Chapter 116 Hundred and twenty one
“Where is he?” Sienna’s voice cut through the cold air as she stepped over the broken arrow lodged in the dirt. Her boots crushed frost-rimmed leaves, and the scouts behind her exchanged looks, none willing to answer, none brave enough to lie.
“Your Majesty… we don’t know,” one finally whispered.
“You do,” she said sharply, crouching to touch the arrow’s shaft. It wasn’t just broken. It was crushed in the center as if something powerful had snapped it with two fingers. “This didn’t fall by accident. Someone destroyed it.”
Another scout cleared his throat. “There were… tracks. Not normal ones.”
She stood. “Show me.”
They led her to the edge of the pines, where the air always tasted of iron and moonlight. The trees were tall and ancient, the kind that remembered wars older than any living wolf. A silver-burned sigil was carved deep into the first tree trunk, a spiral of power, melted into the wood.
Sienna’s breath caught. “He was here.”
The scouts backed away. They always did when the temperature dropped around her. She didn’t blame them. Since Lunaris touched her, she carried a cold that was no longer entirely human.
She pressed a hand to the sigil. Her skin tingled as the echo of power rushed through her palm.
“He came through fast,” she murmured. “Wounded. Angry. Searching.”
A scout asked quietly, “Should we follow, Your Majesty?”
She gave him a look that ended the question. “I follow. You return to the Citadel.”
“But, ”
“That is an order.”
They hesitated another breath, then bowed and left her alone with the whispering trees.
Sienna inhaled slowly, letting her senses stretch outward. She caught the faint scent beneath the wind, ash, blood, cold silver. Ryder.
Her heart clenched painfully. She whispered to the empty woods, “Why won’t you let me near you?”
A branch snapped deeper inside the forest.
She turned sharply. “Ryder?”
Silence answered her.
She moved deeper, pushing through the branches until the forest canopy swallowed the sky. The scent grew stronger, mixed with something else, burnt shadow. She reached a clearing where the earth was scorched, blackened in a perfect circle. Three bodies lay on the ground, assassins marked with Zane’s rebellion colors.
Every bone in their bodies was broken.
Not slashed. Not bitten.
Crushed.
She swallowed hard. “Ryder… what are you becoming?”
A quiet rustle behind her made her turn, but there was nothing, only the whisper of the wind, the creak of branches.
Then she felt it.
A presence watching her from between the trees.
“Come out,” she whispered. “Please… let me see you.”
The presence shifted.
Not toward her.
Away.
“Don’t run,” she breathed, stepping forward. “I’m not afraid of you.”
Another broken arrow lay in the dirt ahead of her. She knelt beside it, lifting it gently. It was splintered lengthwise, torn apart by raw force. She traced the ruined shaft, feeling heat still clinging to it.
He had done this minutes ago.
A soft glow flickered to her left. She turned her head, and her breath hitched.
A sigil, fresh, jagged, still smoking, burned on a stone.
He was leaving signs for her.
Or warnings.
She touched the glowing mark. A whisper of memory hit her, his voice, rough and aching: Stay away, Sienna. I can’t control it.
Tears blurred her vision for a heartbeat before she wiped them away.
“You’re still trying to protect me,” she whispered. “Even like this.”
A branch snapped overhead.
She spun around. “Ryder. I know it’s you.”
Another shape flickered between the trunks. She followed, pushing herself faster, deeper into the forest. The air grew colder. The silence grew heavier. Her pulse quickened, not from fear, but from the unbearable hope that she might finally see him again.
“Stop hiding from me!” she shouted. “You think I can’t feel you?”
More footsteps, soft, controlled, almost soundless. A hunter’s steps. His steps.
She ran toward the sound, leaping over roots and fallen branches, dodging trees as the forest blurred around her. She reached another clearing and froze.
The grass was flattened. The earth clawed. A pool of dark blood glistened near a rock.
Her breath trembled. “Ryder… you’re injured.”
Another sign, a handprint in the dirt, fingers dug so deep the soil cracked around them.
She touched it. It was still warm.
She whispered to the shadows, “Let me help you.”
Wind swept through the clearing, lifting her hair. She turned slowly, sensing him before she saw him.
A figure stood at the tree line. Tall. Broad shoulders. Masked in darkness. His silhouette trembled faintly, as if fighting something inside him.
“Ryder,” she whispered.
He didn’t step closer.
He didn’t breathe her name in return.
He just watched her with an intensity that shivered through her bones.
She took one step toward him.
His entire body spasmed violently.
“No,” she whispered. “Not now…”
A faint silver glow laced through the darkness around him, Lunaris’s curse, tightening like chains. His jaw clenched behind the shadows as if he were trying to fight it back.
“Don’t come any closer,” his voice rasped. Raw. Hoarse. Painful.
She froze.
His breathing was uneven, tortured, every inhale a battle. She saw his fingers curl against his side as if he were clutching invisible wounds.
“I saw the assassins you killed,” she said softly. “They were coming for me. You saved my life.”
He didn’t answer.
His silence cut deeper than any weapon.
She stepped slightly to the side, trying to catch more of his shape in the dim moonlight. “Why do you keep running from me? You think distance will save me?”
“It will,” he growled.
“That curse, ”
“, will kill you if I let you near me.”
She shook her head, refusing to accept the words. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” He staggered back a step. “Every vision she shows me… you die. Every time I breathe your name, you die. Every time I look at you, something in me wants to reach for you and, ”
He cut himself off, chest rising and falling in jagged waves.
She stepped closer, voice breaking. “Ryder, look at me.”
“Don’t,” he snarled, but she kept moving, inches at a time, her eyes never leaving him.
“I need you,” she whispered. “I don’t care what Lunaris shows you. I don’t care what the curse tells you. I don’t care how broken you think you are. I decide who I fear, and I do not fear you.”
His breathing quickened. His hand slammed against a tree trunk, cracking the bark.
“You should,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Then show me why.”
He flinched like she’d struck him.
“Sienna…” His voice fractured. “Please. Don’t do this.”
“Do what?” she whispered. “Love you?”
A low, strangled sound escaped him.
He staggered out of the light again, back into the shadows, retreating as if the very sight of her hurt him more than any wound.
“Don’t walk away,” she said. Her voice trembled, not with fear, but something far worse. “I can’t lose you again.”
He stopped.
But he didn’t turn.
His shoulders were hunched, shaking slightly as if every muscle fought to keep him upright.
“Let me help you,” she whispered. “We can fight the curse. Together. You don’t have to face it alone.”
His answer was a single word, broken and final.
“Run.”
She shook her head fiercely. “I won’t.”
“Run, Sienna. Now.”
“Ryder, ”
“GO!”
The trees shook with the force of his shout.
A blast of cold power surged from him, rippling through the clearing like a shockwave. Sienna stumbled back, shielding her eyes as the air crackled with silver fire.
When the wind finally died…
He was gone.
The only thing left was the echo of his voice fading into the trees.
And the cold, brutal truth settling in her chest.
He was fighting the curse.
But the curse was winning.