Page 15 of The Bound Blood
But my voice doesn’t reach him. It echoes through the hell I'm trapped in, swallowed by the tension strung between us.
Raiden’s eyes find mine. His mark doesn’t flicker. It hums like it’s always known this—always known me. Upon closer inspection, it's a little frayed at the edges but not broken. Nolan’s glow responds too, pulsing faintly before dimming, uncertain but still present.
I lift my hand instinctively. I don’t know what I’m reaching for. Maybe just confirmation. Maybe them.
The marks react instantly, light surging, stretching toward me like threads spun out of each of them.
And then, just as quickly, they vanish.
The boys. The marks. The hall.
All gone.
The room dissolves, but the echo of the bonds remains, burning behind my eyes. My pulse thuds in my ears, uneven and raw, and then—she’s there again.
My shadow-self.
Leaning against the warped columns of the courtyard steps like she never left, arms crossed, eyes gleaming with dark gold. Her grin is wide, but not cruel this time. Just knowing.
“Told you,” she says. “They’re bound to you. Do you see what you've done? You've taken their choice.”
I shake my head, but it’s weak, instinctual. “That’s not what it means. Marks don’t?—”
She laughs, stepping closer. “Marks are only the beginning of this. That’s the part no one ever tells you when you wake up. But I'm here now, I'll warn you, forourown good. You think it’s just magic? It's not.” Her gaze cuts through me. “You’re stitched to them now. Whether they realize it or not. Whether you do. Don’t let them walk away. You need each other to survive.”
My breath stutters. “That’s not possible.”
She tilts her head. “And yet here we are. Me, casting back in time to warn you and you not believing me. I don’t remember being so hard-headed.”
I step back, but the space doesn’t shift this time. It holds steady, like it’s waiting and it wants me to hear this.
“They’re bound,” she says again, softer now. “Not just with magic. With choice. With instinct. With pieces of themselves they didn’t mean to give you—but did anyway.”
My knees almost give out. “No. That’s not fair to them.”
“Fair?” She laughs again, the sound bitter. “Fair doesn’t live here. Not in the Veil. And certainly not in you.” Her smile fades. “You’re the fulcrum, Lindsay. The center of all of it. You think the Veil cares if they bleed for you? If they fall for you? If they die for you? It only cares about us and what we can do for it.”
I swallow hard. “What if I break them?”
Her eyes flash, gold and full of something ancient. “You will. That’s the cost of being chosen. But breaking them isn’t the danger.”
“Then what is?”
“Not being there when they break. Really losing them. Don't let them die, nothing is more important than them. You'll regret it, trust me I know.”
The world begins to dissolve again—threads of the academy curling at the edges.
“You’re running out of time,” she says, her voice fading with the light. “Start choosing. Before someone else does it for you.”
I jolt upright, breath ripping from my lungs like I’ve been drowning. My eyes snap open, and everything is wrong.
The world is too bright. Too still.
A round room encases me, the stone walls smooth and seamless. There are no windows. No clocks. Just the faint hum of magic thrumming through the floor beneath me.
The cold of the stone beneath me is the same temperature as my skin. Am I in a cell?
I blink, heart still racing, and realize I’m not only in a circular room, but I'm in a circle of runes—glowing, delicate, and laced with something prickly. Like they’re not just holding me here.
