Raith's POV
I felt her move before I heard her.
The temple's wards pulsed—someone was walking where they shouldn't be. I'd been meditating outside, keeping watch while the others slept, when the warning magic tingled across my scales.
Mira.
She was awake and moving deeper into the temple.
Alone.
I shifted immediately, serpent form allowing me to slip through the partially open temple doors. The others would be furious I left my post, but something felt wrong. The air tasted different—electric, dangerous, like right before lightning strikes.
I followed her scent through the main chamber and stopped cold.
The western wall had opened. A hidden passage I'd studied these ruins for decades and never knew existed.
Mira's silhouette descended the stone stairs, moving like she was sleepwalking. Her arm glowed brighter with each step, lighting her path with golden fire.
"Heartkeeper, stop!" I called out.
She didn't respond. Didn't even pause.
I slithered after her, my serpent body flowing down the stairs. The passage led deep underground, deeper than should be possible. The temperature dropped with each level, but instead of getting colder, I felt warmer.
Heat. Real heat. Something I hadn't felt in years.
Serpents are cold-blooded. We survive in warmth but true heat—the kind that comes from life magic—is rarer than gold. Most of us spend our lives slightly cold, slightly uncomfortable, slightly dying.
But this warmth was different. Ancient. Powerful.
And it was calling to Mira.
I shifted to human form at the bottom of the stairs, needing hands to grab her if she tried something dangerous. The passage opened into a cavern so massive I couldn't see the ceiling.
And in the center was water.
The Eternal Spring.
Except it wasn't dried up like the legends said. The pool glowed with blue-green light, its surface perfectly still like glass. Steam rose from it in lazy curls.
Mira walked straight toward it, her eyes unfocused and glowing gold.
"Mira, wake up!" I grabbed her shoulder.
She turned, but she wasn't seeing me. Her eyes were pure light now, no pupils, no color. Just the Sigil's power burning through her.
"The spring calls," she said in a voice that wasn't entirely hers. "The Marked One must answer."
"Not like this. You're not conscious. You could drown or—"
She shoved me with strength she shouldn't have. I stumbled backward, shocked.
Mira walked to the water's edge and stepped in.
The spring exploded with light.
I shielded my eyes, but even through my fingers I saw it—the water rising up, wrapping around Mira like living arms, pulling her under.
"NO!" I dove after her.
The water was hot. Not burning, but warm enough that my cold blood sang with pleasure even as panic clawed at my chest. I couldn't see her. The light was too bright.
I shifted to serpent form, my body made for swimming. My scales cut through the water as I dove deeper, following the golden glow.
There. Sinking fast.
I wrapped around her waist and pulled, my powerful coils dragging us both toward the surface.
But something else grabbed her legs.
I looked down and my heart stopped.
Hands. Made of water and light. Dozens of them pulling Mira deeper into the spring.
And below them, in the depths, I saw faces. Ghostly, beautiful, terrible faces.
The dead Healers. All of them. Not just the six who'd appeared in Mira's trial.
Hundreds of them.
Every Healer who'd ever died, their souls trapped in the spring they'd tried to save.
And they wanted Mira to join them.
I tightened my coils, fighting against their pull. But they were strong. So strong.
Mira's eyes snapped open—her real eyes, brown and terrified. She tried to scream but water rushed into her mouth.
I had seconds before she drowned.
I did the only thing I could think of. I bit her.
My fangs sank into her shoulder, injecting venom that would paralyze a full-grown bear. For a human, even one with magic, it should have meant instant death.
But Mira's Sigil flared.
The golden light from her arm shot through her veins, meeting my venom, transforming it. Instead of poison, it became... something else.
Warmth flooded through me. Not the spring's warmth. Hers. Her life force mixing with my venom, creating a bond that shouldn't exist.
A mate-bond.
I felt it snap into place like a chain around my heart. Felt her fear, her pain, her desperate need to survive.
And she felt me.
Her eyes found mine in the water and widened with understanding.
Help me, she thought, and I heard it like she'd spoken.
The bond. We were connected now.
I used it, pouring my strength through the link. My centuries of patience, my cold serpent calm, all of it flowing into her panicked mind.
Breathe, I thought back. Trust me.
She stopped struggling. Went limp in my coils.
The ghost hands loosened their grip, confused by her surrender.
I struck.
My serpent body expanded, filling with the spring's power. I became massive, fifty feet of pure muscle and magic. My coils wrapped around every ghost hand I could reach and squeezed.
They shattered like glass.
The faces in the deep shrieked—a sound that made the water vibrate. But they released her.
I shot toward the surface, Mira clutched against my body.
We burst from the water in an explosion of light and spray. I shifted mid-air, landing on the stone edge in human form with Mira unconscious in my arms.
She wasn't breathing.
"No, no, no." I laid her flat, tilted her head back, and pressed my mouth to hers, breathing for her.
One breath. Two. Three.
Her chest convulsed. She coughed up water, gasping and choking.
"Easy. You're safe. I've got you."
She grabbed my arms, her whole body shaking. "They tried to... they wanted me to..."
"I know." I held her closer, feeling her heartbeat through the mate-bond. Fast. Terrified. Alive. "I know."
Footsteps thundered down the stairs. The others had felt the magic surge.
Kael burst into the cavern first, eyes wild. "What happened? I felt—" He saw Mira in my arms, soaking wet, and his face went pale. "What did you DO?"
"I saved her life," I said coldly.
"You BIT her!" Kael pointed at the fang marks on her shoulder, still bleeding. "Your venom—"
"Is bonding with her Sigil. Look."
We all watched as the puncture wounds glowed golden. The venom, transformed by her magic, was spreading through her veins like glowing rivers.
"A venom-bond," Draven breathed. "That's... that's supposed to be impossible."
"Everything about her is impossible," I said quietly.
Thorne landed beside us, staring at the glowing spring. "The Eternal Spring isn't dead. It's been here the whole time."
"And full of angry ghosts," Ash added cheerfully, peering into the water. "This just keeps getting better."
Zara appeared last, her ancient face drawn with horror. "No. No, she wasn't supposed to find it yet. Not until after her training. Not until she was strong enough to—"
The spring's light flared again.
We all turned.
A figure rose from the water. Not a ghost this time. Something solid. Real.
A woman with silver hair and eyes like the ocean. She wore robes made of water itself, constantly flowing and reforming.
"The Marked One has touched the spring," she said, her voice echoing off the cavern walls. "The bargain is sealed."
"What bargain?" Mira croaked. "I didn't agree to anything!"
"Your Sigil agreed. The moment you entered the water, you accepted the spring's price." The water-woman smiled, cold and beautiful. "To restore the Eternal Spring and save the Beastworld, you must give it what it asks."
"What does it ask?" Kael demanded.
The water-woman's eyes fixed on Mira. "A life for a life. A soul for a soul. The spring needs an anchor—a Healer to bind it to this world. Every previous Healer refused and died trying to restore it alone. But you..." Her smile widened. "You have something they didn't."
"What?" Mira whispered.
"Mates. Multiple mates. The spring sensed them through your bonds." The water-woman gestured to me, then to Kael, Draven, Thorne, and even Ash. "Five protectors. Five souls bound to yours. Five sources of life force to share the burden."
Horror dawned on Mira's face. "No. I'm not using them like batteries!"
"You don't have a choice. The bargain is sealed." The water-woman began sinking back into the spring. "In three days, at the full moon, you will return here with your five mates. The bonding ritual will complete, and the spring will flow again. If you refuse..."
"What?" I demanded. "What happens if she refuses?"
The water-woman's final words echoed as she disappeared beneath the surface:
"The spring will take what it's owed. One way or another, six souls will feed it. Whether you give them willingly—or it takes them by force."
The spring went dark.
Silence pressed down on us like a physical weight.
Mira stared at the water, then at each of us, her face crumbling with guilt and fear.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I didn't mean to—"
She passed out in my arms.
And through the mate-bond, I felt her heart breaking.
Because she now had three days to choose: complete the bonding ritual and tie five males to a potentially deadly bargain, or refuse and watch the spring kill all six of them anyway.
There was no way out.
Only through.