Page 83 of Claimed By Stone
The chaos of the room was gone, and I was left in the war room alone.
And when I stood—barefoot and shaking—I realized I could feeleverything. The mountain. The bond. The magic in the very air.
I descended the stairs.
The shattered crystal in the center of the table lay in fractured beauty. A few large shards glowing dimly, but countless tiny crystals littered the stone surface, each one glittering like starlight.
It wasn’t dead.
It hadchanged.
Just like me.
I drew in a breath. Clean. Sharp. Alive.
I remembered everything now—who I was. What I was. And why I had been sent.
But the only thing that mattered now washim.
Thavros.
And I had a mate to rescue.
Chapter 36
Thavros
The stone corridor echoed with each step, the heavy steps of boots following close behind. I walked with my shoulders squared, my chin high. I didn’t fight. Didn’t argue. The warmth of Seraphina’s presence still hummed softly in my chest, a quiet thrum that anchored me even as they descended deeper into the mountain.
I had no regrets.
“Why did you do it?” Frema asked quietly from my side. Her voice didn’t hold judgment, only concern, and something like sorrow.
I didn’t look at her. “Because it was what needed to be done.”
A scoff behind me, sharp and bitter. One of the younger guards muttered under his breath, “He’s doomed us all. Shattered the heart of our magic. What’s left now?”
"It will ruin us,” another said.
I didn’t turn, but the smallest smile lifted the corner of my mouth. Not a smile of arrogance, but one of memory—bittersweet and sacred.
I’d stood before Seraphina once and told her,then ruin me.
And she had.
But not in the way they feared.
She hadn’t destroyed me. She’d remade me just as she would remake everything.
She wasn’t their ruin. She was their salvation.
I just had to hold on long enough for everyone else to see it.
The cell door slammed shut behind me with a clang that echoed through the stone hall. I didn’t flinch. I let the silence settle.
For a long moment, I stood in the center of the room, the weight of the last hour pressing down on my shoulders. Then I sat, my hands resting on my knees, my breath steady despite the storm inside me.
And there it was.
