Page 3 of Bound In Stone, Claimed In Fire

I don’t. My throat tightens. But I do know one thing:I may have just awakened an ancient gargoyle, and whatever monstrous force that seal was holding at bay… might be stirring too.My skin prickles as an ominous rumble rattles beneath us, echoing with the promise of danger.

Before I can process this fully, the floor splits again, and I scrabble for footing. The gargoyle’s massive wings flare open, stone dust spiraling around him. He reaches out with a powerful, clawed hand, catching me by the arm just as I lose my balance. I grip his forearm, the warmth of living stone a stark shock against my trembling fingers.

Everything roars at once—the temple, the quake, the surge of magic I feel racing under my skin. My eyes lock on the gargoyle’s molten-gold stare. In that silent, suspended moment, I understand that the life I knew before—exiled purna on the run, fleeing Drayveth, longing only for freedom—no longer exists. Something bigger has claimed me, a bond or a curse I don’t fully comprehend.

A final thunderous crash resounds above our heads. The temple is caving in. I gasp, pinned by fear and the weight of this gargoyle’s gaze. His hold on me is unbreakable, almost comforting in its sheer solidity. My pulse hammers against my ribcage.

“Hold on,” he commands, voice a gravelly timbre of stone and fire. The floor collapses beneath us in a chaos of dust and splintered rock. My scream catches in my throat. We plunge downward into darkness. Everything becomes a swirl of falling debris, unstoppable momentum, and the suffocating certainty thatI have awakened something far greater than I can manage—and the cost remains terrifyingly unknown.

2

KAELITH

Darkness. It clings to my thoughts like tar, sluggish and unrelenting. Every part of me feels weighted, as though boulders anchor my limbs. I have drifted in this abyss for a timeless stretch, neither conscious nor absent. My senses are muted, wrapped in a deep, heavy veil. Then, in the distance, I detect the faint hum of magic—its vibration a steady pulse, coaxing me back from the endless void.

A flare of pressure crackles along my arms and chest. It’s as if a distant thunderstorm rumbles through my body, urging me to stir. I taste the acrid tang of old wards unraveling, and a singular thought pierces the fog of my slumber:Something is wrong.My eyes snap open, though for a moment, the surrounding blackness remains. I suspect my vision simply can’t adjust after centuries in stone sleep.

I let out a low, rasping breath, stone fragments and dust scattering around me. An unfamiliar voice echoes in my mind, a desperate call—magic, female, frantic.My senses sharpen. My gaze, still fighting the remnants of stasis, lands on a figure sprawled on the floor a few paces away, half-buried in crumbled rock. She’s so small, all angles and shadows in the dim light of this collapsing temple. Yet I sense the potent power swirling around her like a storm. A jolt of recognition slams through me—not her,not the one I once knew, but a purna all the same.

I push myself upright, shards of stone shedding from my shoulders and wings. The first breath of open air is exhilarating, burning my lungs and clearing away the stale residue of centuries. Muscles stiff from disuse protest each movement. My arms, thick with onyx-toned skin etched by faintly glowing runes, flex under the sudden strain. I stand taller, stretching to my full height—seven and a half feet in flesh, feeling as if my sinews creak from long disuse. A swirling rush of air eddies around me, carrying an undercurrent of ice and mountain wind from beyond the rubble above.

A single chunk of falling debris nearly clips my wing, forcing me to jerk sideways. Instinct flares. My tail slaps the ground, braced for balance, its ridged length coiling with tension. The tail’s thick, muscled contour is an extension of my body, an anchor in the midst of chaos. I run a clawed hand on my jaw and grimace at the grit caked there.I slept for an eternity, and yet the world can’t remain still for even a moment.

The chamber’s walls groan, threatening to cave in further. Shattered glyphs that once held this place secure are dimming into pale scars on the stone floor. My gaze snaps to the purna. She slowly sits up, her features contorting with pain. When she turns her head, I catch a clearer glimpse of her face. An immediate wave of disquiet ripples through me—she’s not Nerezza, but there’s a glimmer of similarity in the angle of her chin and the fierce spark in her storm-gray eyes.No, it cannot be.Yet the reminder of that old wound in my heart grates.

I glance down at myself, pressing my palm over the runes scrawled across my chest. They were once potent wards—my own weaving of earthen magic designed to keep me sealed in stone sleep. But something has unraveled them. My skin is dark onyx, shot through with subtle veins of red-gold that glow like hidden magma.I can feel the breach in my wards.I cantasteit. Nerezza… that name rattles around my skull, stirring anger and dread.

Movement flickers in the corner of my vision. The purna is trying to stand, leaning heavily on a cracked pillar. Dust coats her cloak, streaks of silver in her hair catch the faint light, and her face is set with a determined scowl. She looks up—right at me. Our eyes lock. In that moment, it feels like every stone in this ruin hushes, waiting.

That’s when the bond slams into me like a hammer. A surge of magic weaves between us, forging a thread I can sense in my blood and bones. My breathing grows ragged, molten gold eyes narrowing as I fight to reject this intrusion. I might as well deny gravity, for the tether is immediate and unyielding. My runes flare in response, the lines on my arms lighting up with shared power.

She presses a hand against her throat, as though she feels it too. There’s confusion, wariness, and a sliver of something akin to fear in her eyes. Her voice trembles when she speaks. “What… what are you?”

A swirling hush envelops us, punctuated by the groans of straining stone. “I am Kaelith,” I growl, feeling the rasp in my throat from centuries of disuse. Heat flares behind my words. I take a step forward, wings partially unfurling. Dust cascades off the obsidian membranes. My hair, black with streaks of deep silver, falls past my shoulders. “And I am the one youshould nothave awakened.”

She flinches at my tone, but her chin tips up defiantly. “I… I didn’t know you were down here. I only?—”

“You only toyed with wards you didn’t understand. I heard you and your enemy.” My tail lashes, betraying my agitation. I drag a claw through my hair, shaking free more stone fragments. The memory of how carefully I wove that seal resurfaces. My sacrifice was meant to last indefinitely, until the threat beyond could never rise again. “Do you have any notion of what you’ve done?”

Her shoulders tense, lips pressing into a thin line. “It was an accident. I was?—”

“That doesn’t matter,” I snap, voice reverberating off the fractured walls. A chunk of rubble tumbles from the ceiling, smashing into the ground with a violent crack. The entire space shudders. I grit my teeth, turning my gaze upward.This temple was never meant to see sunlight again. And now… the entire mountain might bury us both.

The purna coughs, waving dust out of her eyes. She bites her lip, scanning for an exit. Frustration rolls off her in waves. I can taste her fear in the air, tempered by raw defiance. This is a woman who has faced enemies before—she doesn’t cower. “I was cornered,” she says, voice slicing through the tension. “I cast a protection spell to keep Drayveth from capturing me. I didn’t realize I was breakingthat.” She gestures at the collapsed glyph on the floor. “It just… happened.”

Her mention of Drayveth hammers a fleeting memory loose from the haze of centuries. The name means nothing to me personally, but it reeks of purna. My glare intensifies. “You dabble in forces you can’t control, mortal. Now everything I—” A coughing fit rattles in my chest, not from weakness but from the swirling debris choking the chamber. I roll my shoulders back, letting the tension coil in my muscles. “The entire purpose of my sacrifice is undone. And it’s your doing.”

Her eyes widen, an unspoken question shining in them. “Sacrifice?” She steps forward despite the visible quiver in her legs. Her approach amazes me for the barest second; she’s an exiled purna, but she’s fearless enough to meet my glare rather than shrink away.

“Yes,” I say, raking my gaze over her. She’s shorter by nearly two full feet, but there’s a fierce quality to her stance. “There was a threat.” My mind buzzes with the memory of a once radiant purna turned monstrous—Nerezza, the woman I loved who destroyed everything. “By waking me, you loosened the chains that held that threat at bay.” My words echo with wrath at the knowledge that she has no idea what’s at stake.

Another tremor runs through the temple. The floor under our feet pitches sideways, sending her stumbling into me. I catch her reflexively. My palm slides over her cloak, fingers pressing into the curve of her waist. Our gazes collide, and the bond crackles like lightning between us, sending a jolt of energy up my arm. She reels back instantly, cheeks flushing.

“You feel that too,” I state, voice low, almost accusing. Of course she does. The bond tugs at me, an unwanted thread tying us together. “Explain it.”

Her lips part, eyes darting across my runes, the dim flicker of my molten veins. “I… I don’t know exactly. It started in the main chamber, after I used the glyph. I felt something latch onto my magic. Then I fell.” She swallows hard. “It must be a tethering spell. Some accidental byproduct of the old wards.” She says this last part with more doubt than confidence.

I step back, letting her stand on her own, though every fiber of me remains tense. My wings shift as I glance around the crumbling chamber. “We can’t discuss this here,” I mutter. “We should move before the entire temple collapses.” A hiss escapes my throat, and I gesture at the corridor behind her. Massive boulders choke the passage, leaving only a narrow opening. “Help me clear that debris.”

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