Rowan POV
Mira hit him again.
This time she used her full strength and Rowan tasted blood. Real blood this time, not just from his mouth but from inside his body where something broke. He let himself fall because fighting back would have been an insult to her rage. Because she had every right to destroy him and he had no right to defend himself.
The forest around them was screaming. The magic wild and uncontrolled, responding to Mira's fury like it was synchronized with her heartbeat. The ground beneath them cracked. The trees bent at impossible angles. And Rowan just lay there in the dirt and let it happen.
"You knew," Mira said. Her voice was shaking so hard it barely sounded like words. "You knew something was here. You came here to do this. You wanted to break it."
Rowan pushed himself up on his elbows. His jaw was throbbing. His ribs felt fractured. But none of that mattered compared to the way she was looking at him like he'd destroyed everything that mattered.
"I didn't know," he said. His voice came out rough and broken. "Not what it would actually do. Not what was on this side of the seal."
"Liar," she spat.
"No." He sat up slowly, careful not to make any sudden moves. Not because he was afraid of her but because she deserved to see the truth on his face. "I'm going to tell you everything. Because you need to understand what you're dealing with. And because you deserve to know who actually did this."
Mira stood there with her fists clenched, breathing hard, her whole body vibrating with magic that was barely contained beneath her skin. She didn't tell him to speak but she didn't walk away either.
Rowan took that as permission.
"The Council found me when I was five years old," he said. "I was in an orphanage in London. I had a gift. I could sense things. Magic things. The orphanage workers thought I was sick. The Council thought I was special."
He paused, waiting to see if she would let him continue. She didn't move so he kept going.
"They gave me a new name. New parents. New life. Everything was perfect and controlled and designed. They told me I was chosen. That I had been born for a specific purpose. That one day I would find something that had been lost for thousands of years and bring it back to the world."
Mira's expression shifted. Not quite softening but becoming less certain.
"They trained me for thirty-two years," Rowan continued. "Taught me to hunt. Taught me to sense magic. Taught me everything I needed to know to find impossible things. And then about six months ago, Kael Voss came to me. He showed me old maps and prophecies and fragments of something that might have been real or might have been just legend. He said the Last City was real. He said I was the only person who could find it."
"You didn't question it?" Mira asked. There was less rage in her voice now. More confusion. More pain.
"I did," Rowan said. "But questioning Kael gets you nowhere. I've learned that the hard way. So I came to New York. I went to the museum. I found your vault. And when I touched that door, I knew. The city was real. It was close. And my entire life had been leading to this exact moment."
He stopped and looked at her directly. Wanted her to see the truth of what came next.
"But I didn't understand what breaking the seal would do," he said quietly. "I thought it was just locked away. I thought it was sleeping. I didn't think it would wake up like this. And I had no idea there was someone protecting it. Someone with the city's magic living inside her body."
Mira's breath caught. Just slightly. But Rowan heard it.
"When I saw your face at the museum," he continued, "something inside me recognized you. Tried to warn me. But I was already committed. Already moving toward this. And I didn't have the courage to stop."
Mira turned away from him. Walked a few steps toward the entrance made of living light and ancient stone. The seal wasn't fully broken yet. Cracks ran through it like lightning but it was still there, still holding some part of what was inside.
"How many people?" she asked without turning around. "How many people did the Council kill to get what they wanted? How many researchers? How many guards? How many innocents died because you wanted to find something?"
The question hit Rowan like a physical blow.
"I don't know," he admitted. "They never told me. And I never asked."
She turned back to face him and her eyes were different now. Not just angry. Broken. Like she was looking at someone who had destroyed her world and now wanted to be forgiven for it.
"I was eight years old," Mira said. "When they came to kill my family. When they came to take the city's secrets. They murdered everyone I loved in one night. My parents. My siblings. Everyone. And I've spent eighteen years hiding in the normal world keeping them safe from people exactly like you."
Rowan felt something crack open inside his chest. Felt the weight of what he'd done settle into his bones like lead.
"I'm sorry," he said. And it sounded so inadequate that he almost laughed at himself. "I know that means nothing. I know sorry doesn't fix any of this. But I am. I'm sorry for destroying your life. I'm sorry for breaking the seal. I'm sorry for existing."
For a moment Mira didn't move. Then she walked toward him and raised her hand and Rowan thought she was going to hit him again. He almost wanted her to. Wanted the physical pain to match what was happening inside him.
But instead she grabbed his face. Forced him to look at her. And when she saw the tears streaming down his face, something in her expression shifted.
"Don't cry," she said roughly. "You don't get to cry about this. You don't get to feel guilty and sad and sorry. You broke it. You destroyed everything. And now I have to figure out how to fix it."
"I'll help," Rowan said immediately. "Tell me what to do and I'll do it."
"You can't," Mira said. She pulled her hand back and stepped away from him. "Don't you understand what's happening? The magic is out of control. It's spreading. In a few hours it's going to start affecting the entire city. In a day it's going to spread beyond New York. In a week it's going to reshape the world."
She was breathing hard. The Guardian Mark on her spine was glowing so bright that even through her clothes Rowan could see it burning.
"The only way to stop it," Mira continued, "is to seal it from inside. From the city's heart. Someone has to go down there and merge with the magic and lock it back down. And it has to be someone the magic recognizes. Someone it trusts."
Rowan was beginning to understand where this was going.
"It recognizes me," he said quietly. "The magic. It chose me."
"Yes," Mira said. Her voice was hollow. Empty of everything except exhaustion. "And that means I can't seal it alone. I need you. I need the man who broke my world to help me save it."
She knelt beside him in the dirt. And when she looked at his face, tears started running down her cheeks.
"The magic is out of control," she whispered. "If we do not seal it again, it will destroy everything. And the only way to do that is to go into the city. With you."