Page 22 of Bound to the Dreadlord

As if they can sense it too.

This thing inside me, this rage, this possession.

I should have let him live.

I should have laughed, brushed off the insult, turned it into a game, a moment of power wielded through words instead of violence.

Instead, I have given them something real.

They will talk. They will whisper.

They will see.

She will hear of it too.

I stop before the door to my private chambers, hands curling into fists.

The guards stationed outside glance at me, stiffening under my gaze.

They know better than to speak.

I inhale deeply, pressing my fingers against the carved wood.

She will still be inside. Still waiting.

Still mine.

I shove the doors open and step into the room, the fire casting long shadows over the silk-draped bed, the heavy velvet curtains swallowing the light.

She does not sit on the bed.

She is by the window, her back straight, head turned just enough to glance at me as I enter.

I do not say anything. Neither does she.

But something unspoken coils in the distance between us, thick, burning, impossible to ignore.

I close the door behind me.

Our game of wits begins again.

11

SERA

Iam drowning.

Or maybe I am flying.

The world stretches wide, endless, a vast churning abyss of color and sound. Water and sky merge into one, silver waves cresting beneath a heavy, storm-laden sky. The wind howls, but it does not chill. It moves through me, around me, threading fingers through strands of hair that drift like liquid silver.

Somewhere in the distance, a voice sings.

It is not my own.

But I know it.

The melody undulates, rising and falling with the swell of the waves, a song woven of salt and longing. It pulls, urging me forward, whispering welcome home in a language I do not understand but feel deep within my bones.

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