Chapter 16 Sixteen

Chapter 16 Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Kael’s POV

I woke to silence that didn’t belong to the world.

It lived inside me.

Half of the bond was missing.

Her warmth, her steady heartbeat, gone.

Only the echo remained, thin as smoke.

I tried to call her name but the sound never reached air. The curse had wrapped itself around my throat. Pain burned through every vein, light forcing its way under my skin.

It wanted me still. It wanted her more.

“Take me,” I said.

The voice that answered wasn’t Liora’s. It was deeper, older, cold as the moon itself.

She gave you half her breath. That’s not yours to waste.

“What did you do to her?”

You took her into your vow. She gave what you couldn’t.

I saw flashes, her falling, her blood shining like light instead of red, my own hands trying to hold her soul together.

The curse laughed through the memory. Now you both belong to me.

“No.”

I pushed against the voice, against the burn. “You don’t own what was given freely.”

The light around me dimmed. The pain stayed, twisting, remaking. Every beat of my heart dragged another piece of her energy into me.

She had traded her life for mine.

I felt her pulse hidden deep inside the curse, weak, fighting. She was still there, caught between living and whatever came after.

I could hear Liora shouting at the edges, furious. The moon’s voice drowned her out. You asked for freedom. Here it is. One flesh, one fate.

The heat in my chest turned to ice. My claws tore through skin that wasn’t fur anymore. The wolf howled and then quieted. What replaced it wasn’t beast, it was something colder, clearer.

I could feel every thread of the bond, every heartbeat between us.

And I could feel her slipping.

“Aria,” I whispered. The sound shook the air around me. “Don’t stop fighting.”

Her pulse answered once, faint. That was enough.

I dragged myself to my feet. The curse still coiled through me, silver veins running under my skin. Each step hurt, but the pain was proof that she was still alive somewhere inside it.

I would not let the moon choose between us.

If it wanted blood, it would have to take mine last.

The curse pushed through me like a second heartbeat that wasn’t welcome.

Every breath scraped my ribs. Each time I tried to call her name, the sound broke in my throat.

Let her go, I begged whatever force still listened.

Nothing answered.

Then came a whisper that wasn’t voice, more feeling than sound.

Kael…

She was there, faint, barely holding on.

I knelt and pressed my hand against my chest as if I could keep her from slipping away.

“Stay with me,” I said. “Just breathe.”

The bond flickered. Heat surged through the emptiness she’d left behind.

Her heartbeat stuttered against mine, uneven but alive.

You shouldn’t have followed me, she murmured inside the link.

“I couldn’t stay behind.”

You were supposed to survive this.

“So were you.”

The bond pulsed once. Our pain folded together until I couldn’t tell where mine ended and hers began.

Then the moon’s voice cut through everything.

You both broke the rule. You share one life now. When one heart stops, both will fade.

I clenched my fists. “Then neither heart stops.”

Fate doesn’t bargain.

“It does now.”

I pulled the curse toward me, forcing it to obey. The power burned, but it obeyed. Silver lines crawled across my arms, tracing patterns that matched hers.

I felt her strength thread through me.

Liora screamed somewhere beyond the veil, rage, loss, jealousy twisted into one sound. The moon ignored her.

The power inside me split in two: one half warmth, one half frost. The warmth was Aria. The frost was everything else.

I let the warmth win.

“Take what you need,” I whispered to her through the bond. “If my body has to carry us both, it will.”

Her answer came like a breath against my mind. You’ll die.

“Then I’ll do it living.”

The frost cracked. For the first time, the curse faltered.

I saw Liora then, not as she had been but as she truly was, faded, afraid. She reached for me, but her hand passed through.

“You can’t have him,” Aria said behind me. Her voice carried through me like light.

Liora’s eyes widened. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I am wherever he is.”

The light from Aria’s chest spilled across the space between us, wrapping around Liora’s shadow. The older bond screamed and splintered.

The moon’s voice shifted, less command, more curiosity. One heart beating through two bodies. It has not seen that in ages.

“Then remember it,” I said.

The curse recoiled, peeling away from Aria first, then from me. The pain that followed was sharp enough to blind, but I didn’t stop. I forced it out breath by breath until the silver lines faded from my skin.

When it was over, silence fell again, clean this time, not empty.

I reached through the bond. Her heartbeat was steady, faint but real.

You did it, she whispered.

“No,” I said. “We did.”

The moon’s final whisper lingered at the edge of thought. The bond remains. Break it and the curse returns.

“I’m done breaking things.”

I opened my eyes. She was beside me, pale, trembling, alive. Her fingers found mine without searching.

“Are we free?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I said. “But we’re together.”

Her smile was small but real. “That’s enough.”

For now, it was.

I could still feel the moon watching, waiting for another weakness to grow.

But as long as her pulse stayed inside mine, I’d keep fighting.