(POV: Ava)
When you run long enough, you stop feeling your feet.
You stop feeling anything.
Not the hunger in your stomach.
Not the ache in your lungs.
Not even the fear in your chest.
Just the rhythm of survival.
Step. Breathe. Run.
Again.
Again.
***
We didn't stop until we reached the edge of the overgrown highway. The city had long since died behind us, and the fog thinned into ribbons dancing low over the road. Trees stood like silent watchers on either side, burned and twisted from whatever war had scorched the skies before the Bleed began.
Kael collapsed against a rusted guardrail, sweat clinging to his skin, his breathing uneven. I knelt beside him and touched his face. His skin was hot—too hot. The veins along his jaw had darkened again, creeping toward his throat.
"Kael," I whispered, panic curling in my chest. "Talk to me."
His hand gripped mine weakly.
"It's starting again," he said through gritted teeth. "I don't—know if I can hold it back."
I reached for my backpack, fumbling for water, painkillers—anything. But deep down I knew this wasn't something I could treat with supplies scavenged from an old pharmacy.
This was something inside him. And it was winning.
"Don't leave me," I begged, pressing my forehead to his.
His lips barely moved.
"Never."
***
We camped under the bridge that night. There was a soft stream nearby, and I washed Kael's wounds the best I could. He stayed quiet, his eyes dull with fever, hands trembling.
I sat beside him in the dirt, wrapped my arms around my knees, and stared at the moon. It looked wrong. Pale. Almost bruised.
I didn't know how to help him.
But I knew I couldn't lose him.
***
That's when the whisper came.
Not in the wind. Not in the trees.
Inside me.
"He burns… because of you."
I froze.
It wasn't the First One's voice. This was… different. Colder. Older.
"The bond has awakened. And with it, the price."
I looked down at Kael, who had begun to shake again, soft groans slipping from his lips.
"No," I whispered. "No, I didn't ask for this. I didn't do anything."
"But you feel it, don't you?"
Yes. I did. I just hadn't let myself name it.
The warmth in my chest when Kael was near.
The pull in my bones when he stepped away.
The fire I felt when he was in pain.
We were connected.
But how?
***
Later that night, Kael woke with a scream.
His body arched upward, eyes glowing bright red, mouth parted as black smoke curled from his lips. The ground around us cracked beneath him, the grass turning black.
"Kael!" I shouted, grabbing his shoulders.
His hands lashed out—but stopped inches from my throat. His eyes locked on mine. Flickering. Fading. Fighting.
"Don't let go," he rasped. "Please. Don't let me become it."
So I held him. I wrapped my arms around him and didn't let go. Even as the fire flared beneath his skin. Even as the mist around us writhed like it wanted to devour us whole.
"Stay with me," I whispered. "Come back to me."
And then—
The light inside him exploded.
But not out.
Into me.
***
The heat surged through my arms, my spine, my skull. I cried out as visions flooded my mind—flashes of a temple made of bone, a circle of red-eyed beings chanting his name, Kael on a stone table, screaming as the First Ones poured their essence into him—
And then I saw myself.
In his memories. My face.
But not me.
Another version of me. Standing in the center of that temple. Watching. Smiling.
A priestess. A key. A beacon.
And just before the vision shattered, I heard my voice—her voice—say one word.
"Bind."
I woke with Kael in my arms, both of us gasping, sweat-soaked, trembling.
He looked at me, fear and wonder in his eyes.
"You—what did you do?" he breathed.
I didn't know how to answer.
I just whispered, "I saw it. I saw everything."
Kael sat up slowly. "Then you know what I am."
I nodded. "And I know what I am now too."
He stared at me, waiting.
"I'm not just some girl who found you," I said. "I was meant to. Long ago. Before this life. I think I—we—have done this before. Over and over."
He reached for me slowly, like I might disappear.
"So what does that make you?"
I looked down at my palms. Faint golden light glimmered under the skin—like fire trapped beneath the surface.
"I think I'm the only one who can stop what's coming."
"And me?"
I looked back into his eyes.
"You're the only one strong enough to get me there."
***
We didn't sleep again that night.
We sat together, fingers intertwined, the fire flickering between our hands.
Something had changed.
We weren't running anymore.
We were rising.