CHAPTER 1
Wren Mallory wasn’t afraid of much these days. After all, she’d accidentally summoned a demon prince with a third-rate Etsy grimoire, faced down Court Assessors with nothing but raw stubbornness, and managed to survive having her bond with said demon prince severed.
But the wards of this forgotten outpost made her skin crawl.
They pulsed against the encroaching twilight like dying fireflies, each flicker growing weaker, each surge of magic thinner than the last. Perched on the crumbling eastern wall, Wren wrapped her arms around herself and watched the sickly violet sky bleed into bruised darkness. The magic here felt wrong—stringy and tainted, like overcooked pasta left too long in stagnant water.
Below her, tendrils of black sand stretched greedy fingers up the fortress walls, swallowing stone inch by unrelenting inch. Root-rot from the fading realm crawled between cracks, pulsing with unnatural bioluminescence. Even the air tasted corrupted—metallic and too thick, clogging her lungs with every breath.
“Charming place,” she muttered to herself, wiggling her fingers at a ward that flickered particularly pathetically. “Really nailing that ‘abandoned theme park meets demon playground’ aesthetic.”
The ward sputtered sullenly, then dimmed another few shades.
Wren sighed, pulling her knees to her chest. She could feel the breach even with her eyes closed—a wound in reality just beyond the eastern ridge, leaking magic like pus from an infected cut. The Court had sent them here to contain it, to stabilize the tear between realms before more corruption slipped through.
At least, that’s what they’d claimed.
The sound of boots scraping stone made her turn. Kairon emerged from the shadow of a collapsed archway, golden eyes reflecting the fading light with predatory precision. Three days since he’d returned to her side, and still her traitor heart jumped every time she saw him.
“Supply check complete,” he said, his voice giving nothing away. “We have enough provisions for a week. Maybe two, if we’re careful.”
Wren nodded, not trusting her voice. He looked impossibly solid against the decaying backdrop of the outpost—dark hair tousled by sour wind, shoulders squared beneath the black t-shirt that had seen better decades. His sigils pulsed beneath his skin, gold light bleeding through cotton in steady, controlled rhythm.
Not like her magic—erratic and restless, surging against her ribs like it wanted to break free.
“The western ward collapsed while you were gone,” she said, finally finding words that felt safe. “I reconstructed it, but it’s flimsy. The anchor points here are rotten.”
Kairon crossed to her side, maintaining precise distance as he settled against the wall. Not touching. Not even close enough for accidental contact. Just… there. Present but inaccessible, like always.
“The whole outpost is structurally unstable,” he replied, golden eyes scanning the horizon with mechanical precision. “Magically and physically. We should reinforce the northern approach before nightfall.”
Words like these were safe. Fortifications, not feelings. Magical strategies, not the choking tension that stretched between them with each measured breath.
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Wren uncurled from her position, reaching toward a nearby wardline that pulsed with particular weakness. “If we redirect the flow from the secondary anchors, we could—”
Her magic surged from her fingertips, hungry and eager—too much, too fast. The ward hissed, lashing back like a spooked cat. Power ricocheted between them, the backlash flaring sharp and hot enough to leave afterimages dancing across her vision.
Before she could blink, Kairon had stepped forward, one hand extended toward the unstable magic. His sigils blazed beneath his skin, power flowing with perfect control as he caught the ward’s rebound and steadied its erratic pulse. The intensity of his focus, the precise economy of his movements—it was beautiful, in that dangerous way everything about him had always been beautiful.
And he still didn’t touch her.
Even as the ward stabilized under his careful attention, even as her chaotic magic settled back beneath her skin, he maintained that careful distance. Professional. Controlled. Present without proximity.
Wren flinched—not from the magical backlash, but from the silence that stretched like tripwire between them. From how they moved in perfect synchronization without exchanging a single unnecessary word. From how his golden eyes tracked her every movement with unwavering precision, yet never quite met hers directly.
“Thanks,” she managed, the word scraping her throat raw with everything it didn’t say.
Kairon nodded once, a sharp motion that contained volumes. His sigils dimmed back to their usual steady glow, his hand falling back to his side. “You should rest. I’ll hold the wardline tonight.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to say she was fine. Wanted to say anything that might crack the perfect control he maintained in her presence. But exhaustion dragged at her bones, magic frayed at edges even she couldn’t quite see.
“For two hours,” she conceded, hating how her voice hitched on the last syllable. “Then I’ll take over.”
Another nod. No argument. No sarcasm. No flicker of the demon prince who’d once christened her “witchlet” with equal parts mockery and strange tenderness.
As she turned toward the relative shelter of the central chamber, his voice stopped her—quieter than before, something unfamiliar threading beneath the careful neutrality.
“The breach won’t wait much longer.” A pause, heavy with unspoken meaning. “The Rite is our only option.”
The Rite.
Just those words—just once—hanging in the air between them like physical weight. Wren didn’t turn back. Couldn’t. Her spine straightened, shoulders rigid beneath the worn sweater that had once belonged to someone else entirely. Someone who hadn’t helped severe an interdimensional bond with her own blood. Someone who hadn’t stood before the Court and chosen defiance over safety.
Someone who hadn’t lost and found the same impossible being standing before her now.
She didn’t answer. What could she possibly say? That she knew? That she’d been researching the ancient binding ceremony since the moment he’d returned? That she understood exactly what it would cost them both—what it would demand from flesh and spirit alike?
That she was terrified of what might happen if it failed?
Or worse, if it succeeded?
Instead, she walked away, steps measured and even despite the storm raging beneath her skin. Magic pulsed in erratic rhythm, too much power with nowhere safe to flow. The Court hadn’t reassigned her after the Final Review hearing. Instead, they’d done something infinitely more dangerous—they’d stopped watching.
Because they knew what was coming.
The central chamber yawned dark and hollow, its ceiling half-collapsed to reveal sickly violet sky. Wind whistled through cracks in ancient stone, carrying the scent of decay and something worse—the particular emptiness that came when magic itself began to die. Wren moved toward the makeshift sleeping area they’d established, a collection of threadbare blankets arranged around a protection circle etched into stone floor.
They both slept here. Sometimes on the same collapsed couch they’d salvaged from deeper in the fortress. Never touching. Never acknowledging the careful inches maintained between bodies that had once curved together like puzzle pieces meant for each other alone.
Wren sat heavily on the edge of the couch, staring at her palm where magic surged beneath too-thin skin. Blue-gold light pulsed faintly, the ghost of a tether that had once connected her to the being standing guard outside. Not the bond—they’d severed that with blood and necessity—but the handler tether the Court had forced upon them.
Even that had faded to mere suggestion, a phantom connection that existed more through choice than magical compulsion.
She traced the outline of the sigil with her other hand, fingertip skating across the dormant mark that had once burned bright with bureaucratic purpose. Now it pulsed with something else—something they’d created together, something neither could fully explain but both had chosen to protect.
Something that might save them both, if the Rite succeeded.
Or destroy them completely, if it failed.
“I’m not ready,” she whispered to the empty chamber, to the ghost of a connection that refused to die completely. Her fingers curled into a fist, trapping the faint blue-gold light against her palm as if she could somehow protect it from what was coming. From what they’d chosen by walking away from the Court’s control. “But I don’t want you to go.”
The confession hung in the air, absorbed by ancient stone and dying magic. Outside, she heard Kairon moving along the perimeter—steady, vigilant, present without promise. Her heart twisted with something too sharp to be gratitude, too painful to be love, too necessary to be regret.
The Rite loomed before them like inescapable tide—the only way to stabilize the fracturing worlds, to prevent the Court from using either of them as weapons, to forge something new from the ashes of what they’d been.
But how did you ask the person you loved to survive you?
How did you offer your soul as sacrifice and still expect to recognize what remained afterward?
Wren stretched out on the couch, careful to leave enough space for another body that might never occupy it. Her magic pulsed beneath her skin, restless and raw and desperate for anchor it no longer had. Not broken—just unmoored, adrift in power that had nowhere safe to flow.
She stared at the crumbling ceiling, at stars visible through gaps in ancient stone, and asked the question that had haunted her since the moment they’d declared war on the Court, on prophecy, on everything that had tried to keep them apart:
What if she wasn’t strong enough to let him in?
What if, after everything they’d survived, she was the one who couldn’t bridge the final distance?
Her eyes slid closed, exhaustion finally winning over the storm of questions that found no answers. In the distance, she felt him—still standing guard, still watching, still refusing to leave despite every reason she’d given him to walk away.
Kairon. The demon who’d killed for her without hesitation. Who’d held her through nights when limbic entities pressed against their sanctuary. Who had shown her his scars—all of them, visible and hidden alike—and trusted her not to use them as weapons.
Who had watched her sever their bond and still came back.
Who had said, with quiet certainty that cut deeper than any blade: I’ll always come when you call.
Even now. Even after everything. Even knowing what the Rite would demand from them both.
Wren’s fingers curled around the faint blue-gold light pulsing in her palm, protection instinct surging for something too precious to name but too necessary to abandon. Beyond the walls of their crumbling sanctuary, the breach widened another fraction—reality tearing along seams never meant to be stretched so thin.
Time was running out. For the realms. For the Court. For whatever fragile truth had grown between them in darkness and silence and careful distance.
But he was still here. Still standing guard while she rested. Still choosing to stay though nothing bound him but his own stubborn will.
And maybe—just maybe—that would be enough when the Rite finally claimed what it was due.