"Ember, wait up." Bastion yelled from across the street as I exited the corner store. I turned to see him waiving me down. My heart fluttered at his smile. Bastion was the neighborhood hero ever since he returned from training in the military. The perfect example of the boy next door, tall, strong, light brown hair with blue eyes, and a jawline that made every girl blush when he looked at them.

I stopped, waiting for him to catch up. He walked up throwing his arm around my shoulders casually. Bastion had been my best friend for as long as I could remember but since he returned things seemed to have taken a turn.

"Are you going to the festival with anyone?" He asked.

The Festival of the Offering was a tradition going back a thousand years. One we celebrate every hundred years on the same night of the Blood Moon. This year the festival just happens to land on my birthday. Not that anyone would care, the festival was the biggest event anyone in the town of Celestial Falls would ever experience. A forgettable girl's twenty-first birthday would never come close.

"Who says I am going?" I asked him.

"You have to go, Em. It only happens every hundred years. We are so lucky to get to experience it. They are already setting up in the town. There are tents and booths setup. The food is going to be so good. Plus," He smirked. "it would be a perfect way to celebrate your birthday! You didn't think I forgot, did you?"

To be honest, I did think he forgot. I smiled my cheeks heating up. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my birthday. The festival was going to be extravagant. There would be no expense spared and I had always wanted to get a look at her. 

Sariyah. The name was like a whisper one the wind in our town. One spoken for centuries. She had become a legend at this point, one that seemed too fantastical to be true. She only ever leaves the castle and her Obsidian Throne for the offering.  I couldn't explain why but I needed to see her for myself.

"Ok. I guess I could make an appearance, for you." I smiled at him as he grabbed the bags from my hands and began walking me home.

The Festival began just before sundown. Bastion met me outside my house so that we could walk together.

"Happy Birthday." He said as he handed me a bunch of wild flowers in all colors. He took a purple one out, my favorite color, and slipped it behind my ear. "There, you need a little color in your life, all you wear is black." 

We walked down the cobblestone pathways to the festival lands. The music was blaring and the dancers and fire-eaters were mezmerizing. There was a massive bonfire right in the middle. We walked down the paths of vendors, the scent of all the greatest foods wafting past us making me delirious with hunger. Bastion grabbed my hand pulling my attention away from the food.

"I want to tell you something, I have been wanting to say it for a while now Em." His bright blue eyes piercing my soul. He opened his mouth to continue when the slecting bell rang. One note, long, low and cold enough to cut bone. The crowd of people rushed to the stage where the High Priest of the Veyl stood in his long crimson robes of velvet.

"It's happening." Bastion said beside me, his jaw locked. He hadn't let go of my hand. I could feel the tension vibrating beneath his skin, like his body was already preparing to fight something we couldn't see yet.

The townspeople gathered near the stage, faces pale, under the Blood Moon. Mothers gripped their sons. Girls whispered prayers not to be chosen to weep this year. I didnt pray. Not because I didn't believe, but because if the gods had been watching Celestial Falls, they were cruel.

The Priest spoke and his voice echoed across the crowd. "Celestial Falls," He addressed the crowd. "this year we are proud to offer the pride of our town as consort for the goddess. Bastion Thorne, in three days time Sariyah will come to claim you as her payment. We have faith you will make us all proud!"

The world started to spin and everything went dark.

I awoke to a local healer splashing water on my face. There were people everywhere. Some were looking at me many were crowding around Bastion offering congratulations, or condolences, depending on how they saw the offering. Bastion, however only focused on me. As I came to the people began to clear away until it was just Bastion and I again.

"Tell me I was dreaming. Tell me they didn't say your name." I begged. He just frowned and at me as if he felt bad for me. How could he feel sorry for me when his name had just been called as the offering.

"You don't have to go," I said desperately. "you could run. We could run. I would help hide you. We could go somewhere no one could ever find us."

He tilted his head and frowned, his blue eyes darkening. "Em, you know there is nowhere we could go that they wouldn't find us." He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my forehead before turning to leave, shoulders slumped, looking more defeated than I had ever seen him.

They say no one ever hears her arrive, but I did. I heard the hush of the wind change, the way the shadows twisted unnaturally along the stone path.

I kept my eyes on the road where the procession always came. No horses, no carriages, just shadows.

And then she came. Sariyah. Cloaked in starlight and silk. Shadows clung to her following her like a cape. Her face was ageless and beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. Her eyes were empty, black as ink, and her mouth curved into a smile that had a thousand screams.

"The tenth offering," she said, her voice laced with honey and leather. "I have come for him."

Bastion stepped forward before I could grab him. "You will not have me."

The world went silent. Even the flames of the torches stilled.

"You would deny me?" she questioned, tilting her head.

"I love Ember and I will not leave her." He said. "I choose her, not you."

I should have felt relief, I should have clung to him. But all I felt was dread. Sariyah didn't scream, she didn't argue. She only smiled wider.

"Then I suppose I must take you, willing or not." I didn't see her move. I only felt the way the world shifted, as if a door closed that never should have been opened.

Bastion vanished in a swirl of wind and shadow. In the silence he left behind a new shadow stepped out of the dark. He looked at me with silver eyes that burned like molten metal, his brown skin shimmering in the moonlight.

"Well," the stranger said. "That was dramatic."

The moment Bastion vanished, I felt something in me crack. Not snap, not shatter. Just... crack. A fine, jagged fault through the center of everything I had ever let myself believe was safe. A fault that felt ready to errupt at any moment.

One breathe, he was at my side, defiant, trembling, mine. The next he was gone. Swallowed by her shadows.

Sariyah didn't gloat. She didn't grin or whisper threats as she vanished into the mist. She just looked at me with those blank eyes like she had left a mark on my soul and didn't need to say a word to make it permanent.

Then she disappeared. In the echo of that silence I was left standing in the square, surrounded by stunned faces and unspoken horror, clutching a hollow in my chest where Bastion used to be.

My knees buckled, but I didnt fall. I couldn't, not in front of them. The priests dispersed quickly after the offering. Cowards in crimson robes, whispering prayers to the dark queen as if their hands weren't soaked in blood. No one looked at me. No one dared. I was the girl left behind. The one who couldn't save him.

I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could, trying to will this moment to be an awful dream. The next time I opened them I was no longer alone. A shadow stepped forward from the edge of the courtyard, boots silent on the stone. The torches flared, flickered, and then died. One by one.

He came out fo the dark like he belonged to it. His hair was ink black and cropped short to his scalp. His eyes glinting like polished steel. His coat was long black leather, fastened with obsidian clasps that pulsed with a sick kind of magic. 

His presence was... wrong. Not like Sariyah's. Hers was cold and ancient seeming inevitable. His felt like a trap. One that was drawing me closer with every heartbeat.

"You really thought you could defy her and live?' His low voice purred. "Cute."

"Who the hell are you?" I asked my voice raw and barely able to sound more than a whisper.

He gave a mocking bow. "Orion St.James, at your service."

I looked past him, the entire square was empty now except for the ashes she left behind in the shape of sigils on the ground.

"I didn't ask for company." I snapped.

"Good, I'm not offering it." 

I turned my back on him, but he didn't leave. He let the silence stretch like something sharp between us.

"So you must be Ember Morrigan the girl bastion was willing to risk it all for? That worked out well for him didn't it?"

I didn't answer.

"You know, She will break him first. Mentally and physically. Then once he is completely broken, she will devour him."

"You dont know him," I snapped. "He will fight."

"Oh, I hope he does. It will be more entertaining that way."

I whirled back around, fire boiling in my stomach, rising into my throat. "Why are you here?"

He took a slow step toward me, head tilted like he was studying something behind my eyes. "Because I felt the ripple. Something cracked when she took him and youwere at the center of it."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fire you are trying to swallow." He said. "The kind that doesn't belog to mortals. Not really."

"I'm not-" I stopped, because something was rising. Something wrong.

The sigils Sariyah had made were left on the ground, drawn in ash. I stepped back into one without thinking. The wind shifted. A strange pressure wrapped around my ribs like a second heartbeat pulsing under my skin.

"Don't go in the-" Orion started, but it was too late. My foot crossed the line of the sigil. A sharp heat lanced through my body. I gasped, falling to my knees. The ground blazed with light, white and violet, and it burned.

Orion lunged forward, trying to pull me out. His hand closed around my wrist. The fire inside me exploded. There was no sound, just light and heat and shadow surging together in a violent dance. The sigil ignited. Runes etched in stone flared beneath us, and the energy between us cracked like thunder.

A tether of gold and black wound together, fire and shadow, latching from my chest to his. I screamed, he did too.

Then everything wnet still. The runes were gone. The sigil burned out. I collapsed into the ash, panting, my fingers scorched with glowing threads.

Orion staggered back, staring at his hand. "You idiot. Do you have any idea what you just did?"

"I didn't do anything." I coughed, the taste of ion in my mouth. "What- what was that?"

He looked at me as if I had just set the world on fire. "Binding magic. Ancient. Blood-forged and unbreakable. You and I just got tethered."

My heat stopped, but I could feel a steady beating. I knew instantly it wasn't my own. I could feel his heart beating. Not hear it, but feel it, like it lived inside of me now.

"Do you know what happens when a shadow-marked creature like me gets bound to a flame-born girl who doesn't know what the hell she is? Chaos. Lots of it."

I shook my head fear rising. "I don't have magic. I'm not-"

He stepped closer, eyes narrowed. "You have no idea what you have done. If you think you escaped the monster, you are wrong. You just bound yourself to one."

"I can feel you thinking." I muttered, pacing the floor.

Orion leaned against the doorway of the old rundown house we had taken shelter in, arms crossed, eye on the storm outside. The place smelled of mildew and the moisture was thick in the air. His silhouette looked carved from smoke- motionless, but full of coiled energy, like if I blinked he would disappear.

" I dont think," he said. " I calculate."

"Fine. Calculate faster I want this gone."

He tunred, expression unreadable " You think I dont?"

The tether between us hummed with tension. I had tried to run from him earlier, down an alley, but the second I had crossed some invisible line, the pain had lanced through me like a blade. He staggered too. It wasn't just a bond, it was a curse.

"We weren't supposed to connect like this," he said at last. "You stepped on a rune meant to anchor power. I tried to pull you out before it triggered, but the rune didn't just recognize your power. It recognized mine, and it forced them together." He let out a bitter laugh. "Not the first time I have been tied to someone I didn't choose."

I hesitated. "You mean... her?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he pushed off the wall and started grabbing his coat and gear.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"We're going to break it."

"You know how?" 

"There is a place on the north end of the city, past the collapsed quarter. A temple that predates Sariyah's reign here. it's old, sacred and half-rotten. It's where the portal orignally opened. No one uses it anymore because its dangerous. Wild magic clings to walls just as much as the mold does."

"So why go there?"

He glanced at me, eyes darker than usual. "Beccause wild magic is the only kind strong enough to undo wild magic. The bond wasn't forged by clean lines and chants. It was a gut reaction of two powers colliding in the wrong place at the wrong time. If there's anywhere we have a chance at tearing this thing out at the root, its there"

"What if it doesn't work?" I asked

He shrugged. "Then we get to be roommates until one of us dies. My money is on you."

I glared. "That's not funny."

"Wasn't a joke."

I followed him through the shattered archway of the temple ruins because I had not other choice. Now wherever he went, I felt like I was being dragged by an invisible hook buried inside my chest.

The moment I stepped across the threshold I soubled over with nausea. The tether between us stretched taut, pulling at something intangible and soul-deep.

"Do you really think this will work?" I asked.

"I'm sure I hate this enough to risk whatever may happen." Orion's voice wad dry but sharp with an undertone of something else, fear, maybe or loathing I wasn't sure.

He led me to a circle carved into the stone floor. This place was older even than Celestial Falls itself. Scortch marks marred the outer edges of the sotne floor from a ritual long since forgotten.

"This spot is where the portal originally opened, where the demons entered the realm. Where she came through." He told me.

"Great." I said. "So all we have to do is stand in an ancient death circle and hope it doesnt kill us."

He gave me an exasperated look. "Try not to bleed on anything."

We stood on opposite sides of the the circle, the tehter between us shimmering like smoke caught in the moonlight. It pulled tight the moment he began the incantation in a language I have never heard before but it caused a stirring inside me that I couldn't quote place. Like my soul knew the meaning of the words even if I didn't understand them.

The ground trembled and I flinched as the rune beneathe my feet glowed in tandem with the mark I could feel pulsing just below my collar bone. The same mark I could see glowing beneath Orion's shirt. A mark that resembled a crescent moon. 

"Whatever happens," he warned. "Don't move, don't speak. Don't feel anything."

I stiffened. If moving could mess up brejaking this curse, then I would be as stoic as a statue.

The moment the last syllable left his lips , I screamed. The bond pulled tight like a wire about to snap, but instead of breaking it seared. Fire bloomed in my veins, followed by something colder. Shadows. Not mine, but his.

My vision went white for a moment and I saw her. Sariyah, her smile stained in blood, whispering in the same language Orion had used but this time I somehow understood. My name burned on her tongue and just as suddenly, it was over.

The stone in the ritual circle cracked beneath our feet. But the bond? It was still there. Stronger, if anything. Orion fell to his knees, panting. I staggered back clutching my ribs where the tether pulled tight, as if an invisible knife had been driven between us and twisted. Just enough to feel like I was dying but not enough to kill.

"Well," He said bitterly. "That went well."

"Why didn't it break?" I whispered my voice hoarse.

"Because whatever you are;" he said with a disgusted look. "reacted to a blood magic more ancient than even me and now, we're stuck."

I didn't ask for this. To be the girl that was left behind. To be the one cursed to with a power I couldn't name, and a man who hated me tethered to my very soul. As I looked at him, shadows curled at his back like wings, I felt something strange in my chest. Not affection. Not trust. Just recognition.

I didn't know what I expected af ter the ritual failed. Pain, maybe. Fire or some sort of divine punishment. Instead, there was just silence and the unmistakeable thrum of a bond that refused to die.

Orion walked away from the temple like he couldn't stand to be mear me. I followed, never far enough for the tether between us to tighten. His shadows still brushed the edges of my mind, a dark whisper on my skin I couldn't shake.

He led us to a rocky ridge overlooking the city. The wind howled up from the cliffs, cold and as sharp.

"This is as good a place as any." he said, turning around and dropping to sit on a boulder nearby. "We need to talk."

"I thought we were avoiding that." I sneered. "Sorry but I could do without a heart-to-heart with the man who dragged me into a binding curse."

He raised a brow. "Dragged you? Darling, dont flatter yourself, you leapt onto that rune like you were swan diving into eternal damnation. I just tried to stop you from combusting."

I crossed my arms. "You touched me."

"You touched ancient magic." He shot back. "I'm not a damn lightning rod."

"Well congratulations, because now we are shackled in some sort of cursed wedding."

He smirked, trouble laced with charm. "Well, Flame, the honeymoon is off to a great start. Tell me when do we get to the fun part?"

"Stop it." I snapped. "Stop calling me Flame. Stop acting like this is all some twisted joke."

His smile faded some but not completely. "Why? The look on your face is half the fun."

I turned away, jaw tight and angry tears welling up in my eyes. The bond hummed in my chest, warm and unwanted.

He sighed behind me. "Look, I know this isn't ideal-"

"Ideal? You think I wanted this? The man I love was taken by a monster in a dress and now I am stuck with a walking shadow who calls me pet names as if we are playing house."

"You're the one that started glowing. I didn't expect to be bound to a human flamethrower with a savior complex, but here we are. I know you aren't as upset by this as you would like me to think. Remember I feel your thoughts, your fears and your desires." The last bit he spit out as if it were some type of slur.

I whirled on him. "Don't pretend like you know me, you don't know anything about me."

"Maybe not," He said. "But I know what this type of magic is." He stood slowly, brushing off invisible dust. "You triggered something in that square. Not just the bond. Something bigger, and the temple confirmed it. You and I, we're tied by something ancient."

I stared at him and then looked away. The wind was rising. My fire flickered just under my skin desperate to be let free.

"So now what?" I asked, voice tight. "We're stuck together? Forever?"

He shrugged. "Unless you know another ancient ruin hiding a forbidden ritual written in blood? Yeah, pretty much."

I sank onto the edge of the cliff, dragging my fingers through my hair. "Bastion's still out there."

"I know."

"And you're still helping me?"

"For now." His voice was light but something flickered behind it.

I looked at hin again, Really looked this time. He wore his arrogance like armor, but I could see the cracks in it now. The places where the shadows didn't quite hide the scars.

"Why?" I asked

His smile returned, slow and easy. "Because I'm bored. And because if you burn down the world, I will be the only man left for you to woo with your wonderous charms."

I rolled my eyes. "You're insufferable."

"And you're still glowing." He pointed to the space between us "By the way, the bond is pulsing like a jealous ex. Might want to keep your rage in check."

I stood and dusted off my hands. "Fine, we do this your way, for now."

"Sure thing, Flame."

I swore under my breath, and I could hear Orion laughing behind me.