They told him to conquer her.
But the part of him that was most dangerous
already belonged to her.
Kairon Tal Serathe was born under three omens.
The sun bled red.
The hounds howled thrice.
And the thread around his mother's wrist
snapped.
"He'll burn before he bows," the priest had said.
And for seventeen years,
he never did.
Until her.
Elariax.
He hated her name.
Not because it was strange.
Because it tasted like a spell someone had cast on him.
And the worst part?
He let it.
The Academy had voted.
Contain her. End her. Cut the thread.
He was supposed to lead the capture squad.
He should've been preparing spells, binding sigils, memory seals.
Instead he stood in the mirror hall watching the place where she had last breathed.
And all he could think was
"If I touch her again, I will not survive it."
He found her in the east chapel.
Not praying.
Painting.
With blood.
Her own? He didn't know.
She didn't stop when he entered.
Didn't speak.
Didn't flinch.
Just painted.
"You came to kill me," she said.
"Or protect me," he replied.
"Or both."
She stepped back from the wall.
The painting was of him.
But it wasn't a portrait.
It was his bones.
Outlined in gold thread.
And around his throat her name, written in a dead language.
"You knew I'd come," he said.
"You always come," she whispered.
"Even when you want to run."
He stepped forward.
His pulse a war drum.
His breath a crown crumbling.
"You're not the girl I met at the Ceremony," he said.
"You're not the prince they praised," she said.
They stared at each other for a long time.
And then,
She knelt.
Just once.
Head bowed.
Thread pooled at her feet.
And something ancient inside him snapped.
Kairon fell to his knees.
Not out of devotion.
Not out of fear.
But because he had no choice.
She had become the command in his blood.
The ruin in his fire.
The prayer he would never be allowed to forget.
"Say it," she whispered.
He shook.
"Say it, Kairon."
He clenched his fists.
"You're mine," he breathed.
"And I was always yours."
The spell was complete.
The throne he was born for?
Gone.
The war he was trained for?
Forgotten.
Because there was only her.
The girl made of thread and prophecy and teeth.
And now?
She was ready to burn the Academy down.
And he?
He would hold the match.