Chapter 150 Hundred and fifty three

Chapter 150 Hundred and fifty three

“You followed me again, didn’t you?” Sienna’s voice cut through the trees before Ryder could even step out of the shadows. Her tone was calm, but the air around her trembled with the silver pulse of her newly awakened power. “You’re terrible at hiding from someone who feels you before she sees you.”

Ryder stepped into the moonlit clearing, jaw tight, chest lifting with a slow breath as he studied her. “You knew I would follow,” he said, his voice roughened by exhaustion and something deeper he refused to name. “You walked straight into the beast’s trail. You left me no choice.”

“You always have a choice,” she murmured, turning slightly as her gaze swept across the faint marks carved into the earth, marks glowing with divine energy left behind by celestial creatures hunting them. “You just never choose yourself.”

“I chose you,” Ryder said, the words falling out before he could stop them.

Her breath caught, just for a moment. A flicker. A wound.

She didn’t let it last.

“You chose me too late.”

“For a moment,” he whispered, stepping closer, “too late is still better than never.”

“Ryder, stop.” Her voice thinned. “We need to keep moving. Lunaris isn’t just watching, she’s directing the beasts toward us. If we stay here, this place will be painted with our blood by dawn.”

He closed the distance anyway, not touching her, only invading her space enough that the warmth from his body met the cold divine aura radiating from hers. The contrast shimmered in the air like heat waves. “And if we run,” he said softly, “we keep running until what? Until the goddess rips me apart in front of you? Until you burn from the power she forced into you?”

“Until we find a way to survive,” she said.

“There is no way.” Ryder’s voice cracked. “Not for me.”

She flinched. “Don’t say that.”

“Then don’t lie to yourself.” He leaned in, lowering his voice until it threaded with hers. “You feel it, don’t you? The fading.”

“I feel everything,” she whispered. “Every breath you fight to take. Every wound that doesn’t heal anymore. Every step that hurts you because of a curse meant for both of us but carried by only one body.”

“Your body couldn’t bear the curse.” He almost smiled. “Mine always could.”

“And mine can bear losing you?” She stepped closer, her fingers twitching as if wanting to grab him but afraid to ignite the bond between them. “Don’t you dare pretend that’s mercy.”

Ryder inhaled sharply, eyes darkening. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“And I’m trying to keep you from disappearing.” She blinked hard, her voice cracking despite her effort to hold steady. “Why do you think I dragged us through the ruins? Why do you think I’m following the god-marked path? Because every sign leads to one thing. There’s a place she doesn’t control.”

“There’s no such place,” he said. “Not for Lunaris.”

“There is.” Her eyes sharpened. “You saw the map carved on the stone wall. The sanctuary below the oldest moon well. No gods can enter. No gods can influence the bond. No god can, ”

“She can hunt us to the entrance,” he interrupted. “She can kill me at the threshold. You know that.”

“Then stop letting her dictate how you breathe,” Sienna shot back. “You’re letting her win. You’re letting your fear of hurting me become the weapon she uses against you.”

Ryder went quiet.

The silence that followed wasn’t empty, it was full. Dense. Weighted with memories and unsaid things, with longing and regret and the strange, painful hope neither of them wanted to admit they still carried.

Finally, Ryder spoke again, softer. “You don’t understand what I saw.”

“Then show me,” she said.

His eyes lifted, lashes trembling. The curse shimmered faintly across his skin, dark veins threading beneath the surface, glowing for a second before fading. He took a slow breath, stepped closer until the distance between them vanished, and pressed his forehead to hers.

“Sienna,” he whispered, “every vision she sent me ended the same way.”

“How?” she breathed.

“You dying in my arms.”

Her jaw clenched. “Visions aren’t truth.”

“They felt real.” His voice broke. “Your blood on my hands. Your throat torn open. Your heart crushed. Your body burning.” He swallowed hard, a tremor passing through him. “I felt you die over and over. And I couldn’t stop it. Not once.”

She closed her eyes, her breath shaking. “Then we make sure they never become real. We outrun them. We outthink them. We outlive them. But we don’t surrender to fear.”

“You’re asking me to walk a path where every step kills you in my mind.”

“And you think I don’t see it in mine?” Her fingers curled into fists. “Do you think I don’t wake each time the curse hits you? Do you think I don’t feel your heart stalling? Do you think I don’t sense your life flickering like a candle in wind?”

Ryder froze.

She never told him that.

She never told him the bond allowed her to feel every time his pulse hesitated.

“It’s killing you too,” he whispered.

“No,” she said. “What’s killing me is you walking away.”

The air tightened around them, charged with something between desperation and gravity, something ancient and primal. They stood still, breath mingling, their foreheads still touching like the earth holding two quaking mountains apart.

Then the ground beneath them trembled.

Sienna opened her eyes first. “We have to go. That’s not an earthquake.”

“No,” Ryder agreed quietly. “That’s a celestial beast tracking us.”

A howl split the sky, deep, hollow, echoing like the cry of a dying star.

Sienna’s heart hammered. “It’s close.”

“It’s meant for me,” Ryder said. “Not you.”

“That makes it worse.” She grabbed his wrist. “Move.”

He hesitated for only one breath.

One heartbeat.

One look at the woman he’d been trying to protect for too long.

Then he let her pull him.

They ran.

Branches whipped past them. Leaves cracked underfoot. The moonlight fractured through the canopy as the celestial beast crashed through the forest behind them, a creature of bone and light, its roar shaking the very trees.

“Faster!” Sienna shouted.

Ryder pushed onward, though his body shuddered with every surge of the curse. His steps faltered once, just once, before he clenched his jaw and forced himself forward.

“Sienna,” he gasped, “if it catches us, ”

“It won’t,” she snapped. “Keep going.”

But the beast was gaining.

The sound of its claws split the air.

A second howl erupted, closer.

Ryder grabbed her hand, tugging her sharply to the left. “This way!”

“The sanctuary entrance is, ”

“I know,” he said. “I’m getting us there.”

They burst into a clearing, moonlight pouring over the stone platform ahead, the ancient moon well, cracked but still glowing faintly with silver mist.

Sienna’s breath caught. “We made it.”

Ryder exhaled, relief flickering,

Then he stiffened.

Sienna saw the change instantly. The curse surged across his skin like wildfire, veins darkening, eyes burning with a violent silver hue.

“Ryder, ?”

He dropped to his knees.

The celestial beast stepped into the clearing behind them, light pouring from its ribs like molten stars.

Ryder struggled to rise, his voice barely audible. “Sienna… run.”

She refused.

And the beast lunged.