Chapter 90 Ninety three
“Ryder, come out.”
Her voice cut clean through the night, low and certain, the kind that left no room for denial. He froze behind the rose arch, breath caught halfway in his chest. He hadn’t expected her to sense him so quickly. He’d barely gotten control of his lungs again after the curse’s last attack.
“Sienna,” he murmured, more to himself than to her, because saying her name always felt like forcing air into a wound.
“I know you’re there,” she said again, taking slow steps toward the far end of the garden. Her gown brushed the marble with the softest sigh. “You think I can’t feel you, but I do. I always do.”
Ryder leaned his back against the stone column, trying to slow his breathing. His ribs ached from the earlier surge. The goddess’s mark pulsed like a hot wire in his chest, a constant reminder that approaching Sienna meant courting death. But hearing her voice unravel like that unraveled him too.
He stepped out before he could stop himself.
She saw the movement instantly. Her head snapped toward him. Her breath caught. Her hand fluttered slightly at her side as if she wasn’t sure if she wanted to reach for him or brace herself.
“Why are you here?” she asked quietly.
Ryder swallowed, stepping into a streak of moonlight. “I needed to see you.”
“That’s not an answer.” Her voice trembled with anger and something softer. “You weren’t supposed to come back. You know what happens if you, ”
“I’m aware,” he cut in. “You’ve mentioned it, Eamon has mentioned it, every guard in this place wants me dead for even breathing near you. I came anyway.”
“Why?” Her voice cracked. “Why would you risk this after everything she did to you?”
Because I need to be near you.
Because the bond hasn’t died.
Because you’re the only thing that keeps the curse from swallowing me whole.
He didn’t speak any of it aloud. He took a single step forward, jaw tight. “Tell me what she did to you.”
Sienna lifted her chin. There was defiance there, but also exhaustion. “Lunaris didn’t hurt me.”
He raised a brow. “That glow in your veins says otherwise.”
“Ryder, ”
“Sienna.”
His tone softened, but she flinched as if it still pierced. She turned away, pacing toward the fountain. The rippling light from the water reflected across her face, revealing the thin silver threads glowing beneath her skin. She pressed a hand over her heart like she was trying to steady something that refused to obey her.
“She changed something,” she admitted, barely audible. “I don’t know what. I don’t know why. And I don’t know how to stop it.”
Ryder’s throat tightened. “Let me help.”
“You can’t.” She shook her head, hair spilling across her shoulders. “If you come near me, she’ll rip you apart. That curse wasn’t made to keep us apart gently. She wants you dead.”
Ryder stepped closer, ignoring the burn shooting down his spine. “She’s wanted me dead for years. It hasn’t worked yet.”
“Stop acting like you’re invincible,” she snapped. “You’re shaking.”
He was. Tremors ran down his arms, his fingers twitching involuntarily. He tucked his hands behind him so she wouldn’t see the worst of it.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “Turn around and leave. Please.”
Her plea hit him harder than the curse.
“Say you don’t want me here,” he said, voice low. “And I’ll walk away.”
Sienna’s lips parted, but no sound came out. Her breathing hitched, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if holding back words that might break her.
“I can’t say that,” she finally murmured.
Ryder closed his eyes briefly. Relief washed through him, and then pain crashed over it as the curse surged again, sharp and blinding. He staggered against the archway, gripping it hard.
Sienna spun around. “Ryder!”
“Don’t come closer,” he warned through clenched teeth.
She froze mid-step. Her eyes widened as she watched him struggle to breathe. The veins along his arms darkened, glowing faintly with crimson as the curse spiraled through him like wildfire.
“This is what I meant,” she whispered, horror threading her voice. “You can’t be near me. Lunaris won’t allow it.”
“She doesn’t get to choose,” Ryder hissed.
“You think defying a goddess is that simple?” She took a half-step forward but forced herself to stop. The moonlight made her look almost weightless, almost unreal. “She’s binding your power to your blood. Every time you get closer to me, she tightens that hold.”
“That’s not going to stop me.”
“It should.”
He straightened slowly, pushing through the pain until his breath steadied. The glow faded slightly under his skin. He lifted his gaze to hers.
“You’re different,” he said quietly. “Your power. Your voice. Your eyes. What did she tell you?”
Sienna looked away. The garden wind brushed her hair like a soft hand. “Nothing that matters.”
“It matters to me.”
“She didn’t come to talk. She came to warn.” Sienna exhaled shakily. “She said the bond has reached its final phase. That if we try to mend it… one of us dies.”
Silence dropped like a stone between them.
Ryder stepped back, stunned. “Final phase?”
“Her words.”
He ran a hand over his jaw. “She’s lying.”
“I thought so too,” Sienna whispered. “Until I felt it.”
Ryder’s gaze snapped to her. “Felt what?”
She hesitated, then lifted her wrist. The crescent mark he’d seen before pulsed faintly, silver under her skin, as if glowing in greeting, or warning.
“When I got close to the temple doors earlier,” she said, “this burned. And my power nearly collapsed. Every instinct I had screamed to stay away from you.”
“You listened to it?”
“I’m not ready to lose you.”
He froze.
She realized what she’d said and looked down quickly, biting her lip. But she didn’t take the words back.
A long, painful moment passed before Ryder spoke again. “Sienna… look at me.”
She lifted her eyes slowly. He stared at her with a mix of longing and disbelief, like he wasn’t sure he’d really heard her.
“You won’t lose me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he said firmly. “Because the only thing stronger than her curse is you.”
Her breath trembled, but hope flickered across her eyes. “Ryder…”
He took another step toward her.
The curse hit harder this time. He groaned, dropping to one knee as heat seared through his bones. His fingertips dug into the marble. The vines around him shuddered as though reacting to the force of the power inside him.
Sienna cried out, “Stop, please stop, ”
He forced himself upright anyway.
“Sienna,” he gasped. “I’m not leaving.”
“You have to!”
“I can’t.”
“You will die!”
“Then tell me to go.”
She shook her head violently, tears forming. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”
Ryder pushed himself upright again. His vision blurred at the edges, but he kept her in the center of it, her shape illuminated in silver, fragile and fierce all at once.
“Sienna, ” he started.
But the garden shifted.
The air thickened. The temperature dropped. The moon above them flickered like a dying flame.
Sienna’s breath hitched. “She’s here.”
Ryder didn’t need to ask who. The presence was unmistakable, ancient, cold, vast enough to fill every corner of the night.
A thin thread of silver light glided down from the moon, striking the ground between them.
The garden dimmed.
Sienna stepped back instinctively. Ryder stumbled, pain lancing through his ribs.
A voice slid through the air, soft and terrible.
“Enough.”
Ryder stiffened.
The curse surged violently.
And the goddess stepped into the garden.