Aria's POV
I wake up screaming.
Not because of pain—though my whole body feels like I fell off a cliff. I'm screaming because in my dream, I watched Ravenor burn. Watched him twist and writhe in chains of golden light while High Priestess Seraphine laughed. Watched his wings get torn off piece by piece while he begged for death.
Except it wasn't a dream.
It was a memory. His memory, bleeding through our bond while I slept.
"Stop it!" I gasp, clutching my chest. "Stop showing me—"
"I'm not showing you anything." Ravenor's cold voice cuts through my panic. "You're pulling my memories through the bond like a thief. Learn to control yourself or I'll make you stop."
My eyes finally focus. I'm in a stone room with walls so old they're crumbling. Broken windows let in moonlight and cold wind. The bed I'm on is just a pile of moth-eaten blankets on the floor.
Ravenor sits by the window, one leg drawn up, his damaged wings folded against his back. Moonlight turns his black hair silver and makes his golden eyes glow.
He looks beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Like a fallen angel who's forgotten how to be good.
"Where am I?" My voice comes out like a frog's croak.
"An abandoned tower in the Whispering Mountains. Three days' flight from the capital." He doesn't look at me. Just stares out at the dark sky. "Your priesthood won't find you here easily. This place is warded with old magic—phoenix magic from before they learned to steal it."
I try to sit up and immediately regret it. Everything hurts. My arms shake. My head spins.
"Don't move," Ravenor says flatly. "The bond drained you more than I expected. You need rest."
"Why didn't you just leave me on that mountain?" The question bursts out before I can stop it. "You don't want me here. You said I'm weak and useless. So why bring me somewhere safe?"
His jaw tightens. For a long moment, he doesn't answer.
Then: "Because we're bound, little bride. When you die, the bond snaps. And when it snaps, I go back to my prison in the Scorched Wastes." His golden eyes finally meet mine, and they're empty. Cold. "So until I figure out how to break this bond safely—in a way that doesn't return me to three hundred years of torture—you live. Not because I care. Because I'm selfish."
Liar.
Through our bond, I feel the truth burning underneath his words. He's curious about me. Confused by me. Part of him wants to hate me, but another part—a part he's trying desperately to bury—wants to understand why I didn't break when everyone betrayed me.
"You felt it," I whisper. "When I was having that nightmare. You felt my fear through the bond, didn't you?"
His wings rustle. "What I felt doesn't matter."
"It does to me." I force myself to sit up despite the pain. "You felt me screaming, and you didn't wake me up. You just let me suffer through your memories of being tortured."
"You shouldn't have been in my memories in the first place!"
"I didn't mean to!" My voice rises to match his. "I don't know how this bond works! I don't know how to control it! You're the one who's supposed to be teaching me, but instead you just sit there acting like I'm some disease you caught!"
Ravenor moves so fast I don't see it. One second he's by the window. The next he's crouching in front of me, his face inches from mine, eyes blazing with fury.
"You want to know why I'm not teaching you?" His voice drops to a dangerous whisper. "Because every time I look at you, I see her. Your mother. Meridian." His hand grabs my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. "You have her eyes. Her stubbornness. The same stupid bravery that got her killed."
My heart stops. "You... you knew my mother?"
"Knew her?" A harsh laugh escapes him. "I loved her. She was my bonded partner. My mate. The only human I ever trusted enough to share my true name with." His grip tightens, not enough to hurt but enough to keep me from looking away. "And she was murdered by Seraphine twenty-three years ago because she was pregnant with a child who could break the priesthood's power."
The world tilts. "That child... that was..."
"You." He releases me suddenly, standing and turning away. "You're the daughter I couldn't save. The reason Meridian died. The proof of my failure."
I can't breathe. Can't think. My mother wasn't just some laundress. She was a Phoenix Keeper. She loved this terrifying, broken king. And I'm—
"That's why you hate me," I whisper. "Not because I'm weak. Because looking at me reminds you of losing her."
"I don't hate you." His voice cracks, just for a second, before going cold again. "Hate would require caring enough to feel something. What I feel for you is... nothing. You're a burden I'm stuck with. A constant reminder of my worst failure. That's all."
But through our bond, I feel the lie so clearly it makes my chest ache. He doesn't feel nothing. He feels everything—grief so deep it's drowning him, guilt that's eating him alive, and underneath it all, a desperate, terrified hope that maybe, just maybe, he can keep me safe where he failed to save my mother.
"You're lying," I say softly.
His whole body goes rigid. "Excuse me?"
"The bond doesn't lie, remember? You told me that." I stand up, ignoring how my legs shake. "You said I'm pulling your memories like a thief? Well I'm pulling your emotions too. And right now, you're scared. Not of Seraphine. Not of going back to prison. You're scared of me."
He whirls around, wings flaring. "I've survived three hundred years of torture. You think a little girl scares me?"
"Yes." I take a step toward him, even though everything in me screams to run from the dangerous power radiating off him. "Because I'm proof you can still care about something. Still love something. And if you can still love, that means you can still be hurt. Can still lose things. Can still fail."
"Get away from me." But he's the one backing toward the window.
"You want me to believe you feel nothing?" I push forward. "Then why did you cover me with your wing when I fell asleep on the mountain? Why did you bring me here instead of leaving me where Seraphine could find me? Why—"
"ENOUGH!"
Black flames explode from his body. The temperature in the room spikes. I stumble backward, throwing my arms up to shield my face from the heat.
But the flames don't touch me. They rage around me like a cage, burning everything except the space where I stand.
When I lower my arms, Ravenor is standing in the center of the fire, breathing hard. His wings are fully spread, shadows dancing between the feathers. His eyes glow so bright they hurt to look at.
"You want the truth?" His voice echoes with power. "Fine. Here's the truth. I feel everything. Every second of three hundred years. Every scream. Every betrayal. Every time I begged for death and it wouldn't come." The flames around us pulse with his rage. "And when I see you standing there with Meridian's eyes, acting like you can save me, acting like I'm worth saving—it makes me want to burn this whole world down just to stop feeling it!"
Silence. The flames die down but don't disappear.
We stand in the scorched room, both breathing hard, the bond between us pulsing wildly with tangled emotions—his rage and pain, my fear and determination, all crashing together until I can't tell what's his and what's mine.
Then I do something crazy.
I walk straight through the dying flames toward him.
He tenses like he might attack. Or run. Or both.
But I just stop in front of him and look up into his burning eyes.
"I'm not my mother," I say quietly. "I can't replace her. Can't bring her back. Can't fix what the priesthood broke." I place my hand over my heart, where our bond mark burns. "But I'm here. I'm alive. And whether you like it or not, we're in this together."
For a long moment, he just stares at me.
Then something crashes through the tower's broken door.
We both spin around as a figure stumbles into the room—a young man with wild eyes and priesthood robes torn and bloody. He collapses to his knees, gasping.
"Please," he chokes out. "Please help me. The priesthood—they're doing something terrible. Something worse than enslaving phoenixes." He looks up, and I recognize him from the temple—he was one of Seraphine's personal guards. "She's not just draining phoenix essence anymore. She's... she's creating something. Something that should never exist."
"What are you talking about?" Ravenor demands.
The young man's eyes are full of terror. "She's making a weapon. A creature born from corrupted phoenix fire and human sacrifice. And when it's finished—" His voice drops to a horrified whisper. "—it will kill every phoenix in existence. Including you."