Chapter 15 ERASED.

Chapter 15 ERASED.


Seren’s POV

They say the North is a place where even time freezes. They’re wrong. Time doesn’t freeze; it bleeds away, one agonizing second at a time, until you can’t remember what the sun feels like.

I was suspended from the ceiling of a cell carved entirely from glacial ice. My wrists were locked in a cold iron that hummed with a  magic, designed to drain every drop of power I had fought so hard to claim. 

Every time I tried to call upon my wolf, the iron bit back, sending a jolt of shock through my nervous system that left me gasping, my head lolling against my chest.

I was a shell. A broken, hollowed-out thing hanging in a beautiful, blue tomb.

"Still holding on?"

The voice belonged to the woman in the silver mask. She visited me every hour. Or maybe it was every two days. It was hard to tell when the only light came from the  moss crawling up the walls.

"His... name," I rasped, my throat feeling like it had been scrubbed with glass. "What... was... his name?"

The woman leaned in, her gloved hand catching my chin, forcing me to look at her. "Does it matter? He’s the reason you’re here. He’s the reason your father is dead. He’s the man who looked at a girl in the dirt and decided he wanted a new pet."

A pet. The word flickered in my mind, fighting against a memory of golden eyes. But the golden eyes were dimming. They were being replaced by the image of the carnage in the war room—the way a man had looked at me with that terrifying, suffocating possessiveness.

“You’re mine, Seren. Everything you are belongs to me.”

Was that love? Or was it just a different kind of torment?

"He’s coming for you," the woman whispered, her voice a cruel mock-sympathy. "And he’s burning everything in his path. Thousands are dying, Seren. Innocent families in the Northern foothills are being turned to ash because your 'King' can't control his temper. Is that the man you want to be bound to? A butcher?"

A tear escaped, freezing instantly against my cheek.

The bond—that golden thread that had once felt like a lifeline was now a heavy weight. 

I could feel him. I could feel his rage, his bloodlust, his  refusal to let me go. It didn't feel like protection anymore. It felt like a burial.

"Stop," I whimpered. "Make it... stop."

"I can," she said, holding up a needle filled with a dark liquid. "One dose of Lethe-glass. It won't kill the bond, but it will kill the memory of it. You’ll be free, Seren. You’ll just be a girl again. No King. No Wolf. No Storm."

Freedom.

I looked at the needle. I thought about the Wards. I thought about the baker, Thomas, and the way his dead eyes had looked in the moonlight. I thought about Draven’s hands—hands that were currently covered in the blood of people who were just trying to protect their borders from a monster.

I was so tired. I was so incredibly  tired of being a pawn in a game between them.

"Do it," I whispered.

She didn't hesitate. The needle sank into the vein of my neck.

The effect was instantaneous. 

The memory of the market? Gone. The smell of cedarwood and forest fire? Deleted. The feeling of being wanted, of being seen for the first time in my life? Smothered under a blanket of grey, numbing fog.

I felt my soul go quiet. The wolf in my chest curled into a ball and went to sleep, exhausted by the grief.

My head fell back against the ice. I didn't feel the cold iron anymore. I didn't feel the hunger or the pain. I didn't feel the bond.

I felt... nothing.

A few hours later—or maybe years. the doors to the spire exploded.

I heard the growl. It was a sound that should have shattered my heart. The vibrations shook the ice, sending cracks snaking across the ceiling.

A man burst into the room.

He was covered in blood, his clothes a mess, his eyes a wild, glowing gold that lit up the darkness of the cell. 

He looked like a nightmare made of flesh, a creature of  violence.

He moved faster than I could see, tearing the iron from the ceiling with his bare hands. 

He caught me as I fell, his arms wrapping around me with a comfort that should have been meant something to me.

He was sobbing. A King, sobbing into the crook of my neck.

"I found you," he choked out, his voice a broken thing. "Seren, I found you. I’m here. I’ve got you."

He pulled back, his large hands cupping my face, his thumbs brushing away the frost. He looked at me with so much love, so much desperation, that it should have lit me on fire.

I looked at him. I saw the blood on his face. I saw the color of his eyes. I saw a stranger.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice sounded hollow to my ears.

The man froze. The light in his eyes didn't just flicker; it went out. 

"Seren," he whispered, his grip tightening until it hurt. "It’s me. It’s Draven."

I tilted my head, looking at him with a mild curiosity. "Draven? Is that... am I supposed to know you?"

He let out a sound—a low, animalistic whimper that seemed to crack his very ribs. He pulled me against his chest, holding me so hard I couldn't breathe, his body shaking.

I didn't hug him back. My arms stayed limp at my sides.

I was safe. I was rescued.

And I was completely,  empty.