Amara couldn't feel her hands.
She stood at the edge of Eryndor Keep, boots slick with ash and blood, the wind biting into her bones. Behind her, the walls still smoked. The sigil of the Spiral — newly twisted — had cracked clean through the stone.
She'd held off Calia. Barely.She'd stopped Corthan from taking the Blade.But she hadn't won.
Lucien lay unconscious at her feet. His pulse flickered hot, like fire under skin. But it wasn't Flame. Not anymore.
It was shadow.
Madalena knelt beside him, her hands glowing faintly as she tried to stabilize his breathing.
"It's in his blood now," she said. "Whatever Calia did — it triggered the mark she left inside him."
Amara said nothing.
Her hand gripped the Blade of Ruhaen, still warm from where she'd driven it into the ground like a war cry. It hadn't stopped humming since.
Madalena looked up at her. "We need to get him out of here. Before they come back."
Amara nodded, but her eyes were locked on Lucien's face.
He looked peaceful.But she knew better.
That night, they hid in the tunnels beneath a collapsed monastery. The Blade rested against the wall, pulsing every few seconds like it was breathing with her. Lucien hadn't woken.
Madalena gave up trying to heal him. "He's not injured," she said, pacing. "He's… transforming."
Amara turned to her. "Into what?"
Madalena hesitated.
And then said it.
"Into whatever Nereza made him before you ever met."
Amara's stomach twisted.
She stood, crossed the room, and sat beside Lucien's still form. He was burning hot to the touch, but his expression never changed. The shadows on his skin moved when he didn't.
She leaned in and whispered:
"Come back to me. Please."
A tremor ran through his arm.
Amara froze.
Lucien's lips parted — barely. And then, in a voice not quite his:
"I never left you."
But his eyes remained closed.
Outside, under moonlight so sharp it cut the snow, Calia stood on the ridge.
Alive. Changed.
The "enhancement" she'd endured had made her something more than lycan. Her skin shimmered under her coat, her blood pumping with Spiral-threaded venom.
Corthan stood beside her, arms crossed. "You should've killed them."
"I want her to burn first," Calia said.
"And Lucien?"
Calia smiled.
"Let him break. Let her watch."
Back underground, Amara closed her eyes beside Lucien and let the Blade rest across her knees.
She didn't cry.
She planned.
If she couldn't save Lucien from what was inside him…
She would burn the world before she let them take him.