Page 136 of A Thread of Breath and Bone

Time loses all meaning.

Pain has no end.

I float in this dark place, the stars my only company as my soul is ripped from my body. Every inch of me hurts. My bones are remade—stretched, thickened, strengthened. The strands of my hair, my lungs, my fingertips. There isn’t a single part of me that is left untouched.

For a minute—or an eternity, I’m not sure—I live in this state of agony. Whole worlds could be born and die, and I wouldn’t know. This hell feels endless.

My only thought is that my mate is experiencing this too. It’s what keeps me tethered. I have to get back to her.

I feel the moment my soul is forced back into flesh that barely contains it. But then the pain softens, growing lighter. I feel grounded in a way I never have before. In a heartbeat, a river of new power flows beneath my skin. I know somehow that if I called upon the water, it would answer. If I summoned the wind, it would dance where I willed it.

But it’s something more than that.

If I told the skies themselves to collide and put on a show, they would obey.

This is the legacy of the Stormborne Fae.

The power doesn’t flow—it floods. It is the weight of a thousand Stormborne ancestors crashing into my consciousness, a tidal wave of ancestral memory—ancient wars, fallen kingdoms, and the shadow magic that once nearly devoured our world.

Now I understand why King Ariyan looked at me with fear.

I am no longer an ignorant prince from across the galaxy. I am the living embodiment of a bloodline meant to command the skies. The line that once ruled the system with power—and a gentle hand.

I inhale deeply, letting it all settle into my bones. This is the body I was meant for. The body of a warrior. A Fae male. A mate. I draw back my arm and swing, shattering the darkness around me. It splinters, then falls away, revealing the dimly lit hall. I’m on the floor, lying curled in a ball. The air smells stale. I hear heavy breathing and turn to find Soraea asleep, sprawled across the polished floor. I push myself to my knees, unaware of my new strength, and nearly crack the tile beneath me as I crawl toward her, hovering over her body.

She looks so peaceful, but I know the hell she’s living through. I can already see the differences in her.

She looks like a goddess carved from starlight and forest shadow, her skin faintly iridescent as if dusted with glowing stars. The feeble human body the priestess spoke of is gone, replaced by a form that can finally contain the power of the stars she was born to carry.

I lean down, needing to feel her—hold her. To remind her she isn’t alone. I press my face to her neck and inhale deeply until her scent settles into my bones.

My new senses spark to life.

I smell rain falling in the forest, frost blooms covered in midnight dew as fog settles over Kyrr. I smell home.

Memories of us—of her—come flooding back. All at once, I remember everything.

An ache like I’ve never known tears through me. I feel frantic, like a vital piece of my soul has been ripped away.

Our Mating Bond.

I know it deep within me. It calls to me, begging to be completed.

“I’m here,” I whisper, pulling her limp body into my lap and cradling her. “I’ve got you. Come back to me. Don’t leave me now, Soraea.”

But the Bond between us is silent, and the quiet terrifies me more than the darkness ever did.

Chapter 49

Raea

I am agony. Together we are one. There is no beginning and no end. Once, long ago, we were two, but then it fused to my bones and became me. My screams can no longer escape through sound, only through the silent tears that fall. I have become a prisoner in a hell of my own making.

Memories of my life flash through my mind, torturous in their reminder of what I once had. My father spinning with me in his arms at a ball. My mother, barefoot and tending to her garden, cradling a delicate flower in her hands while she teaches me how to care for such delicate things.

I’m not delicate. The gods never offered me the choice. I was created from fire, and here shall I find my end. The view is spectacular at least. A blanket of stars here to see me off, my companions until my last breath.

“Come back to me, Soraea.”