Chapter 7 – The Deathbound Prince
572 Words
The world snapped back with a cold jolt as Lina collapsed against him. His arms locked around her instantly—unshakable, unmovable—like he had always known she would fall.
Her breath fractured.
“What… what did it do to me?”
He didn’t answer at first. His focus was on the dissolving tendrils—the shadows curling back into the stone as if her scream had burned them. His hold tightened, not possessively, but protectively, as though the air itself posed a threat.
“Lina,” he said finally, voice low. “Tell me exactly how it felt.”
She swallowed hard. Her ankle still tingled where the shadow touched her—cold, but not like ice. More like something hollow brushing her soul instead of her skin.
“It felt—wrong,” she said. “Like it reached inside me and… pulled.”
His expression darkened. Not with anger. With recognition.
“Of course it did,” he murmured.
She pushed against him, creating space. “Stop talking in riddles. What is happening to me? What are you?”
His silence stretched long enough to make her chest tighten. Then he exhaled, slow and reluctant.
“You deserve to know,” he said. “But telling you here will draw more to us.”
“Then where? Every place we go falls apart!”
“Because you’ve awakened.” His voice sharpened—only for a heartbeat. “And because I’m with you.”
She stared. “What does that mean?”
But before he could speak, a tremor rolled through the chamber. Dust shook loose from the stone arch above them. The silver-lit mist rippled like a disturbed lake.
He cursed under his breath—a sound too old, too heavy to belong to any ordinary man.
“We’re out of time.”
“I’m starting to hate that phrase.”
“If the shadows reached you once,” he continued, ignoring her, “they’ll try again. Harder.”
Lina shivered. “Why me?”
He turned toward her fully, the silver in his eyes burning like a collapsing star.
“Because you carry something no one else does.”
“Enough.” She braced herself, anger edging past fear. “Tell me your name.”
Something in him stilled.
Not his breath.
Not his body.
Something deeper—like a memory waking.
He stepped closer, and the mist parted around him in a slow spiral, as if the air bowed out of instinct.
“My name is Ares,” he said softly. “Ares Valaryn.”
The name hit her like a shift in gravity—familiar somehow, aching at the edges of her mind like a half-remembered dream.
“Ares…” she repeated.
The stone chamber groaned again. A fissure of silver cracked along the wall, spreading like lightning.
Ares reached for her hand.
“Lina,” he said, “we need to leave—now.”
But she didn’t move. The tingling in her ankle spread, crawling up her leg like cold fire.
“Ares… I think something’s wrong.”
His gaze dropped, and his expression changed—sharp, lethal.
The shadows hadn’t retreated.
They had marked her.
“Stay with me,” he said, voice suddenly fierce. “Don’t let it in.”
“Let what in?”
His answer was barely a whisper.
“Death.”
And the chamber split open.
- Writer
