Evelina's POV
My blood hits the seal.
For one heartbeat, nothing happens.
Then the world explodes.
The ground doesn't just shake—it screams. A sound like a thousand voices crying out all at once tears through the air. I try to crawl backward, but the stone beneath me cracks open like an egg.
Black fire shoots up from the seal. Not hot fire. Cold fire. The kind that burns in reverse, sucking warmth instead of giving it.
I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't do anything but watch as the silver symbols on the seal start glowing so bright they hurt my eyes.
"No, no, no—" I press my bleeding hand against my chest, trying to stop what I've started. "I didn't mean to—it was an accident—"
But the seal doesn't care about accidents.
More cracks spread outward from where my blood landed. Each crack glows with that terrible black fire. The ruins around me start to shake apart. Stone columns that have stood for three hundred years crumble like sand.
A sound fills my head. Not a voice exactly. More like a feeling that has words attached to it.
Finally.
The single word makes my bones vibrate. Makes my heart stop and start again. Makes every instinct scream RUN.
But I can't run. My legs won't work. I'm frozen, watching as the seal breaks completely apart.
Something rises from beneath it.
Not slowly. Fast. Like it's been waiting three hundred years for this exact moment and won't waste another second.
Darkness pours out of the broken seal. Thick and heavy, like smoke made solid. It spreads across the ground, swallowing everything it touches. The dead trees. The broken stones. The last rays of sunlight.
And then the darkness takes shape.
I see a shadow first. Tall. Too tall to be human. It moves like water and smoke mixed together, flowing upward into the air.
Then I see an outline. Shoulders. Arms. A head.
Then—
A man.
He stands in the center of where the seal used to be, looking around like he can't quite believe he's real.
But calling him a man feels wrong. Like calling a hurricane "wind" or a forest fire "warm."
He's beautiful in the way disasters are beautiful. The kind of beautiful that makes you forget to breathe. The kind that makes you want to look closer even though every smart part of your brain is screaming DANGER.
His hair is black as midnight and moves on its own, drifting around his face even though there's no wind. His skin is marked with symbols—the same ones that were on the seal, but these are fading, breaking apart like chains being destroyed.
He's not wearing clothes exactly. Shadows cling to him like fabric, covering just enough to be decent. They shift and move with each breath he takes.
But his eyes—
Oh god, his eyes.
Silver. Bright silver with black pupils, like dying stars. When they sweep across the ruins, the air itself seems to bend around his gaze.
Power radiates from him in waves. I can feel it pressing against my skin, making it hard to breathe. Making it hard to think. Making everything in me want to bow down or run away or both.
This is him. The Betrayer God. Kyroth.
And I just freed him with my blood.
He takes a step toward me. The ground trembles beneath his foot. Another step. The ruins themselves seem to lean away from him, like even stone knows to be afraid.
I want to run. Want to scream. Want to do anything except sit here like a rabbit watching a wolf approach.
But I can't move. His presence is too strong. Too overwhelming. It's like standing in front of an ocean wave and trying not to get swept away.
He stops right in front of me. Reaches down with one hand.
His fingers are long and elegant, but I can see power crackling around them. Little sparks of black lightning that make the air smell like storms.
He touches my chin. Tilts my face up so I have to meet his star-bright eyes.
His touch burns cold. Like pressing your hand against ice in winter.
"Impossible," he breathes. His voice is silk and thunder mixed together. Soft and dangerous at the same time.
He studies my face with an intensity that makes me feel naked. Like he's seeing through my skin straight to my soul.
"A daughter of Ashcroft," he says slowly, his cold fingers tightening on my chin. "Bleeding on my prison."
His lips curve into a smile that makes my stomach drop. Beautiful and terrifying all at once.
"Either fate has a vicious sense of humor," he continues, his voice dropping lower, more dangerous, "or you're the stupidest mortal I've ever encountered."
I should say something. Should defend myself or beg for mercy or do anything except stare at him like an idiot.
But my voice won't work. My whole body is shaking—not from cold, but from the sheer force of him. Like standing too close to something that could crush me without even trying.
His eyes bore into mine. I feel like he's reading every thought I've ever had. Every secret. Every pain. Every moment of my betrayal and heartbreak.
"So tell me, little queen," he whispers. His breath smells like winter and smoke. His grip on my chin tightens just enough to hurt.
The power around him flares brighter. The shadows covering him seem to reach toward me like living things.
"Did you free me on purpose?" His voice is soft as silk and sharp as knives. "Or did you stumble into releasing a god by complete accident?"
I open my mouth to answer. To explain about Isolde and Adrian and my blood falling by mistake.
But before I can speak, his other hand moves. Fast as lightning, he presses his palm flat against my chest, right over my heart.
Pain explodes through me. Not regular pain. Something deeper. Something that feels like he's reaching inside me and grabbing hold of my soul.
I scream.
His silver eyes widen in shock. "What—"
Power surges between us. His. Mine. Something else entirely.
A mark burns into existence over my heart. I can feel it searing into my skin beneath his hand. Hot and cold at the same time. Agonizing and electric.
Kyroth jerks his hand back like I burned him. He stares at his palm, then at me, then at his palm again.
"No," he says. Just that one word, but it sounds like the world is ending. "That's not possible. You can't be—"
The ruins start shaking again. Worse than before.
Kyroth's form flickers. For just a second, he looks less solid. Less real.
"What's happening?" I gasp, clutching my chest where the mark still burns.
He looks at me with something like horror in his star-bright eyes.
"You fool," he breathes. "Your blood didn't just break my seal."
The ground beneath us cracks open wider. Black fire shoots up around us both, forming a circle we can't escape.
Kyroth's voice drops to barely a whisper, but I hear every word like thunder.
"It created a bond."