Chapter 93 Ninety six
“Ryder… why are you running from what you already know?”
The voice slid into the corridor like a blade made of silk.
Ryder stopped mid-step, hand braced against the stone wall as the cold rushed up his arm. His breath came out in short bursts, and the marks along his skin, the faint silver lines that had begun to twist into symbols, flared with heat. He shut his eyes tight for a moment, steadying himself. The corridor was empty. He knew it. He felt it.
But the voice didn’t belong to anything mortal.
“Show yourself,” he growled, forcing his body upright though his pulse burned like fire. “If you’re going to haunt me, at least do it where I can see you.”
The torches lining the walls flickered once, as if obeying a command only they understood. The air thickened. Then the light bent, curving inward, forming a shape, tall, elegant, terrifying in its beauty.
Lunaris stepped out of the light.
Silver wrapped around her like a living cloak, her hair a long waterfall that shifted from moon-white to shadow-ink as she moved. Her wings, vast and almost translucent, stretched behind her, one made of pure radiance, the other of shadow so deep it swallowed the torchlight. Her face was perfect, ageless, carved from something that had never belonged to the mortal world.
Ryder felt the curse rise immediately.
His bones shuddered. His vision wavered. His heart slammed against his chest like it wanted to break free.
He still managed a smirk. “You always did enjoy dramatic entrances.”
Lunaris tilted her head, her expression unreadable. “And you always pretended not to fear me.”
He refused to step back. “Fear has never stopped me before.”
Her lips curved faintly. “No. Love has.”
His jaw tightened.
Sienna.
Her name struck him like a blow even when it wasn’t spoken aloud.
“Why are you here?” he asked, keeping his tone sharp even as the curse clawed its way up his spine. “To warn me again? To threaten me? Or is this about the visions you pushed into my sleep?”
“No,” Lunaris murmured. “This time, you will not have the luxury of dreaming.”
The corridor dimmed. The walls melted away as if swallowed by dusk. Ryder’s breath hitched as the ground beneath him blurred, turning from stone into ripples of silver light. He staggered, clutching his head as sharp pain tore behind his eyes.
“Stop it,” he hissed. “Not this again, ”
“Look,” she whispered.
Her fingers brushed the air.
The world split open.
Ryder found himself standing in the Citadel courtyard, but not as it was now. This vision felt too real, too sharp to be illusion. He tasted the cold. He smelled iron. He felt wind brush his skin. And at the center of the courtyard…
Sienna.
She stood with her back to him, her silk gown torn, her hands bound in front of her. Her dark hair whipped wildly in the wind as she struggled against an invisible force holding her down. Her breath came in panicked gasps. She tried to call out, he saw her lips move, but no sound escaped.
A crack split the air.
Ryder lunged forward. “Sienna!”
But his body snapped back as if chained. His knees struck the ground. He fought it, snarling through gritted teeth, but the invisible grip held him locked in place.
“Let me go!” he roared.
Lunaris stepped beside him, calm as winter. “You cannot reach her.”
He glared up at her. “This isn’t real.”
“Your heart disagrees.”
The courtyard darkened. A shadow took form, a beast made of smoke and silver teeth lunging for Sienna. She turned toward him, her eyes wide, pleading,
Ryder’s throat tore with the force of his scream. “NO!”
The beast struck.
Sienna’s body jerked, her breath catching mid-cry. Light burst from her chest, white, painful, final. Her knees buckled. Blood stained the stones around her, blooming outward in a perfect circle.
Ryder couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The world trembled around him as if it felt his breaking.
Lunaris whispered behind him, “This is what will happen if you go to her.”
He pressed his palms against the ground, trembling violently. “You’re lying.”
“You know I cannot lie.”
His vision swam. He blinked hard, but the image remained, Sienna sprawled across the courtyard stones, her hair fanned out like a dark halo, her eyes glassy and empty.
The curse surged.
His back arched violently as agony ripped through him, white-hot and merciless. His claw tips tore from his fingers. His veins erupted with molten pain.
He collapsed onto his side, struggling to draw breath.
Lunaris knelt gracefully beside him. “I warned you. Love has always been your undoing. Lifetime after lifetime. You reach for her… and she dies.”
He tried to push himself up. His arms shook and gave out. “You think pain will stop me?”
“No,” she said with a softness that was somehow crueler than anger. “Pain shapes you.”
Ryder gritted his teeth, jaw trembling. “Sienna is not like the others.”
“You said that every lifetime,” Lunaris replied, brushing a strand of hair from his face. “And every lifetime, she perished in your arms.”
He flinched, not from her touch, but from the certainty woven into her voice.
Lunaris stood again. “Come. There is more.”
“I don’t want your visions.”
“I’m not showing you visions,” she said. “I’m showing you consequences.”
The courtyard dissolved.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Then, light.
A second vision slammed into him with dizzying force.
Sienna again, but this time inside her private chamber. She stood before her mirror, breath unsteady, hand pressed to her chest as if something inside her was breaking. Her reflection flickered between herself and someone else, Lunaris’s face superimposed like a ghost behind her.
“Sienna,” Ryder whispered, reaching toward the image.
Lunaris’s hand caught his wrist mid-air. “Touch her again and watch her die a second time.”
The pain hit before her words even finished.
He collapsed to his knees, choking as white-hot lightning cracked through every bone. His teeth clenched hard enough to draw blood. The markings on his skin twisted, glowing like molten metal.
Sienna’s reflection blurred again, her chest rose once, twice, then she dropped to her knees in the vision, clutching her ribs as if something was being ripped from her.
Ryder reached for her again despite the agony. “Stop. Let her go.”
“You bring this upon her,” Lunaris answered calmly. “Your presence is poison. Your love is the blade.”
He slammed his fist against the ground. “I don’t care what you show me! I won’t abandon her!”
“Then she will die,” Lunaris replied.
Her wings spread, casting the corridor in silver and night. The ground cracked beneath Ryder, splintering like frozen glass. He felt the curse coil around his heart, tightening until he tasted darkness.
Sienna gasped in the vision, her body convulsing violently.
“Please,” Ryder whispered. “Please stop.”
Lunaris approached him again, kneeling so their eyes met. Her voice was soft, devastatingly so. “I do not want her death any more than you do. But I have watched you across centuries. You love fiercely… but you destroy fiercely too. You cannot touch her. You cannot go near her. You cannot even speak her name.”
Ryder shook his head, trembling. “You’re wrong. You’re wrong about everything. I can protect her.”
“From whom?” Lunaris asked. “Yourself?”
He froze.
The goddess raised a hand and pressed two fingers to his forehead.
The third vision struck, a final blow.
Sienna dying in his arms.
Not from a beast, not from magic, not from the council.
From him.
His claws buried in her chest.
Her blood on his hands.
Her eyes locked on his, full of love and terror.
Ryder let out a sound, raw, broken, unrecognizable. His body seized, bending under a force he couldn’t fight. His lungs struggled to pull in air. His fingers spasmed.
“No,” he tried to say, but the word barely escaped.
Lunaris stood and stepped back, watching him collapse to the cold stone floor. “Every step you take toward her tightens the curse. Your love calls for her soul. And it will answer.”
Ryder’s sight dimmed. He felt the world slipping away, like falling backward into a pit he couldn't climb out of.
He reached out blindly, desperate, furious, terrified.
“Sienna…”
His voice cracked, and then the darkness swallowed him whole.