The air reeked of blood and ancient magic.
Not the fresh, metallic scent of battlefield blood no, this was older. Stale. Magic-steeped. The scent of something sacred broken open and left to rot.
Kael's breath came in uneven bursts, fogging in the chill of the underground cell. There was no wind, no draft, and yet the cold clung to him like a second skin. Each inhale scraped his lungs raw, every exhale a rasp of effort. The walls were carved stone, dark with moss and old enchantments. Chains coiled around his wrists, up his forearms, branded with runes he didn't recognizenthin, angular glyphs etched in burning silver, pulsing with unnatural warmth.
He tried to sit up straighter and regretted it instantly. The chains flared red at the movement, burning through muscle and sinew until he choked on the pain. It crawled into his spine and stayed there, throbbing.
He had endured worse.
He had fought worse.
But this this was different.
Across the small chamber, beyond the trembling torch nailed into the stone wall, sat the reason Kael's rage would never die.
The fae.
Sylen.
The bastard lounged like a predator in a cage too elegant to be casual, too still to be harmless. One leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee. His arms rested loose at his sides, long fingers draped gracefully on the cold floor as if the stone welcomed his touch. He looked almost fragile from a distance pale skin threaded with veins that shimmered violet, silver hair falling over one bare shoulder like moonlight on riverwater.
But Kael had seen him in motion.
He knew better.
The last time they'd stood face to face, half of a battlefield had turned to glass.
Their eyes met now across the gloom Kael's a storm-slick gray, Sylen's that eerie fae violet, lit faintly from within like dying starlight.
Cold.
Eternal.
And Kael hated him for it.
"You bleed like a mortal," Kael said, voice low, hoarse from hours of silence. "That surprised me."
Sylen tilted his head, amusement flickering behind his unreadable gaze. "You talk too much for someone who just lost a war."
Kael gritted his teeth and shifted. The chains burned again, a searing reminder that movement had consequences. He didn't cry out. Wouldn't. His body jolted with a tremor, but he forced it down, swallowed it like poison.
He still wore his battle leathers, though they were torn in three places one along his ribs, another at his thigh, and a gash over his shoulder. Blood, mostly dried now, crusted around the wounds. The witches hadn't bothered to heal them before throwing him down here.
Maybe they wanted him to suffer.
Maybe that was the point.
"They said we're soul-bound," Kael muttered, staring down at the chains, trying to make sense of their pulsing rhythm. "Whatever that means."
Sylen's smirk faltered just barely.
"It means," he said softly, "you die, I die. I bleed, you bleed."
Kael blinked. Something in him went still.
"That's not possible."
Sylen leaned forward slightly, his face half-shadowed, half-lit by the dying torchlight. "It's old magic. Wild. Witches don't use it lightly. They bound us because they couldn't kill us—so they made sure we couldn't kill each other either."
"You're lying."
"I never lie, human," Sylen murmured. "I only choose which truths are worth speaking."
Kael leaned toward him, despite the gnawing ache in his bones. "Then un-speak it. Undo the bond."
Sylen's voice dropped, low and cold as a winter stream. "I didn't bind us."
A long silence followed.
Kael's heartbeat thudded louder in his ears.
Then Sylen added, barely louder than a breath, "But I felt your memories last night."
Kael froze.
"I know the scent of your brother's death," the fae said. "I saw the way the torchlight flickered on his armor. I heard your scream, Kael."
His name.
His true name.
No one had used it in years. He hadn't told anyone. He hadn't spoken it aloud since that night.
The ice that bloomed in his chest was instant. Brutal.
"You keep my name from your lips," Kael snarled.
He lunged.
The chains struck him down mid-step. Fire licked up his spine as every glyph along his manacles flared crimson, reacting violently to the burst of intent. The scream that tore through him was silent forced down through grit teeth and fury and pride. He dropped to one knee, panting, the echo of pain rattling through his bones.
Sylen didn't move. Didn't blink. Just watched.
And then, softly, "And you saw her face. Didn't you?"
Kael's throat closed.
Sylen's voice was still calm, but there was something brittle buried beneath it now. "The girl I couldn't save. She had braids. A lavender ribbon. She reached for me before the fire took her. You saw it."
The cell pulsed with silence. Thick. Suffocating. More binding than the chains.
Kael dragged himself upright again, leaning heavily against the cold wall behind him.
The torch cracked.
"I don't want to know you," he whispered.
"You already do," Sylen said. "That's the cruelty of this bond. It doesn't just tie bodies. It threads between memories. Emotions. Pain."
Kael shook his head, breath shallow. "This isn't magic. This is torture."
"It's both."
Kael stared across the space at his enemy this impossible, unknowable creature with a voice like nightfall and eyes full of storms. He hated him. He hated him more than he hated the generals who sent him into battle. More than he hated the gods who let his brother die.
And yet…
Somehow, Sylen knew the way his brother's blood had stained the gravel.
Somehow, Kael had felt the searing loss of that girl who called Sylen's name as the flames closed in.
That didn't just happen. That wasn't a spell. That was something deeper.
More invasive.
More intimate.
The witches hadn't shackled them for justice. They had done it to force understanding.
Kael gritted his teeth. "You think I'll pity you?"
"I don't need your pity." Sylen's voice was all ice again. "I need your silence."
Kael laughed low, broken. "Not gonna happen."
"Then we're both damned."
They sat in silence after that.
The kind that stretched, long and dark and full of jagged edges.
Kael turned toward the wall, letting the chill bite into him. Letting the tension settle. But even with his back half-turned, he felt Sylen. Not just the sound of his breath or the subtle shift of chains. He felt him inside like a flicker in his own thoughts. A foreign rhythm overlaid on his heart.
The bond wasn't just magical.
It was memory-deep.
Emotion-deep.
Soul-deep.
Kael had never been religious. But whatever this was it felt like punishment. Like fate had decided neither of them deserved peace unless they earned it through each other's suffering.
And maybe that was exactly what they deserved.