Sleep came like a fog—slow, creeping, and reluctant. Elora didn't remember closing her eyes. One minute, she was watching Jessi breathe beside her, the next she was… somewhere else.
Not in the room.
Not in the town.
Not even in a place she could name.
She stood in the middle of a vast open field. The sky above her swirled violet and black, constellations twisting and rearranging themselves like shifting runes. The ground beneath her bare feet pulsed like a heartbeat. It was not grass. It was root. Thick, ancient root that curled upward to cradle her ankles like fingers.
"Where…?" she whispered, but the words were eaten by the wind.
Ahead of her stood the Hawthorne tree—larger than it had ever been in waking life. Its branches scraped the stars, and from its limbs dripped not leaves, but embers—each one a burning red light that floated down like dying fireflies. They didn't scorch her skin when they landed; instead, they sank in like water, each pulse of heat thrumming directly into her chest.
She tried to step closer.
But something stopped her.
The roots.
They pulled back.
Tangled.
Twisted.
Not yet.
A voice? A feeling? She couldn't tell.
And then she heard another sound—footsteps. Crisp against the root-path. She turned—
And saw Devin.
Not Devin as she knew him, not quite. His uniform was torn, dusted with ash. His eyes glowed—not silver-blue, but a sharp, cold white like the core of a frozen flame. His expression was unreadable. Guarded. A Knight carved from winter and shadow.
He walked toward her, but the closer he came, the more the ground cracked beneath his feet. Ice formed around each step. Frost curled along the root-path, killing the warmth the tree had offered.
"Elora," he said, but his voice was distant, almost layered—like two versions of him speaking at once.
She reached out.
Their fingers brushed—
And then the sky cracked.
The stars shattered like glass.
A scream—not hers—ripped through the air.
She turned and saw the town burning in the distance. Hawthorne. The houses distorted. The main road split in two by a vein of glowing, pulsing root. People ran. Shadows circled them. In the distance, something—someone—stood at the edge of the fire with wings of thorns and a face like Mira's.
"Elora, wake up," Devin's voice said again, only now it came from behind her.
She turned.
Devin was gone.
The frost remained.
The bond between them burned in her chest—twisting, flaring, dragging her inward. It didn't feel painful. It felt like being unmade and remade at once.
And then—
She awoke with a gasp.
The room was dark, Jessi still asleep beside her. But Elora's heart was hammering. Her palms were damp. Her body was warm—too warm. And her pendant?
Glowing.
The crystal on her chain pulsed with the same ember-light from the dream.
She sat upright and clutched it, gasping.
"Devin…"
The name came without permission.
The bond between them was pulsing again. Not just emotionally—but magically. She could feel him. Not his thoughts. Not his exact feelings.
But his presence.
Fear. Pressure. Cold.
He was trying to bury it.
She covered her mouth, struggling to make sense of the dream.
The fire. The frost. The pull. The scream.
And Mira… with wings made of thorns.
Elora didn't know what it meant yet.
But she knew it was a message.
And she knew the bond had just crossed a new threshold.
_______________
He hadn't slept.
Not truly.
Devin stood in the abandoned eastern tower, overlooking the ruins of the old barracks the Knights no longer used. He liked it here. No one came. No expectations. No eyes. No history weighing him down.
Well.
Less history.
Because it still followed him. Even here.
He could feel Russell's summons before the aide arrived. He always did. It wasn't magic. It was instinct. The same instinct that had been trained into him since he was old enough to hold a blade.
Follow. Obey. Maintain control. Apologize only for what can't be cleaned up quietly.
He hadn't answered the summons. Not yet.
Because he knew what it was about.
The deaths.
The disappearances.
Elora.
Gods help him.
He had tried—tried so hard—to keep his distance after Mira's ritual. After he had felt the surge of her pain during the blood binding. It was one thing to observe her from afar. To wonder.
But now?
Now he felt her.
Not constantly. But enough.
When her heartbeat quickened, something inside him answered.
Yesterday he had doubled over in the woods, hand to his ribs.
He wasn't sure what the bond had become.
But it was real.
Too real.
And it made him dangerous.
He remembered the last time he had lost control—truly lost it. Frost had spread across his training room like a curse. His hands had cracked open with lightless energy. And Mira's words still echoed in the back of his mind:
"You wear warmth like a mask. But it's frost that you wield, isn't it? A storm waiting to be called."
She had seen too much.
Mira was terrifying.
But she had been right about one thing: Devin was changing.
Or maybe, he was becoming.
Becoming the thing that had always been buried under Knight discipline and legacy—under bloodlines and duty.
And Elora was pulling that truth to the surface like sunlight pulling ice into water.
He should have cut the connection weeks ago.
Instead, he had let it grow.
Now the pressure was closing in.
The marriage contract with Silva. The whispers in the council. The way Russell had started watching him like prey that had forgotten its place in the food chain.
Devin gritted his teeth.
He'd seen Russell's eyes the last time Silva was mentioned. Cold. Certain.
She will be your link.
But a link to what? Control? Power?
She wasn't Elora.
And she never would be.
He slammed a fist into the cracked window frame.
Frost spread along the glass.
Sharp. Fractured. Beautiful.
But temporary.
Just like peace.
He turned as the Knight aide finally approached.
"My lord," the aide said with a stiff bow.
"Russell wants me," Devin said flatly.
"Yes."
Devin nodded, stepping forward. "Tell him I'll come."
The man blinked. "You will?"
"Hmmmmm"
He moved past him without another word, cloak sweeping through the frost like a ghost through snow.
Because first?
He needed to do something.