The Cursed Bond: Bound By Ruin

The dream had followed Seraphina into waking.

She could still feel the shape of the name on her tongue. She hadn't spoken it aloud since the ruin, but the bond pulsed against her chest like it remembered it too. Every heartbeat echoed with it. Heavy. Slow. Ancient.

Elion had not spoken much since they left the cliff. He moved like a man carrying something fragile and dangerous inside him. She wondered if the bond felt different in him now. She wondered if it was louder.

They rode west, farther from the coast and deeper into the land that no map claimed. The bond still burned under her skin, but now it felt like it was watching as well.

Waiting.

She did not know what for.

---

They reached a forest that should not have been there.

It was not marked on the Queen's maps, nor the scrolls from her mother's study. The trees were blackened silver, their branches twisted like they had been melted into place. No wind moved through them. No birds nested in their limbs.

When they entered, the horses stopped.

Not from fear.

From refusal.

They backed away with soft sounds and wide eyes.

Seraphina climbed down without protest. "We walk from here."

Elion said nothing, but followed.

Inside the forest, time changed. The sun no longer moved. Shadows stayed where they were cast. The air grew thicker, like it was trying to hold them in place.

Seraphina pressed on. Her boots made no sound on the ground. Her breath grew louder than her steps.

She did not ask Elion if he felt it. She already knew he did.

The bond kept them connected now, more than ever before.

When one thought, the other felt it ripple through their chest.

She caught a flicker of something from him.

It was not fear.

It was grief.

---

They found the shrine at the center of the forest.

It had no walls. No ceiling. Only a stone platform covered in vines and old magic.

The air above it shimmered, like heat rising off snow.

Seraphina stepped forward.

She felt Elion's hand touch her arm.

She looked back.

His eyes were dark. Steady. "This is it."

She nodded once. "The place where it sleeps."

They stepped onto the platform together.

The bond reacted instantly.

It yanked them down, through stone and memory, through something that felt older than the world.

When they stopped falling, they were no longer alone.

---

The god did not look like a god.

He looked like a shadow that had forgotten how to take shape.

His voice was not sound. It was sensation.

Cold fingers at the back of the mind. A chill behind the ribs. The memory of thunder long after the storm has passed.

'You woke me,' it said

Seraphina stood tall, even as her knees shook. "We spoke your name."

'Yes. And it cost you.'

She swallowed. "What are you?"

'What you bound. What you broke. What you wear.'

Elion stepped forward. "You made the bond."

'I made nothing. I am what remains.'

---

The ground beneath them shifted.

Images flared to life around them.

Not memories. Not visions.

Truths.

A battlefield swallowed in flame.

A man screaming as his soul was torn in two.

A woman kneeling beside a broken altar, holding a ring and weeping blood.

'You think the bond was love. It was not.'

'You think the bond was curse. It was not.'

'Then what was it?'

'A bargain.'

'Between gods and mortals.'

'One asked to be remembered.'

'One asked not to be left behind.'

'The ring was the price'.

'And the bond was the debt'.

---

Seraphina felt her breath catch.

"Why us?"

'Because you are the last.'

'The ones who still remember the cost.'

'The ones who would carry it, instead of hiding from it.'

She stepped closer. "You said it cost us. What did we lose?"

The god pulsed.

And then, without warning, the chamber filled with names.

Not spoken.

Carved into the air in light and dark, hundreds of them, flickering in and out of vision.

Lysandra.

Cassiel.

Oren.

Sarai.

Elion.

Seraphina.

She looked at him.

His eyes were wide.

"These were the bearers."

'No. These were the sacrifices.'

'You are not the first to try to end the bond'.

'You are only the first to survive this long.'

Elion's voice was low.

"What do you want from us?"

The god grew silent.

Then its light folded inward.

'I want nothing.'

'But what you want will cost you.'

Seraphina stepped forward. Her voice did not shake. "Then tell me. What do I want?"

'To be free.'

'To keep him alive.'

'To keep yourself whole.'

'You cannot have all three.'

The light cracked.

The vision broke.

And they were back on the platform, the silver forest swaying around them without wind.

Seraphina fell to her knees.

Elion caught her before she hit the stone.

They sat there, breathless, hearts pounding.

He was the first to speak.

"He gave us a choice."

"No," she said.

"He gave us an end."

---

They left the forest without speaking.

The horses were waiting.

They mounted. Rode. Did not look back.

That night, they camped in a hollow made of broken stone and overgrown roots. Elion lit the fire. Seraphina stared at her hands.

They looked the same.

But they weren't.

"You've gone quiet," he said.

She met his gaze. "I saw something in the god's light."

"Me?"

She shook her head. "Myself."

"And?"

"I didn't like who I was becoming."

He moved closer. The fire cast gold across his face.

"You think I've changed too."

"I think we're both changing."

"I think that's the point."

---

They lay side by side that night.

Not touching.

But not alone.

The bond pulsed gently between them.

A reminder.

A warning.

And for once, a comfort.

---

In the morning, Seraphina woke to find Elion sitting on the hill above the camp, his blade across his knees. The wind had returned. It tugged at his coat, scattered ash from the fire behind him.

She climbed the hill slowly.

When she reached him, he said, "I think I remember now."

"Remember what?"

"Who I was. Before the bond."

She sat beside him.

"I was small," he said. "Not weak. But unfinished. Angry in ways I didn't understand. When the bond chose me, I thought it meant I mattered."

"You did."

"I know that now."

They sat in silence.

Then Seraphina said, "We can still end it."

He looked at her.

"The god said we had to choose."

"To lose one thing."

"Yes."

"Then which one do we give up?"

They didn't answer that.

Not then.

The question stayed with them as they broke camp, as they crossed into the lowlands where the sky opened wide, as the bond began to pulse faster, like a countdown had started.

They both knew what was coming.

The final ruin.

The one that didn't wait to be found.

The one that always found them first