Chapter Six: A Room Not Made for Sleeping

Elion knocked.

Just once.

A single, hollow tap against the door, like a question he already knew the answer to.

Seraphina blinked at it. He never knocked. He barged. He brooded. He showed up with the force of a prophecy or a thunderclap, never something as human as hesitation.

She cracked the door open.

He stood there in shadows and stormlight, hair damp, shirt slightly askew as if he'd dressed in a hurry. He looked… tense. Tense in the way a man does when he's about to make a mistake and isn't sure whether he wants to stop himself.

"I'm staying here tonight," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to scare me?"

"No," he said as he stepped inside. "It's supposed to scare everyone else."

---

She expected the usual: veiled threats, grim declarations, an arrogant half-explanation of danger lurking around the corner.

What she didn't expect was the way his shoulders moved, tight, restless. Like his body was trying to outrun something.

The storm outside cracked again, violet lightning streaking across the clouds. Magic surged in the air, wild, unstable, the kind that tasted like metal on your tongue.

"I warded this room myself," he muttered, sweeping his fingers across the walls. "Still not enough."

"For what?"

"The bond. Or the thing inside it." He turned to face her. "I think it's waking up."

"Waking up," she repeated slowly. "You mean like stretching and yawning or rising from a crypt with blood in its teeth?"

Elion didn't smile. "I don't think it sleeps like we do."

Seraphina sat on the edge of the bed, arms folded loosely in her lap. "You're talking like this curse is alive."

"Isn't it?" he replied, beginning to pace. "It responds to you. It moves when I touch you. It reacts like it has a mind of its own."

"So does desire," she said, voice softer than it had a right to be. "You ever consider maybe that's all it is?"

He froze.

That got his attention.

"I kissed you," she added, tilting her head. "You kissed back. We felt something. Doesn't need to be deeper than that."

His eyes searched hers like he was hunting for something he wasn't brave enough to ask for.

Then: "You don't believe that."

"No," she admitted. "But sometimes, I want to."

They didn't touch.

Not at first.

He took the chair by the window. Old, wood-worn, uncomfortable by design. She curled into her blankets on the bed, watching the way his silhouette moved against the moonlight.

She couldn't sleep.

Neither could he.

So they talked.

About nothing. About everything.

"Do you remember the first time it happened?" she asked.

"The bond?"

"The fear."

Elion's voice was quiet, a thread in the dark. "My mother died when I was twelve. I saw her body before they moved it. There were symbols on the walls. Ancient ones. And in the center… the ring. Floating."

"Floating?"

"Like it was waiting for someone."

Seraphina shivered. "And that someone was you?"

"No." His gaze darkened. "It was my father. He took it first. And he—"

He stopped. Looked away.

"Let's just say he didn't last long."

A lull. The rain softened, though thunder still lingered far off like a predator watching its prey sleep.

Seraphina leaned up on one elbow.

"Elion?"

He looked at her.

"Do you think this will kill us?"

He didn't answer right away.

"I think it already has," he said. "Just not all at once."

Around dawn, the pressure in the room shifted.

Like a breath being held too long.

The bond began to pulse, a warm thrum under her skin. Her fingers twitched. Her breath shortened.

And then—

Lightning hit the outer wall.

A flash of magic exploded in the distance. Something ancient screamed in her ears, not aloud, but inside her head.

She clutched her chest, gasped, and Elion was out of the chair, crossing the room in a blink.

"Seraphina..."

His hands found hers. Their rings glowed—red and silver, light sparking between them like friction given shape.

She felt it crack.

Not the wall. Not the curse.

Something deeper.

The tether between them snapped tight, yanked them together like gravity.

Their foreheads touched. Breath tangled.

The bond flared.

And suddenly, they weren't resisting anymore.

The kiss came hard. Hungry. Desperate in the way only denial can make it.

His mouth claimed hers like a secret long buried. She tasted him, salt, warmth, magic. Her fingers clawed into his shirt, dragging him down as if the ground itself needed to feel him pressed against her.

Their bodies collided.

Not fumbling, but fevered.

Not gentle, but careful, like worship gone slightly wrong.

They kissed like fire running out of wood.

He pressed her into the mattress, one hand braced beside her head, the other tracing the line of her hip. Her robe slipped past her shoulders.

He paused.

Her chest rose with every shaky breath. Her lips were parted, eyes searching.

"You sure?" he whispered.

"No," she breathed. "But I want to be."

They didn't go all the way.

Not yet.

They pushed just far enough to blur the edges. To taste what the curse had stitched between them. To make every breath after feel heavier. Every glance more charged.

When it was over, she lay with her head on his shoulder.

His hand played absently with the ends of her hair.

The storm faded outside.

But something else had taken its place.

Stillness.

Weight.

Like the silence before a scream.

"Tell me something real," she murmured.

Elion shifted beneath her. "Like what?"

"Something no one else knows."

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then, "I sleep with a blade under my pillow."

She looked up. "Really?"

"Yes. But it's not for protection."

"What, then?"

"In case I wake up and don't remember who I am."

Her fingers tightened around his. "You're not him, Elion. You're not your father. You're not some myth."

"No," he said softly. "I'm something worse."

They slept.

Not deeply.

But enough to give the world time to tilt again.

By morning, the bond had settled into a low hum, constant, present, a heartbeat not entirely their own.

But for the first time, Seraphina didn't feel trapped.

She felt… tethered.

To something dangerous.

To something real.

To him.

And that, more than the curse, might be what ruins her