We didn't run.
We vanished.
Magic tore the sky open above the execution square. One breath, we were surrounded—soldiers, blades, mirrors, the Regent's blade inches from Virelya's throat. The next, we were nowhere. A ripple of ancient power swallowed us in an instant.
It wasn't a spell.
It was a fail-safe.
Buried deep in the curse. Activated by blood. By the baby.
---
We reappeared in the southern highlands, beneath a forgotten moon. The air was thick with mist. Trees swayed without wind. Somewhere, wolves howled in the distance—but the sound felt too hollow, too rehearsed, like it echoed from memory.
Virelya collapsed the moment her feet hit the ground.
I caught her.
She was burning.
Not with fever.
With power.
Her skin radiated low pulses of unstable magic. Her hair shimmered like the mist. Her breathing was shallow, but steady—until she exhaled with a soft whimper and blood stained the edge of her thigh.
Not much.
But enough.
"Stay with me," I whispered, holding her tighter. "Please, gods, stay with me."
She didn't answer.
---
I carried her into the ruins of a stone watchtower a few meters away. It looked abandoned, but it hummed—low wards etched into the stone still functioned, flickering alive as we passed. Whoever built this place had prepared it for one thing:
Her.
And maybe… this moment.
---
The first night, she was unconscious.
I cleaned the blood. Tended her skin. Fed her magic with runes. She didn't wake.
But her magic surged once—suddenly. Wildly. It reached for me and then recoiled just as fast, like it knew I shouldn't be near her.
The baby—still alive.
I felt it.
The bond didn't lie.
But it was breaking under its own weight.
---
She woke on the second morning.
Barely.
Her voice cracked on the first word. "Water."
I held the cup to her lips. She drank, weakly, then gripped my wrist, nails biting my skin.
"Is he…?" Her eyes fluttered shut. "Still…"
"Yes," I whispered. "He's still here."
She nodded, just once, and let go.
She didn't cry. Not then.
But later that night, when she thought I was asleep, I heard her whisper.
"I won't let him take you. I won't let him win."
She didn't say who.
The Regent? The curse? Fate?
Or me?
---
By the third day, the silence between us grew sharp.
Her strength returned slowly, but her distance grew faster. I sat near the fireplace, fixing a broken bracer. She sat across the room, one hand always curled over her stomach, her other clutching a dagger I never gave her.
We hadn't spoken in hours.
Not since the blood stopped.
Not since we realized the child—our child—was changing her.
Or maybe the Heart never really left.
---
"Do you feel it too?" she asked that evening, eyes still on the flames.
"The child?"
"The pull. The bond. It's louder now."
"Yes."
"It hurts."
I nodded.
So did mine.
Every time I looked at her, my heart surged so hard my chest ached. Every time she looked away, it felt like something inside me shattered.
But when I touched her—*
Magic unraveled.
Reality trembled.
We were no longer just lovers.
We were a weapon the world didn't know how to disarm.
---
That night, she curled into herself on the far side of the bed. She didn't ask me to stay.
I stood over her for a while. Watching her chest rise and fall. Watching the way her hand never moved from her stomach. Watching the flicker of emotion she tried to bury.
Then I stepped back.
And I packed my things.
---
I left her a letter.
I didn't want to. Every part of me screamed against it.
But this wasn't about want anymore.
This was about survival.
> You are not my weakness. You are the reason I'm alive.
But if I stay… this bond will destroy you.
I need to find the root. I need to finish this curse.
Not with you beside me.
But for you.
For him.
I will return.
Even if I have to come back from hell to do it.
I kissed her forehead.
And walked into the wild.
---
The moment I crossed the edge of the protective runes, the world changed.
The air turned colder. Shadows whispered.
The bond didn't break.
But it pulled—like a cord tied to my ribs, yanking with every step. I felt her wake. I felt her read the letter.
And I felt her scream.
Not out loud.
In the bond.
I dropped to my knees halfway through the forest and nearly turned back.
But I couldn't.
Because staying near her was already killing her magic.
Killing him.
And I would rather be hated…
Than bury them both.
---
I kept walking.
I didn't eat for a day.
Didn't sleep.
Didn't stop until I collapsed at the edge of the frost plains.
And woke up surrounded by strangers.
---
Three of them.
Hooded.
Markings carved into their skin—like the Inquisitors, but wrong. Older. Raw.
One stepped forward. A woman, face hidden behind a mirror mask.
"You're him," she said. "The Sword. The Curse. The Breaker."
I didn't move.
I was too weak.
"Kill me," I rasped.
She laughed.
"No. You're going to help us."
"Why?"
She leaned in.
"Because we want the child, too."
---
Back in the tower…
Virelya didn't move for hours after she read the letter.
She sat on the edge of the bed, the words trembling in her hand, her magic thundering under her skin like an animal trying to escape.
She didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She just whispered.
"You idiot."
And then—
She stood.
And summoned a blade.
---
The Heart may have been sealed.
But the war was just beginning.
And if the world thought she was dangerous with Caelum…
They hadn't seen her without him.