Kai's POV
The silence in the courtyard was a physical entity. It was heavier than any roar, more deafening than any battle cry. It was the sound of a paradigm shifting. I stood rooted to the spot, my blood singing with a primal, terrifying pride. She stood over Zeke’s broken body, her chest heaving, her knuckles raw. The slender frame of Arden was a lie, a costume draped over the magnificent, furious truth of Aria Silverbane. She had not just won. She had annihilated. She had looked into the face of a blade and a hated enemy, and she had not flinched. She had become the violence she needed to survive.
The bond between us was a live wire, humming with her adrenaline, her shock, her fierce, unyielding resolve. I felt it all, a mirror to my own raging emotions. Ragnar was preening, a victo
