Page 37 of Shifting Hearts 1
I move fast, the hallways bending around me, guiding me toward her like the house itself wants me there. Like it wants me to see what she’s becoming.
The air thickens as I descend the spiral staircase. The scent of her hits me first; moonlight and frost, threaded with something new. Power. Her power.
The tapestry is gone. The stone door is dissolved.
I step into the chamber, and the heat slams into me like a wave. The sigils on the walls pulse in rhythm with her heartbeat. The book is open. The prophecy exposed.
Raven stands in the center, eyes wide, breath shallow, her hand still glowing from contact.
She turns when she hears me, and the look on her face guts me. Not fear. Recognition.
“You weren’t lying,” she whispers, voice raw. “This place knows me.”
I nod, stepping closer, careful not to spook her. “It knowsus.”
She flinches. “The vision changed. It mentioned a dragon.”
I stop just short of her, the fire in my chest burning hotter. “It’s not just a mention.”
She stares at me, storm-gray eyes searching. “It’s you, isn’t it?” I don’t answer. I shift. Just enough.
My eyes burn gold. My skin heats. The mark on my shoulder glows through the fabric, and she sees it. The dragon. The flame. The bond.
She doesn’t run. She steps closer.
Her voice is barely above a whisper, but it slices through me like a blade. “Does that mean we’re… mates?”
The word hangs in the air, ancient and sacred. Not a label. A fate.
I see it in her eyes; she’s not asking out of fear. She’s asking because something inside her already knows.
I want to lie, to say no. To say it’s a coincidence that the bond is a fluke, a misfire of old magic. But the mark on my shoulder burns, and her scent, gods, her scent is braided into my soul like it’s always belonged there. I step closer, slow and deliberate, the air between us thick with something ancient.
“It means more than that,” I state.
She doesn’t move, but I hear the hitch in her breath. Her eyes search mine, wide and wary, and I know she feels it too. “It means you were forged for me,” I murmur, voice low, “and I was cursed for you.”
Her brows draw together. “Cursed?”
I nod, the truth clawing its way out of me. “The bond doesn’t just link us, it binds us to the prophecy. To the war, to the power that sleeps beneath this house.”
She looks down at her glowing hand, then back at me, her voice barely audible. “So if I walk away…”
“You’ll survive,” I say, and the words taste like ash. “But I won’t.”
Her lips part, trembling. “And if I stay?”
I take her hand and press it to the mark. The chamber flares around us, sigils igniting in a rush of heat and light. The bond roars to life, ancient and undeniable.
The moment her hand touches the mark on my shoulder, the world tilts.
Not violently, not all at once. It’s slower than that. Like reality is exhaling, peeling back layer by layer until the chamber around us dissolves into shadow and flame. We’re no longer standing in stone and silence. We’re somewhere else, somewhere older.
The ground beneath us is obsidian, slick and veined with runes that pulse like a heartbeat. Above, the sky spins too fast, constellations rearranging themselves into symbols I haven’t seen since the old wars. The air is thick with prophecy. I feel it in my bones, in the bond flaring between us. Raven grips my arm, her breath shallow, her eyes glowing silver threaded with gold. She’s changing. The bond is awakening her.
Then the voice comes. Not spoken aloud, but felt. It vibrates through the marrow of me, through the magic that binds us.
“Two halves of ruin. One chance at redemption.”
