Page 67 of Too Dangerous To Die

Rhaegar growls beside me. “This place… it’s their tether.”

“Their what?”

“It’s what binds them to the world. The artifact feeds them. Controls them. Or frees them.”

“And me?”

He looks at me like I’m the blade and the wound.

“I don’t know what it will do to you.”

We don’t move.

The Wraithborn don’t either.

The standoff stretches until the air feels brittle.

And in the silence…

“All you have to do,”Medea whispers,“is reach for it.”

32

RHAEGAR

The air shifts as we cross the threshold.

The silence that follows the Purnas’ retreat is not peace. It is a pause. A breath before something ancient exhales. The ruins stretch out before us, broken teeth of marble and obsidian swallowed by ash. But at the heart of it—where the earth dips into a sunken bowl of stone—stands the artifact.

It is not what I expected.

No glimmering weapon. No throne of power. It’s... a spire of bone and obsidian, coiled in glyphs that move, slithering like serpents trapped beneath glass. Light pulses at its core—blood red, like a wound refusing to close. And standing in a half-circle around it, unmoving, are the Wraithborn.

Guardians. Sentinels. Corpses wearing war.

I keep my steps slow, controlled, but already the bones in my spine feel like they’re splintering. The artifact sings to the part of me that is not wholly alive. My joints ache. My wings twitch, frayed and twitching from the pressure. Every inch closer sends another shock through my ruined body, like I’m unraveling thread by thread.

Nora moves ahead of me—quiet, steady.

“They’re letting her through,” I say under my breath.

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes are locked on the spire, her expression dazed. Not vacant—no, something darker. Almost reverent.

The Wraithborn shift. Their heads turn in unison, ignoring me completely now. It’s her they want. Her they recognize.

I grit my teeth. “Stop, Nora. Don’t go any closer.”

She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t even flinch.

Her hand rises, slow as molasses in winter, reaching for the center of the spire where the light pulses brightest. Her steps falter just as her fingers near the surface—but the hum in the air grows unbearable.

I stumble. My knees hit the ash.

Something is tearing inside me. The part of me that still remembers honor, restraint, control. The gargoyle... the thing I was sculpted into... it snarls beneath my skin. My fangs extend. My claws flex.

I cannot be this close.

“Nora!” My voice is raw, burning.

---