Aria
The chains are not metal.
That’s the first thing I realize when I wake.
They look like silver. They burn like silver. But they move.
Alive beneath the surface.
Ancient magic coils around my wrists and ankles in glowing strands, thin as wire and sharp as broken glass. Every time I pull against
them, the light tightens and heat slices through my skin hard enough to steal breath.
Not iron. Not wolfbane.
Something worse.
Something designed specifically for bonds.
Stone walls surround me on all sides, damp with cold and shadowed by dim blue fire burning in iron brackets overhead. No
windows. No visible doors. Only silence.
Heavy. Wrong.
The kind of silence that presses against your ears until your own heartbeat sounds too loud.
The bond is gone.
Not broken. Muted.
The rea
