Chapter 10 Zeidan
ZEIDAN
The bond screams in a warning.
It detonates through my chest like a blade driven straight between my ribs, sharp and absolute, and I am already moving before thought catches up. The suppression runes burn as my magic surges against them, shattering restraint, flooding my veins with cold, violent clarity.
Amelia.
The ritual circle flashes in my mind, her bare feet on living earth, her hands raised, her magic open and exposed. Too open.
Something is wrong.
I break from the shadows without hesitation. The crowd parts too slowly. Lanterns sway. Voices rise in confusion as I shove past bodies, my hood thrown back, my presence no longer hidden. Someone shouts. Someone else gasps my name like a curse.
I don’t care.
The bond pulls me like a hooked chain, dragging me forward just as the air splits with motion.
Steel flashes. A blade catches the ritual firelight, thin, elegant, moving with lethal precision straight toward Amelia’s unguarded side.
Too fast and too close. She turns at the last second, shock widening her eyes as the assassin surges from the crowd, masked and silent, arm already extended. The ritual circle flares wildly, her magic lashing outward in reflex, uncontrolled, destabilized by fear and interruption.
I roar. Magic explodes from me in a violent wave, cracking stone, extinguishing lanterns, knocking bodies backward as I cross the remaining distance in a blur of shadow and force. The ground splits beneath my boots.
I reach her as the blade descends. My hand snaps out, catching the assassin’s wrist mid-strike. Bone crunches. The sound is wet and final.
I feel the break travel up their arm as I twist, rage lending my strength something inhuman. The blade skitters free, clattering across stone. The attacker screams, once, before I drive my knee into their chest and send them flying into the outer edge of the circle.
They don’t rise. I don’t let them. The shift tears through me without permission.
Claws erupt from my hands, half-formed, shadow and bone and blood magic flaring as instinct overwhelms restraint. My vision sharpens, pupils blown wide as the predator takes hold. Fangs descend, breath steaming in the cold night air. Gasps erupt around us.
“Vrakken!” someone shrieks.
I turn slowly, positioning myself in front of Amelia without thought, without hesitation. My body shields hers completely, my magic flaring outward in a brutal, warning pulse that rattles teeth and drives the nearest onlookers back a full step.
Mine.
The word is not conscious. It is truth.
Amelia is breathing hard behind me. I feel her shock, pain, fury, magic bucking wildly against its channels. Her power is no longer flowing cleanly into the Wildspont. It’s spiking, unstable, reacting violently to the broken ritual.
Blood magic responds…Ours.
It surges between us, dark and incandescent, wrapping her wild light in shadow, stabilizing it by force if not finesse. The ground beneath us hums, then answers. Roots tighten. The Wildspont pulses stronger.
The land recognizes us. The crowd does too.
“Enough!” I snarl, voice layered with something older than language. “Stand down.”
Some flinch. Others stare in horrified awe.
Elder Cael steps forward, face pale. “You were forbidden from—”
“Someone tried to kill her,” I cut in coldly. “You can argue protocol later.”
My gaze sweeps the assembled Purnas and elders, daring anyone to challenge me. “Your ritual was infiltrated. Your wards failed. And you are wasting breath on me.”
Murmurs ripple. Fear shifts direction.
“She shouldn’t have brought him,” someone mutters.
Amelia moves beside me then, spine straight despite the tremor I feel under my skin. “If he hadn’t been here,” she says, voice shaking but clear, “I’d be dead.”
Silence slams down, and I seize it.
“You forbade my presence,” I continue, voice cutting through the night, “and yet the land responded more strongly in those moments than it has in months.” I gesture sharply at the ground, still humming beneath our feet. “Because together, our magic is stronger than yours is alone.”
I can feel their anger flare and fear sharpen, but they need to hear it.
“Whether you like it or not,” I say, “I am not your enemy tonight.”
I lean forward slightly, letting just enough of my power bleed through for emphasis.
“But whoever sent that assassin is.”
This grabs their attention. Guards surge forward at last, dragging the unconscious attacker away. The ritual circle lies shattered, its sigils cracked and bleeding light into the soil. The gods have gone silent again… unsettled and disturbed.
I turn back to Amelia. And that’s when I see it. Blood. Her blood.
A thin, dark line seeps through the fabric at her side, just below her ribs. Not much. Barely visible. But the bond howls in response. My hands are on her before she can speak.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” she starts, automatically.
I rip the fabric aside.
The cut is shallow, but wrong. The flesh around it is already darkening, veins spidering outward in an ugly, unnatural pattern. My stomach drops.
Poison.
Cold fear, real fear, claws up my spine.
“Healer,” I bark, voice cracking stone. “Now.”
They scatter instantly. Amelia sways. I catch her, hauling her against my chest without caring who sees, who judges, who whispers. Her magic lashes again, wild and sharp, reacting to the toxin and the broken ritual, burning too hot, too fast.
“I’m fine,” she insists weakly.
“You’re not,” I say, pressing my forehead briefly to hers, grounding both of us. “And you will stop lying to me.”
Her eyes meet mine, furious, frightened, alive.
Good. Alive.
The healer arrives at a run, eyes widening at the sight of the wound. “That blade—”
“Was poisoned,” I finish. “Treat it as such.”
They work quickly, murmuring prayers and incantations, drawing the toxin out drop by drop. I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I feel every spike of her pain as if it’s my own.
When it’s done, she’s exhausted, pale, magic still restless beneath her skin. Too restless. The interruption has destabilized something. I can feel it, her power no longer settling the way it should, surging unpredictably, like a river knocked from its banks.
I don’t say it yet. I won’t frighten her more than necessary. But as I hold her upright, as the crowd finally disperses and the night settles into uneasy quiet, something colder coils in my gut.
This wasn’t random. The assassin knew where to strike. Knew the ritual timing. Knew how exposed she’d be. Someone here helped them. The bond hums low and ominous, feeding me certainty I don’t want.
This was only the beginning. And whoever is working against us will not stop until Amelia Crow is broken, or dead.
I bare my fangs into the darkness.
They will fail.
The healers insist on moving her to a recovery chamber, cool stone, warded doors, incense that bites the back of my throat. I let them, but I follow so closely they stop trying to pretend I’m not there.
When the last one finishes sealing the bandage, they bow and retreat. The door shuts and then there is silence.
It is finally just us.
Amelia lies on the narrow bed, hair loose against the pillow, her face too pale under the lanternlight. Her eyes stay open longer than they should. Her magic keeps skittering beneath her skin, unstable, like it’s searching for the circle that was ripped away.
“What was that?” she rasps, voice rough. “The way you… the way the power—”
I sit on the bed, close enough that the bond loosens its frantic grip. She exhales, almost involuntarily, like her body recognizes safety before her mind allows it.
“Later,” I say, quieter than I intend. “You need rest.”
Her gaze sharpens, still stubborn even like this. “Don’t dismiss me.”
“I’m not dismissing you.” I force my tone back into something colder, controlled. “I’m ordering you to recover.”
She lets out a weak, offended huff that might have been a laugh in another moment. “Bossy.”
I should move away. I don’t. Her lashes flutter. The bond pulses gently, urging proximity, urging stillness, urging…mine.
She tries again, softer this time. “It hurt. Not just the cut. It felt like… something ripped.”
“The ritual was interrupted,” I say. I watch her throat work as she swallows. “It shook the channel. Your magic hasn’t settled.”
Her eyes search mine. “Is that dangerous?”
“Yes,” I admit.
She goes very still, and the bond flares, fear spiking through her, sharp enough to sting my nerves. Before she can spiral, I place my hand over her wrist, careful, steady. Not a claim, but an anchor.
“Breathe,” I say. “With me.”
Her breath catches, then follows mine. Slowly. Again. Again. The wildness in her magic eases, not gone, but quieter.
Her eyes drift shut.
“Don’t leave,” she murmurs, so faint I almost pretend I didn’t hear it.
I don’t answer. I just stay. Minutes pass. Her breathing deepens. Sleep finally takes her, pulling her under with reluctant gentleness. But my body doesn’t relax.
It should. The threat is gone. The poison is treated. She is alive. And still, I can’t let go of the way she looked when the blade flashed, how close she came to falling, how the bond screamed like it would tear me apart if she did.
I tell myself this is the bond. Instinct. Biology. Magic. A tether reacting to danger.
But the truth sits heavier than any rune. I didn’t want to be away from her before.
Now, after this, after watching death reach for her…I don’t know if I can leave at all. And that isn’t the bond speaking. That’s me.