Theron felt the shift before he could understand it, subtle... but unmistakable.

The suffocating weight in his chest eased, just a fraction, and in its place came something else. Warmth. Faint, fragile... but alive.

She was safe.

At least for now.

He closed his eyes for the briefest moment, clinging to that sensation, and in that stillness he realized what had happened. A thread of his power—his lightning—had slipped through the rune he had carved for her, by instinct and need.

He had reached for her.

And somehow... he had touched her.

A quiet disbelief stirred within him. He had not transported himself but something far more essential. A fragment of what made him him. Enough to push back the darkness closing in on her.

Enough to protect her.

And now, in return, he could feel her.

Not clearly. Not fully.

But there... like the faint echo of a heartbeat against his own. For a single, fragile moment, everything else fell away.

Then...

His father’s voice cut through that fragile thread like a blade.

Theron’s eyes snapped open, the warmth inside him hardening into something colder, sharper. What did his father know of worth? Of devotion? Of choosing someone not for power, not for alliance, but because the very thought of losing them hollowed you out from the inside?

Who in this world had the right to measure Aveline?

No one. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Least of all... him.

Theron did not answer. He did not care to answer. Words felt cheap in the face of what he needed to do.

He needed to get to her.

Everything else was irrelevant.

"This is not over yet," the King said, his voice low, final.

Theron’s gaze sharpened, the red in his eyes dimming in focus. Hope flickered, dangerous and defiant. If his power could reach her once... perhaps it could again.

Perhaps he could break through.

He drew in a slow breath, grounding himself, gathering every ounce of strength he had left... and slammed his foot down once more.

Nothing.

There was no crack, not even the faintest tremor in the circle that bound him. The glow beneath his feet remained steady. Unyielding.

For a heartbeat, silence stretched between them.

Then the King spoke again, his tone shifting, edged now with something heavier.

"Have you realized," he said, watching him closely, "that you have brought a calamity to our very doorstep?"

Theron let out a sharp, humorless scoff, lifting his gaze.

"Calamity?"

The word tasted like an insult.

How dare he?

Something inside him surged—anger, yes, but deeper than that. Fiercer. His eyes burned, red flooding back in violent intensity as the veins beneath his skin tightened, coiling with restrained power. Light began to bleed through him again, not gentle this time, but raw, volatile.

"If she is your calamity," he said, his voice low, trembling with barely contained fury, "then this kingdom was never worth saving."

The air crackled.

The King’s composure faltered, just for a second, as he felt it. The shift. The growth. The strength that refused to bow.

Still, he did not release the circle. He wiped his sweat and reinforced the spell for the circle. But he knew he couldn’t hold on much longer.

"Do it, Vantaris," he commanded sharply.

Theron’s head turned. From behind one of the pillars, a figure stepped forward. Edric Vantaris.

Understanding struck, cold and immediate. Kael was absent. He thought he was delayed. Or distracted. But he was removed.

Their fathers had moved before they could.

A trap within a trap.

Theron’s jaw tightened, something darker settling into his chest as realization took root. This was no longer about a single confrontation. No longer about defiance.

This was calculated.

Planned.

And yet... In the midst of it all... Something inside him twisted out of nowhere, as though an unseen hand had reached into his chest and clenched around his heart.

His breath hitched.

Aveline.

The fragile thread he had clung to wavered. No, it broke.

"She’s in danger..."

The thought did not come gently. It struck him—sharp, blinding—splitting through his mind with a pain so sudden and violent it stole the air from his lungs. A headache unlike anything he had ever known tore through him, as if something inside his skull was being forced apart.

His focus shattered.

The lightning that had coiled around him moments ago flickered... and died.

Theron tried to gather himself, to reach for that thread of power again, but it slipped through his grasp like water. His limbs felt heavy, unresponsive, and even his thoughts that were once sharp and precise, blurred into something slow and fractured.

Then he saw it.

Shadows.

Not the distant kind that clung to corners, but something closer. Dark, shifting tendrils pooling beneath his feet, crawling over the glowing circle like living things.

They were not merely touching him.

They were feeding.

A cold realization dragged itself through the haze clouding his mind as he turned his head, forcing his vision to steady. There—just beyond the edge of the circle—stood Edric Vantaris, rigid, unmoving, his hands held in a precise formation as his lips moved in a continuous murmur.

A rune.

Repeated. Sustained.

Drawing.

"So... this is it..." The thought came sluggishly, dulled by the pain. He’s weakening me.

Theron’s gaze shifted, heavy and unfocused, until it found his father.

For a fleeting, fractured second, something dangerously close to disbelief surfaced through the agony.

Was he willing to go this far...?

To break me?

To kill me?

But the question never fully formed.

The pain surged again, worse this time, crashing over him in waves so intense they swallowed thought itself. His breath stuttered, a broken sound tearing from his throat as his body finally gave in.

His knees hit the ground.

Hard.

The impact barely registered.

A strangled grunt escaped him as he pitched forward, his strength draining so completely he could no longer even lift a hand to steady himself. His chest tightened, his stomach twisted violently, and he retched... empty, hollow, as though even that effort demanded more than he had left to give.

Everything was slipping.

Power.

Control.

Consciousness.

And somewhere, beyond the suffocating darkness closing in on him... Aveline was still out there.

Alone.