Page 69 of Too Dangerous To Die

Nora shudders. “She’s still in my head.”

“She will be,” I say grimly. “Until we sever the tether.”

Her eyes meet mine. “Then we find a way to do it.”

I nod. But I don’t say what I’m thinking.

That the only way to sever a soul-bound tether… is to kill one of the souls.

And I’ll kill myself before I let her die.

Maybe this is the reason why we met. The very reason why fate put me there, and I brought her here without knowing.

My purpose is to protect and save her.

And I’ll gladly do it, fate or not.

33

RHAEGAR

The wind carries the scent of scorched magic and distant decay as I guide Nora away from the artifact’s chamber. Her steps are uneven, and though she says nothing, her shoulders quake beneath the weight of what just happened—what she almost became.

I watch her out of the corner of my eye as we move deeper into the ruins. The lines of strain around her eyes. The twitch of her fingers, like they still feel the pulse of the artifact under her skin. She tries to hide it, but the glow from her palm betrays her. A fragment of that cursed thing has marked her. Claimed her. And I don’t know how long she has before it starts changing her from the inside out.

I should have never brought her here.

We don’t make it far before the air changes again.

Not the wind, but the silence.

It sharpens, condenses, until it snaps like a bone under pressure.

The Wraithborn scouts descend in a rush of silver-etched shadows and screeching armor, their hunger drawn by the artifact’s flare of life. Five. No, seven. Maybe more cloaked in the dust behind them. They move with inhuman precision, their weapons pulsing with soul-bound venom.

Nora barely lifts her hand when I shove her behind me.

“Stay back,” I snarl, wings flaring wide.

The scouts don’t hesitate. They don’t threaten or posture. They attack.

The first reaches me in a blink. I meet him with a blade of obsidian conjured from my own skin, magic reforged through pain. My power explodes, ragged and untamed, cutting the Wraithborn in half with a snarl that tears from my throat like a curse.

The others follow, and I lose myself in the bloodshed.

But the more I fight, the more I feel it—the unraveling.

My limbs shake. My vision blurs at the edges. My magic flares too hot, then too cold, then sputters like a flame dying under rain. My body wasn’t meant to hold this much power anymore—not after everything I’ve taken, everything I’ve been forced to become.

I break a Wraithborn’s spine with my bare hands, but my arms tremble. Another slashes across my ribs—I barely feel it. The wound burns black. Corruption creeps in. I can’t hold this form much longer.

And then everything goes quiet.

Not because the battle ends.

But because Nora screams.

A sound born of fear, fury, and something deeper—anguish.

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