Seraphina's POV
The nightmare wouldn't let go.
I woke up gasping, my heart pounding so hard it hurt. For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was—then I saw the inn room, the morning light through the window, and felt the bond pulsing in my wrists.
Right. The binding spell. The mission. Cassian.
Speaking of which—
I looked over and found him sitting against the wall, his blind eyes staring at nothing. His jaw was tight, his hands clenched into fists.
You had the same nightmare, I realized through the bond.
"Your nightmare," he corrected, his voice rough. "I just got dragged into it."
Heat flushed my cheeks. The massacre. He'd seen it again. Felt my terror, my helplessness, my grief.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—
"I know." He stood abruptly. "We need to leave. Now."
He was angry. No—not angry. Shaken. I'd felt his emotions spike during the nightmare, felt him experience my family's death like it was his own.
We packed in silence, avoiding each other's thoughts as much as possible. But it was like trying to hold water in cupped hands—everything kept leaking through.
Can't believe I'm stuck with a mute girl, his thought drifted across the bond.
My head snapped toward him. Excuse me?
Nothing. Forget it.
No, what did you just think? Stuck with a mute girl?
"I didn't mean—" He stopped, realizing arguing out loud was pointless when I could hear his thoughts. Look, it's going to be difficult, okay? You can't talk. I can't see. We're not exactly an ideal team.
Arrogant jerk. I could kill you in your sleep.
You'd die too, remember? Binding spell.
Worth it, I shot back.
His lips twitched—almost a smile. Almost.
We left the inn and mounted our horses as the sun rose over the hills. The innkeeper watched us go, looking relieved to see the back of us.
The road north stretched empty ahead. According to the map, we had four more days until we reached the Whisperwood Forest boundary. Four days of riding. Four days of trying not to kill each other.
Four days of thoughts leaking through a bond neither of us wanted.
For the first hour, we rode in tense silence. I focused on the rhythm of my horse's steps, on the feel of the reins in my hands, on anything except Cassian's thoughts.
It didn't work.
She's breathing too loud, his thought drifted through. How does someone breathe that loud?
I can HEAR you thinking about my breathing!
Then stop breathing so loud.
That's not how breathing works!
He didn't respond, but I felt his annoyance spike.
Another hour passed. The sun climbed higher, warming the cool morning air. My back started to ache from riding—ten years without practice was showing.
She's slowing down, Cassian thought. We're barely moving.
I'm going as fast as I can!
At this rate, we'll reach the forest in a month, not four days.
Well excuse me for not being a professional horseman like you!
I'm blind. If I can ride better than you, that's embarrassing.
Fury burned through me. I urged my horse faster, pulling ahead of him.
Now she's racing. Perfect. She'll tire the horse out before noon.
Stop. Criticizing. Everything. I. Do!
Stop doing things worth criticizing!
We rode faster, both angry now, our thoughts crashing into each other like waves. Everything he thought annoyed me. Everything I thought annoyed him.
This was going to be the longest thirty days of my life.
By midday, we stopped to water the horses at a stream. I dismounted stiffly, my legs shaking.
Cassian jumped down smoothly, moving to the stream like he could see it perfectly. His enhanced senses, I realized. He didn't need eyes when he could hear and smell everything.
Show off, I thought.
I heard that.
I know. That's why I thought it.
He almost smiled again. I was starting to recognize that expression—the tiny quirk of his lips that meant he found something amusing despite himself.
We sat on opposite sides of the stream, eating dried meat and bread from our supplies. The silence should have been peaceful, but our thoughts filled it.
From him: Ten thousand gold. Just focus on that. Four more days, then the temple, then freedom.
From me: He doesn't care that we're probably going to die. He only wants the money.
From him: She's scared. Why is she so scared all the time?
From me: Stop analyzing me.
"Can you stop reading my thoughts for five minutes?" Cassian said aloud.
I grabbed a stick and wrote in the dirt: YOU STOP FIRST.
"I'm not trying to read them. They just happen."
SAME HERE.
He sighed, running his hand through his dark hair. "We need to figure out how to block this. Last night's nightmare was bad enough. If we keep sharing everything..."
He didn't finish, but I knew what he meant. We both had secrets. Painful memories. Things we'd buried deep.
And the bond was digging them all up.
Try building walls again, I suggested. Like you explained before.
"It didn't work last time."
Maybe we weren't trying hard enough.
We spent the next hour attempting different techniques. Mental barriers, imaginary locks, focusing on blocking specific thoughts. Nothing worked. Every wall we built crumbled within minutes.
By the time we started riding again, we were both frustrated and exhausted.
The afternoon dragged on. The road wound through farmland, past small villages, over gentle hills. We passed travelers heading south—merchants, families, a group of soldiers who watched us with suspicious eyes.
They're staring at us, Cassian thought.
They're staring at you. Not every day you see a blind man riding alone.
I'm not alone. You're right here.
They don't know that. To them, it looks like you're riding by yourself.
What do I look like to you?
The question caught me off guard. I studied him—really looked at him for the first time. Tall, strong, scarred. His blind eyes didn't make him look weak. They made him look dangerous. Like he'd survived things that should have killed him.
You look... capable, I thought finally.
That's not a real answer.
Fine. You look dangerous. Like someone I shouldn't trust.
Good, he thought. That's exactly what I want people to think.
Why?
He didn't answer. But I felt something through the bond—old pain, carefully hidden. A memory trying to surface.
Don't, Cassian warned. Don't go looking.
I'm not. But you're thinking so loud—
The memory broke through anyway. I saw a woman with dark hair and violet eyes. Isabel. The woman he'd loved. I saw her laughing, then screaming, then lying still on the ground.
I said don't look! Cassian's mental shout made me flinch.
I didn't mean to! It just happened!
He pulled his horse to an abrupt stop. I stopped too, feeling his anger and pain rolling through the bond like thunder.
"This is exactly what I was afraid of," he said, his voice tight. "We can't control it. We're going to see everything. Every memory, every secret, every moment we've tried to forget."
I know.
"By the time we reach the temple, we'll know each other better than we know ourselves."
I know, I thought again, quieter this time.
We sat on our horses in the middle of the road, both breathing hard, both terrified of what this bond would reveal.
Finally, Cassian spoke. "We need rules."
What kind of rules?
"If a memory surfaces, we don't talk about it. We don't ask questions. We just... let it pass and move on."
That's your solution? Pretend we didn't see it?
"You have a better idea?"
I didn't. And honestly, the thought of him asking about my past, about my family, about the curse—it made me want to run.
Fine, I agreed. No questions about memories.
"Good."
We rode until sunset painted the sky orange and purple. When darkness fell, we made camp in a clearing off the road. Cassian built a fire while I unpacked our bedrolls.
As night deepened, we sat on opposite sides of the flames, not speaking, not thinking—or trying not to.
But exhaustion was setting in again. And when we were tired, the walls came down faster.
We should practice, Cassian thought. Building mental barriers. We can't go another night with nightmares bleeding through.
Agreed.
We spent the next hour trying every technique we could think of. Cassian described imagining a stone wall brick by brick. I tried visualizing a locked door. We attempted building barriers together, separately, in rhythm with our breathing.
Nothing worked.
This is hopeless, I thought, frustrated.
"There has to be a way. People with telepathic bonds exist in the old stories. They found ways to control it."
Those are stories. This is real.
"Stories are based on truth."
I wanted to argue, but I was too tired. My eyelids felt heavy. The fire crackled peacefully.
I'm going to sleep, I thought. Try not to have nightmares.
You too.
I lay down on my bedroll, pulling the blanket over me. Across the fire, I felt Cassian do the same.
Sleep pulled at me, warm and heavy.
Just as I was drifting off, a thought drifted through the bond—so quiet I almost missed it.
She's afraid of me seeing her past. But I'm more afraid of her seeing mine.
I wanted to respond, but sleep dragged me under first.
The nightmare started differently this time.
I was in a throne room, but not my family's. This one was darker, colder. And I wasn't hiding—I was standing in the center, watching.
A man entered. Tall, silver-haired, wearing Council robes.
Thaddeus Vane.
He moved to the throne and sat down like he owned it. Then he spoke to someone in the shadows.
"Is it done?" Thaddeus asked.
"Yes, my lord." Helena Frost stepped into the light, younger but unmistakable. "The Vale family is dead. All of them."
"And the girl?"
"Cursed and enslaved. She'll never speak of what she saw."
Thaddeus smiled. "Excellent. And the other loose end?"
"Cassian Thorne?" Helena's voice turned cold. "I've arranged for his lover to die and for him to be blamed. He'll be exiled by morning."
"Perfect. With him gone, there's no one left to oppose us."
The nightmare shifted. Now I was watching a different scene—a woman lying dead while a younger Cassian screamed her name. Soldiers dragging him away. A magical blast hitting his face, stealing his sight.
And through it all, Helena Frost watching with satisfaction.
I jerked awake with a gasp.
Across the dying fire, Cassian was sitting up, his face pale.
You saw it too, I realized.
"That wasn't your nightmare," he said slowly. "Or mine. That was... a memory. A real one."
But whose? Neither of us were there.
"I don't know." His hands shook slightly. "But if that was real, if Thaddeus Vane and Helena Frost planned both our tragedies—"
Then this mission is a trap. They want us dead.
"Or worse." Cassian's voice dropped to a whisper. "They want us to find something. Something in that temple."
What could be worth destroying our lives for?
He didn't answer. But through the bond, I felt his realization—and it terrified us both.
The Heart of Aethermoor isn't just a relic, Cassian thought. It's connected to us somehow. To our pasts.
How do you know?
"Because Helena said the temple requires people 'bound by fate.' Not just any two people. Specific ones." He turned his blind eyes toward me. "What if we were always meant to be bound? What if they've been planning this for years?"
Ice ran through my veins.
That's impossible, I thought weakly.
"Is it? They destroyed your family ten years ago. They destroyed my life five years ago. Now they've bound us together and sent us after a relic that supposedly only we can retrieve." His voice turned hard. "That's not coincidence. That's a plan."
The fire crackled between us, throwing shadows that looked like reaching hands.
If you're right, I thought slowly, then we're walking straight into whatever they planned for us.
"Yes."
So what do we do?
Cassian was quiet for a long moment. Then: We spring the trap. But on our terms.
Before I could ask what he meant, a sound cut through the night.
Footsteps. Multiple people, moving through the trees around our camp.
Cassian's head snapped up. "We're not alone."
I scrambled to my feet, magic already sparking at my fingertips.
From the darkness, a voice called out—cold, familiar, and definitely not friendly.
"Seraphina Vale. Cassian Thorne. By order of the Arcane Council, you're both under arrest for conspiracy and treason."
Council soldiers stepped into the firelight, weapons drawn.
And leading them, smiling that cruel smile I knew too well, was Helena Frost.
"Did you really think we'd let you reach the temple?" she asked sweetly. "The mission was just to get you away from the Citadel. Away from witnesses."
She raised her hand, magic crackling around her fingers.
"Now you both die."