We buried the dead at dawn.
Not because we owed them.
But because we owed ourselves the silence.
The ruined rogue camp smoldered under the sickly light of a broken sky, ghostfire flickering weakly along shattered stone and bloodied ground.
Virelya stood beside me, hair tangled, robes torn, face grim and silent.
Not victorious.
Not relieved.
Just tired.
Exile had stripped away everything except the truth between us.
We were bound. Cursed. Hunted.
And now we were alone.
After the fires burned low and the graves were marked with broken stones, Virelya found me sitting at the edge of the ruins, sharpening my scavenged sword.
She didn't speak right away.
Instead, she sat beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed.
The bond pulsed once—steady. Fierce.
Alive.
"You're thinking too loudly," she said finally.
I huffed a humorless laugh. "Can't help it. I've got a lot to think about."
She tilted her head, studying me.
"Say it."
I set the sword down.
"Even if we survive the bounty. Even if we outrun the Inquisitors. Even if we kill every last enemy..." I turned to her. "We're still cursed."
The words hung between us like smoke.
Virelya didn't flinch.
Instead, she pulled something from the inside of her cloak—a tattered piece of parchment, stained and half-burned.
She unfolded it carefully, smoothing the fragile paper over her lap.
Ancient writing spiraled across it—symbols older than the Kingdoms, older than the Crown.
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
"Selene had it hidden," she said. "I found it before the fight."
She traced a line of script with one finger.
"I think it's a map," she said. "To the original source of the Heartbond Curse."
My blood ran cold.
"You mean the place where this all started?"
She nodded once.
"If we find it," she said, voice low, "maybe we can end it."
It sounded too good to be true.
Because it was.
The map led to a place no sane soul dared enter.
The Cavern of Echoes.
A fissure deep in the southern Wildlands, rumored to be the grave of gods—and the birthplace of every cursed prophecy that ever scarred this world.
No one who entered ever returned.
No one except, perhaps, the first victim of the Heartbond Curse—the one Virelya was tied to in every past life.
The one who started it all.
The journey took days.
Hard, brutal days.
The Wildlands fought us with every step.
Torrential rains that came without warning. Shifting paths that led us back to where we started. Phantom beasts that stalked the edges of our campfires.
Through it all, Virelya stayed close.
When she stumbled, I caught her.
When I faltered, she steadied me.
We were past pride.
Past pretending.
Past everything but the bond threading through our very bones.
On the seventh day, we found it.
The Cavern of Echoes.
It yawned before us—a black, ragged mouth in the earth, exhaling air so cold it burned.
No light touched the entrance.
No birds sang near it.
Even the grass around it lay wilted and dead.
Virelya stood at the edge, cloak whipping around her in the cursed wind.
"Are you sure?" I asked, voice barely a whisper.
She didn't answer right away.
Instead, she turned to me—and for the first time, I saw it.
Fear.
Not for herself.
For me.
For us.
"Caelum," she said softly, "if we go down there, we might not come back."
"I know."
"And if we do..." Her voice broke slightly. "You might not love me when you see what's waiting."
I stepped closer.
Closed the distance between us.
"I will," I said fiercely. "I don't care what's waiting. I'm not walking away from you."
Her breath hitched.
For a second, I thought she would argue.
Fight me.
Push me away to protect me.
But instead, she kissed me.
A desperate, trembling kiss that tasted of magic and sorrow and promises too big for words.
The bond flared bright between us, wild and furious and glorious.
When she pulled back, her hand lingered at my jaw, fingertips tracing my skin as if memorizing it.
"Then let's end this together," she whispered.
And together, we stepped into the dark.
The Cavern swallowed us whole.
The moment we crossed the threshold, magic thickened the air like smoke.
Colors warped at the edge of my vision. Sounds stretched and bent.
My head pounded.
Virelya stumbled once—I caught her.
The bond burned hotter the deeper we went, like it recognized this place and hated it.
The walls pulsed with faint, ancient symbols—stories written in a language older than memory.
And slowly, a truth began to reveal itself.
The Heartbond Curse wasn't an accident.
It wasn't a punishment.
It was a seal.
A prison forged from love itself.
A curse created not to punish Virelya—but to contain something inside her.
A fragment of the god who broke the world the first time.
The Heart of Chaos.
The prophecy wasn't warning the world about Virelya.
It was warning the world about what she carried.
What we both now carried.
Because by binding ourselves to each other—
By choosing love in defiance of fate—
We hadn't just awakened a curse.
We had awakened a god.
Virelya sank to her knees in the center of the cavern, hands clutching her head, magic bleeding out of her skin in broken bursts.
I dropped beside her, grabbing her shoulders.
"Virelya—!"
"It's waking up," she gasped. "Inside me."
Her eyes flickered silver, then black.
The cavern walls trembled.
The ground cracked.
And from the darkness ahead, something stirred.
Something ancient.
Something hungry.
A voice, deep and cold, filled the cavern.
"Welcome home, Heartbearer.
Welcome, He Who Chose.
Are you ready to become mine?"
I drew my sword.
Pulled Virelya against me.
And stared into the mouth of the abyss.
"No," I said.
"We're ready to break you."