<b>**</b><b>ELIAS POV** </b>


    For the first time in what felt like days, she slept. Truly slept–not the restless half–doze she’d been gued with since the sorcerer’s attack, but a deep, steady breathing that signaled exhaustion had finally dragged her under. I sat beside the door of the hut, watching the faint rise and fall of her chest in the dim light.


    Relief washed through me, though it carried its own weight. It meant the watch was mine alone, and I weed it. I had no intention of letting anything slip past while she was finally getting a bit of rest. The night outside was unnervingly quiet, the forest holding its breath as if aware of her fragile peace, and I found myself straining at every rustle, every whisper of wind, determined that nothing would disturb her sleep again.


    The forest outside pressed in like a wall of shadows, the night still humming with unseen movement. Every sound pricked at my ears–the crack of a twig, the shuffle of wind through dead leaves. But more than sound, I felt something. A pull. A vibration beneath my skin. At first, I thought it was only the adrenaline that hadn’t burned out yet, the echo of fear still rattling through my body. But when I turned my fist into a ball across my knees, sparks of faint light threaded through my hands. My breath caught. I blinked hard, but they didn’t vanish. Instead, they grew brighter, tracing faint lines across the veins and muscles of my arms, as though some ancient pattern had been waiting there all along, hidden beneath flesh and bone, just waiting for me to notice.


    I jerked my hand back. The glow winked out instantly, leaving my hand instantly. My pulse hammered, not with fear, but confusion. She had powers–that much was clear. I had seen her mes, mes hot enough to turn the air to fire. But me? I was <i>no </i>sorcerer. No heir to ancient gifts. Not of royal blood. Just Elias, the one who stood and tried to protect the ones that couldn’t protect themselves. Well, that’s what I used to do before I met Lyra.


    And yet… the air still hummed in my blood, restless, insistent.


    I forced myself to steady, to breathe, to focus on the rhythm of her sleeping. I would not wake her for this–not yet.


    When dawn broke, pale gray light filtered through the ts <i>in </i>the hut’s walls<i>. </i><i>She </i>stirred, <i>slow </i>at first, then with a sharp breath that told me her mind was already alert even before her <i>body </i>could follow. I offered her the small skin of water we’d saved, and she drank greedily.


    “We need food.” She muttered, her voice still hoarse.


    <i>I </i><i>nodded</i>. The hollowness in my own stomach had long since turned into a gnawing ache.


    <i>” </i>


    :


    < CHAPTER 118


    +25 Points


    Stay close.” I said, though I knew she would insist oning. Her eyes flicked toward the trees in the distance. Another forest that had been spared from whatever happened to his realm, already scanning, already hunting.


    We didn’t find much. The forest had grown quiet, too quiet, as if the curse of thisnd had taken every animal away. Not just the dangerous ones. Still, we managed to trap two scrawny creatures–barely enough to call a meal, but enough to keep us moving another day. The silence lingered with us, heavy, unsettling, as though the trees themselves watched.


    Back at the hut, I gathered what dry branches I could and set them in a pile. Lyra knelt across from me, her hands outstretched. A spark of orange light shimmered between her palms, then leapt to the wood. The fire caught instantly, roaring with heat far stronger than it should have, chasing back shadows that had clung to us since morning.


    I leaned back slightly from the intensity of it. Even her smallest mes carried the searing bite of dragonfire. She grimaced, frustration flickering across her face.


    “I can make fireballs strong enough to burn stone.” She said quietly, “but I can’t control these new… gifts. Theye and go like storms.”


    I reached for the spit we’d rigged and set the rabbits over the ze, careful not to meet her eyes just yet. My hand brushed the edge of my own bow that she made me, and this time, the glow returned, shining the wood on the bow–brighter, steadier, a faint heat running up my arm, pulsing with a rhythm that felt alive. Sparks of light flickered along the string, and for a moment, the air around me seemed to hum with a quiet, potent energy I could almost hear.


    I froze. Then, slowly, I angled the bow toward the fire. The lines of molten light pulsed faintly, as though answering the mes.


    Her gaze snapped to it immediately. “Elias…”


    I <i>shook </i>my head, feeling both exposed and unsettled. “I don’t know how. It just started.”


    For a <i>moment</i>, silence stretched between us, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the faint hiss of fat dripping <i>into </i>the mes. Then, to my surprise, she smiled–tired, but fierce, <i>her </i><i>eyes </i>glinting with quiet determination.


    “Then we train.<i>” </i>She said.


    The <i>food </i>was gone quickly, and hunger still lingered, gnawing at our insides, but it gave us just enough strength <i>to </i>stand and stretch our stiff limbs. We moved outside the hut, where the morning light filtered softly through broken branches, casting dappled patterns on the damp forest floor, and the air was thick with dew that clung to our clothes and hair.


    She showed me first, conjuring mes that spun <i>into </i>orbs in her palms, bright enough to


    < CHAPTER 118


    make the air shimmer and twist around them. Each orb danced with life, tiny tongues of fire licking the edges, casting flickering shadows on nearby rocks and fallen logs. Then, <b>with </b><b>a </b>swift, practiced motion, she hurled them at a charred stump, the wood hissing and cracking beneath the heat, sending sparks scattering like miniature fireflies across the dewy ground.


    “Your turn.” She said.


    I stared at my bow and arrow, willing the glow toe. At first, <i>nothing</i>. Just silence<b>, </b>and the weight of my own doubt pressing down on me. Then, when I thought of her–of the way she had stood against the sorcerer even when her body was breaking–something surged inside me. The arrow red to life, golden veins racing across its length, humming with energy. My breath caught, chest tight, as the weapon seemed to respond not to strength, but to memory, to loyalty, to the unyielding fire that her courage had lit within me.


    I let it slip from the bow, and the air seemed to split. Not with fire, not with shadow, but with <b>a </b>force that rang like struck steel. The stump shuddered as if hit by a hammer.


    Augh escaped me before I could stop it. Rough, disbelieving. “I think I did something.”


    “You did.” She said, pride shing in her eyes. “Do it again.”


    We trained until sweat soaked through our clothes and the sun rose higher, burning away the mist. She wrestled with her new powers, frustrated when they slipped from her grasp, but I saw the strength in her, the way each failure only made her more determined.


    And when my arrows lit with that strange golden fire, I felt–for the first time–that I was not just her shield. Not just the one who stood beside her.


    I was something more. <fn4e00> Find the newest release on F?ndNovel</fn4e00>


    And together, <i>we </i>would learn what that meant.


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