Page 36 of Before the Bond Breaks
The stone would answer to blood, she’d written. Only a direct bloodline descendant could unlock its core. But the ritual required more: an awakened bond, a soul-thread burning wild and strong, exactly the kind Maze and her shifter were.
The power wasn’t in the artifact alone. It was in the breaking.
I traced the arc of the diagram, feeling the script flare under my touch. The candlelight picked out the green stain in the heart of the stone, where the memory of ancient violence still pulsed. I drew the energy into myself, letting it coil. The night outside the window tried to press in, but it didn’t reach me. I was safe here, surrounded by secrets that belonged only to me.
Tonight, Maze’s people lost the Stone. They lost the illusion that their bonds could save them from my design.
But it wasn’t enough for me to watch them lose. I wanted them to feel it, all the way down to the core. I wanted them to know they’d walked into every trap I’d set, that they’d bled and failed because I required it.
I closed the grimoire gently, letting the runes fade back to sullen red.
For a moment, I let the silence pool around me. The ghosts of the ravens lingered at the edges, hungry for the next turn in the game. Nobody in this world—or any other—could see the future as clearly as I did just then.
The door to my study opened before Bryna entered with her head held high and a satisfied grin on her face.
She dropped to her knees, bowing to me. When she raised her head, I saw how the light from the Severing Stone twisted in her pupils. She held the relic up, offering it with the kind of devotion I’d only ever seen in the mad or the desperate.
I stood, crossing the distance without a sound. My shadow blotted out the last of the candlelight as I took the stone from her.
It pulsed against my palm. I turned it over once, twice, memorizing the position of every etched line, every fracture.
"You've done well," I said. I let the words ring off the walls, giving them the weight they deserved. "The final pieces align perfectly."
Bryna shuddered in relief, a flicker of pride breaking through her fear. She looked up, waiting for the rest.
I set the stone on my desk and opened the Prime’s grimoire, then flipped the page, showing her the ritual I’d planned out in excruciating detail.
"The requirements are simple," I told her, voice pitched for the echo. "Valkyrie blood—Jessica’s. And it doesn’t need just blood,but a living thread. The stone needs the heat of a soulbond to reach its true potential."
Bryna swallowed, her jaw tight. She understood the price, even if she hadn’t believed it until now. The air closed in on her as she waited for my next move.
I reached out, pressing my hand to her shoulder. Her body went rigid under my grip. The cold from my fingers soaked through flesh to bone, pressing in, marking her as mine.
"You shall be the first to taste freedom from these chains," I said, letting every syllable coil around her spine. "When the soulbonds shatter, our kind will evolve beyond the primitive attachments that have held us back."
Bryna nodded, her loyalty burning away the last tremor of fear in her eyes. She knew what she was worth to me now. She accepted her role, accepted the cost and the reward in equal measure.
I let go, satisfied.
She drew back, head bowed, waiting for dismissal. The stone’s glow caught her profile, outlining the tension in her jaw and the faint damp at her temple.
"You did not fail me," I added, voice softer but not gentle. "You’re dismissed."
When she was gone, I let my hand linger on the stone's surface. The pulse had grown stronger now, the resonance eager for the next step.
I summoned my head guard. He showed seconds later, glancing at the stone on my desk. “Bryna followed through.”
I nodded. “The next phase is crucial. I’ll be leaving for Los Angeles tonight. I need you to make an anonymous call to Winter Valen that I was spotted in LA. They’ll take the bait. They always do."
He gave a single sharp bob of the head.
"When Maze and her mate arrive, thinking themselves the hunters, the trap will close around them. The stone will respond to their blood, their bond, their proximity. It will tear the soul-thread from them and use it to bind the next phase of evolution. Do not underestimate them. But do not let them see you waver. Once they lock on to the scent of a rumor, they’ll pursue it with all the stupidity of their breed. We will have what we need—their bond, their pain, their power. All of it."
They’d come. They’d break.
And I would finally get what was owed to me.
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