The first arrow comes from somewhere on the northern ridge—not one of mine, but it drops a Valen guard like divine intervention striking down the wicked. The shaft sprouts from his chest with a wet thunk, and he topples backward off the parapet, arms windmilling uselessly as gravity claims him.
Then chaos breaks like a dam bursting under flood pressure, and suddenly everyone’s screaming, bleeding, dying for the cause of two people who were stupid enough to fall in love across political battle lines.
War erupts in all directions. Steel clashes against steel in a symphony of violence. Men roar battle cries that turn into death screams. Blood spatters across ancient stone like abstract art painted in crimson.
I move through Valen’s courtyard like I was born for this particular brand of destruction. Sword in hand, armor deflecting arrows that weren’t quite good enough to find their mark, cutting down anyone stupid enough to get between me and the woman on that tower. My blade sings through the air, each swing deliberate, each strike final.
The bond isn’t just active now—it’s on fire, blazing through my veins like molten gold. Every step closer to Lucy feels like coming back to life after months of suffocating in political quicksand. She’s alive, she’s fighting, and she sure as hell hasn’t forgotten me. The connection between us pulses stronger with each yard I gain, each enemy I drop.
A guard tries to flank me from the left, thinking he’s clever. I pivot and open his throat without breaking stride, blood arcing across the cobblestones in a perfect crimson spray. He gurgles once and collapses. Another comes at me head-on with an axe raised high—creative choice, terrible execution.
I step inside his swing and put my blade through his ribs, feeling the steel slide between bone and sinew. He drops the axe, clutches at my sword with both hands, then crumples as I wrench the weapon free.
Bodies pile up around me. The courtyard becomes a slaughter pen.
Blood’s running down my shoulder from someone’s lucky shot—a crossbow bolt that found the gap in my armor—but adrenaline’s a hell of a painkiller. Pain doesn’t matter. Fear doesn’t matter. Everything that matters is twenty feet above me, standing on stone battlements in a dress that’s seen too much violence.
I look up through the smoke and chaos, and there she is.
Lucy. My Lucy. Bruised, bloodied, chained at the wrists like some medieval nightmare dragged from the depths of hell, but standing tall with her chin up and fire blazing in her eyes. The sight hits me harder than any weapon could, stops me dead in my tracks despite the battle raging around us.
She’s not broken. Whatever Valen did, however he tried to destroy her spirit, crush her defiance, she’s still there. Still fighting. Still the woman who walked into my transformation and called me back from the edge of madness.
Our eyes meet across smoke and chaos and the screaming of dying men, and something inside my chest clicks into place with an almost audible snap. The bond doesn’t just reconnect—it slams back together like two pieces of the same soul that were never meant to be separated. The force of it nearly drives me to my knees.
She sees me. Really sees me. Not the prince, not the political problem, not the monster everyone’s afraid of. Just me. The man who’d burn down kingdoms to keep her safe, who’d wade through rivers of blood to reach her.
And she’s not afraid. Not of me, not of the violence surrounding us, not of what’s coming next.
“Lucy!” I roar her name above the din of battle.
Valen’s dragging her toward the stairs now, his face twisted with panic and rage, probably planning to use her as a human shield or bargaining chip or whatever coward’s strategy his tiny brain can come up with. His fingers dig into her arm hard enough to leave bruises.
But Lucy plants her feet, yanks away from his grip with sudden fierce strength, and for one perfect moment she’s free. Free and furious and magnificent.
She runs back to the battlements. Back to where I can see her. Back to me.
Blood on her lips from where someone struck her. Bruises on her throat like a necklace of violence. Chains still hanging from her wrists like jewelry made of oppression and cruelty.
But she stands tall. Unbroken. Unbowed.
She meets my gaze across the battlefield, chest heaving with exertion and emotion, and even through the roar of war, even through the clash of weapons and the screams of the wounded, I hear her whisper carry on the wind like a prayer answered:
“You didn’t forget me.”