed.
"Looks like the great Black Flame got sloppy," the Fire wielder sneered, stepping into the small clearing.
Asher’s mouth curved into a feral grin.