Chapter 20
Aiden’s POV
After Ruin finally fell asleep, I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Fuck. Mira remained at the bedside, brushing a loose strand of Rynlee’s hair away from her face with a tenderness that spoke of blood ties and unspoken promises.
Her fingers lingered against Rynlee’s hand, grounding, protective, as if she were anchoring her to the world. The room still smelled of blood and salve, scorched magic and pain, but it was the ache in my chest that refused to ease. Her screams echoed in my head. They would never leave me.
I peered down at her again. Even in sleep, she appeared as though she was fighting something, brows faintly drawn, breath uneven.
The dark circles under her eyes weren’t just exhaustion.
They were shadows of something deeper. Something wrong.
She’d always struggled with sleep, ever since we were kids.
Nightmares. Restlessness.
But this… this was different. Worse. My hand moved before I could stop it.
My thumb brushed beneath her eye, tracing the sharp line of her cheekbone.
Her skin was warm beneath my touch, but fragile too, like porcelain balanced too close to the edge.
Seeing her like this, broken, quiet, vulnerable, did something to me.
Something I didn’t want to name. The hatred I’d carried for so long didn’t vanish.
But it loosened. My gaze drifted to the side of her neck, where the faint scar from Erebus’s bite still lingered.
Twin crescent marks, pale against her skin.
I should never have let that happen. My thumb hovered, then brushed lightly over the healed flesh. A restrained touch.
Careful. Regret burning hot in my chest. What’s happening to you, Ruin?
I straightened abruptly, needing distance before I did something irrational, like kiss her, or crawl into that bed and hold her the way my body was demanding.
Mira didn’t stop me when I turned for the door.
She only gave me a quiet nod, as if she understood exactly why I couldn’t stay.
The door opened, and I nearly collided with her friends.
Gia’s eyes were red, glassy with tears. She was fighting hard not to let them fall. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, keeping my voice steady even though my chest felt tight. “She’ll be fine. You and I both know how tough Ryn is.” Gia nodded shakily. I offered a brief smile to the others before brushing past them and stepping out into the afternoon. The cold air hit me like a slap. I welcomed it.
The stone bridge was empty, sunlight stretching long golden rays across the arches.
My boots echoed softly as I crossed, trying to think.
To breathe. To make sense of what I’d just watched.
Something’s wrong with her. It wasn’t just the killing.
Gods knew war demanded blood. It was the manner in which her magic had been slipping.
The fog in her eyes. The hollow look she had worn afterward.
She’d taken another cadet’s life today, and the expression on her face hadn’t been triumphant.
It had been horror. Like she didn’t know what she was doing.
And then the lashes. The way she’d stood there and endured every lash without screaming, without begging, without breaking.
Brutal. And fucking stunning. Fire and fury and stubborn defiance wrapped into one relentless force.
For the first time, I understood it. Why my father had watched her differently.
Why he’d nodded at her instead of me. Why he had seen something worth forging instead of something already sharp.
My hands curled into fists, nails biting into my palms. Something was happening to Rynlee Yarrows. And I was going to find out what.
Later that day, I was heading to the showers, barely keeping the fire under my skin in check, when-Bam.
My back slammed into the cold stone. Alaric’s fist gripped my leathers, fury blazing in his eyes.
“How could you do that to her?” Before he could shove me again, I twisted, grabbed his collar, and swept my leg beneath his.
He hit the floor with a grunt, and I pinned him down, my arm across his chest, rage coiling in every muscle.
“Back off, Alaric,” I snapped, my voice low and venomous.
He thrashed against me, throwing a punch that caught my ribs.
Pain flared, but so did my anger. In one fluid move, I hauled him up and slammed him against the wall.
My forearm pressed into his throat now, cutting off his air as I leaned in.
“You think I wanted to do that?” I growled.
“You think I enjoyed every lash I gave her?”
“She didn’t mean to kill that student!” he choked out.
“And you think I don’t know that?” My eyes burned into his. “You think I wasn’t there? I saw the guilt in her eyes, how she called for the punishment, insisted on it?”
Alaric punched me again, weaker this time, but I didn’t flinch.
“I felt every fucking lash,” I hissed. “Every strike that hit her, it hit me, too. You have no idea what that was like.” He stilled beneath me, breathing shallow as I shoved harder against his throat.
“And where the fuck were you?” I barked, my voice echoing down the corridor.
“You want to stand here, judge me, blame me, but you weren’t there.
You ran. You couldn’t handle it.” His eyes widened.
That struck a nerve. “She took it like a warrior, Al. Better than anyone I’ve ever seen.
And you weren’t there to see it. Because what?
Your heart couldn’t take it? You were scared to watch her bleed? ”
I let him go suddenly. He slumped against the wall, chest heaving. I stepped back, fury still simmering beneath my skin. “She’s not some fragile thing you get to protect from the world. She’s in this war with us. She could die in it. What are you going to do then, run again?”
Alaric’s jaw clenched. No words. Just guilt and shame burning in his eyes.
I raked a hand through my hair and exhaled, trying to shove the emotion back down.
“Instead of throwing punches at me, maybe try being there for her.” My voice dropped, heavy with scorn.
“You want to help? Go sit by her bedside and hold her fucking hand.”
Without waiting for a response, I turned and stalked off, fists clenched and heart still pounding.
Once around the corner, I slammed my fist into the stone wall.
Crack. The rock splintered under my knuckles, pain flaring up my arm.
Good. I wanted it to hurt. But before I could even throw another punch, the hallway vanished, replaced by silver mist and the haunting stillness of the Moon Realm. Great.
“Aiden.” Khonsu’s voice cut sharply through the fog. He was already striding toward me, urgency written across his face. “You marked Rynlee.”
I blinked. Once. “Well hello to you, too.” My hand dropped to my side, knuckles still aching. “What the hell are you talking about? Marked her? I haven’t done anything like that.”
Khonsu’s eyes narrowed. “Hemera told me she has an ice rose carved into her side.”
“What?” I snapped. “Okay… what the hell does that even mean?”
Khonsu exhaled sharply and ran a hand through his dark hair. “It’s one of our rarer abilities,” he said, tone lowering. “A mark. A seal. It allows the one who placed it to enter another’s mind. Alter thoughts. Memories. Even create hallucinations.”
My jaw clenched. “What.”
He grimaced. “Can you stop saying what?”
I scoffed, sharp and humorless. “Oh, I’m sorry, how should I react when I find out I accidentally marked the one girl I simultaneously hate and yet am drawn to by a fucking bond you gave me?” I glared at him. “How the hell does that even happen?”
Khonsu lifted his hands. “For starters, I never expected you to get that gift, let alone use it. But to inflict a mark like that, you have to create an ice spike and slowly—” he paused, expression darkening, “—torture them.” My breath hitched.
“So,” he continued carefully, “did you do that to Rynlee?” The memory slammed into me.
Her defiance. Her fire. The way I had snapped, pinning her beneath me, ice biting into her skin as rage took over.
“Fuck,” I muttered, dragging a hand through my hair. “Yes.”
“Gods, Aiden,” Khonsu snapped. “You’re supposed to be working with her, not fucking hurting her.”
I met his gaze head-on. “No shit. But it’s hard when she keeps trying to hurt me, too, or pushes me until I feel like I have to teach her a lesson.” My voice hardened. “And don’t turn this around on me. You’re the one who never told me about this ability.”
“That’s because,” he shot back, “I didn’t think you had the power. How would I know?”
I glared at him. “You’re a god.” He sighed. And even after three years, it was still unsettling, arguing with a god who wore my face. I stared up at the star-filled sky. “How do I undo it?” Khonsu hesitated. “Khonsu.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “The only way to remove a mark is to carve it out of the skin.” Silence fell between us.
“Of course,” I muttered, letting out a dark laugh. “Why wouldn’t that be the answer?”
“It is meant for enemies,” he said quietly. “It’s not as if you branded her out of cruelty.”
“No,” I spat. “Just accidentally. Just… unknowingly claimed her mind like I own it.”
“Aiden—”
“Anything else you plan to leave out until it blows up in my face?” I snapped, turning away.
Khonsu raised his hands again. “You can’t enter her mind unless you touch the mark and summon your shadows,” he said quickly. “You haven’t been inside her head. You only created a gateway.” That helped. Slightly. But if Rynlee ever found out, she would hate me even more.
“Send me back.” The Moon Realm dissolved around me, dropping me back into the hallway. Empty. Silent. Too quiet. I headed straight for the showers, stripped out of my leathers, and stepped beneath the scalding spray. The heat hit hard, but it didn’t come close to burning away the mess in my head.