I woke to the sound of crying. Which, given the last 24 hours, could have been my own. I blinked awake, disoriented. How long had I been out? When I tried to sit up, every muscle screamed in protest, a bone-deep exhaustion weighing me down. Still, I felt remarkably good considering my body had been brutally torn apart in my fight with the Darroch before I passed out.

  Forcing myself upright, I stared at my arms trying to synchronize my mental image of myself with how I looked now but it was difficult. The skin covering my body didn’t feel like mine anymore, it had transformed into something ghostly pale, like polished marble with the faintest shimmer when I moved. Where a Darroch's claw had sliced me open to the bone just hours before, I now found nothing but perfect, unblemished flesh. I ran my fingers over the healed wound, half-expecting to feel a scar, but there was nothing.

  The soft, sorrowful weeping caught my attention again, snapping me out of the thoughts I was having about my new reality. Lyren was kneeling beside what had once been a crystal- clear pond, now slicked with an oily black film.

  Each sob made her slender shoulders tremble beneath her torn tunic. No magical incantations now, just broken whispers to someone named Aine, her voice hitching between words. I wobbled over on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else and knelt beside her in silence. What the hell could I say? "Sorry I melted the murder monsters in your holy water?" So I said nothing, just lowering my head respectfully until she completed her ritual.

  When the last syllable of her prayer faded, she opened her eyes, green as spring leaves, and stared at the corrupted water. Fresh tears cut clean lines through the dirt on her face.

  Lyren's fingers trailed several inches above the surface of the water, trembling. "This was a moonwell," she whispered, her voice breaking. "Blessed by the Goddess Aine herself." She wiped at her face with the back of her hand, leaving more dirt than it removed. Gone was the elf who'd called me "human" with that curl of disdain in her voice. This broken woman let her words tumble forth, one after another, as if silence might shatter whatever fragile composure she might have left.

  "My mother... my mother worshiped Aine dearly, before she passed. I should never have brought us here. The grotto was supposed to be a last resort if any of us were unable to make it clear of the forest by nightfall. It was supposed to protect us with the goddess’s light. I thought it would keep us safe." Her hand trembled as she gestured to the dark, greasy slick that coated the moonwell. "But the Darroch… Their filth... their corruption was too much. The well is tainted now. I doubt it will ever recover and it's all my fault."

  I glanced between the corrupted moonwell and the unblemished skin of my forearm, where the Darroch had torn into me with venomous fangs just hours before. Not even a scar remained.

  "Lyren," I said, the question forming slowly, "why am I still... me? Why didn't I turn into one of those things like you almost did?"

  She looked up, tears still clinging to her lashes. Her gaze traveled from my face down to my chest, lingering there as her expression shifted from grief to something more complicated. She drew a slow breath through slightly flared nostrils, closed her eyes momentarily, then met my eyes again. Her gaze lingered on me with an intensity that made heat crawl up my neck.

  When she finally looked up, her cheeks flushed crimson before she averted her eyes. "The Darroch's venom defies all ancient teachings," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "In every scroll within the Sealdair archives, the outcome is absolute, no living being survives their bite."

  She brought her hand up, fingers hovered inches from my chest, tracing where my wounds had been. "You've broken fundamental laws of nature. We both should have transformed into those monsters."

  She pressed her palm against her hastily tied leather breastplate, right above her heart. "Whatever magic you wielded created a connection between us. I feel you here now, like an echo beneath my own heartbeat."

  My stomach knotted as I watched the black aura drift across the defiled moonwell. Just like always, I fucked everything up. I ruined this beautiful place and bound this amazing, proud woman to me for the rest of her life without her permission.

  Why can’t I ever do anything right? Maybe it would have been better if I had just died to the boar. Then Lyren might never have come to this place. My throat tightened and I couldn’t get the words out. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. How I would understand if she hated me for what I’d done to her. But before I could find the words Lyren leaned over to me and pressed her forehead against my chest, her tears hot against my cold skin.

  “Don’t you dare apologize. I don’t understand how you did it but you saved my life. More than that, my soul. You kept me from becoming the very thing I have spent my family has spent generations fighting against.”

  For a heartbeat, I froze. Wait, I hadn't spoken those thoughts aloud. Then warmth bloomed in my chest, spreading through me like hot chocolate on a cold winter day. It carried gratitude that wasn't my own. Lyren was feeling my guilt and somehow I was feeling her gratitude. What is happening? When I stood there dumbfounded, I could feel her start to pull back, embarrassed. I caught her before she could pull away, my arms circling her slender frame, pulling her into a hug.

  Whatever this bond between us was, it wasn't telepathy, it was more like how I perceived the intent and impressions I received from the Beast and the Eye. These were emotional echoes reverberating between us through the bond. Wanting to understand better, I opened myself to our connection. Lyren’s emotions washed over me. Despite her gratitude I could feel she was overwhelmed by a maelstrom of grief, rage, disorientation, and loss that threatened to drown her.

  I held her close, my mind still reeling as I slowly began to remember everything that had happened. The initial transformation, the fight against the Darroch, creating the soul bond, it was too much to absorb all at once.

  Lyren’s body trembled against mine. Her fingernails bit into my back as she began to sob again, anchoring herself to me as if I might disappear. Beneath the acrid taint of dried Darroch venom, her hair carried the scent of fresh pine and some unfamiliar blossom that I’m sure my mother had once introduced me to. I felt an almost visceral urge to do anything I could to protect her.

  When the trembling finally subsided, she pulled back. "When the Darroch had me, I saw something attack it. Now I realize it was you but not you as you are now or how you were when we first met," she said, her voice scraped raw. "You were more ferocious, with wild hair, long limbs, moving like a predator. Then everything went black and I felt like I was being consumed from the inside. I knew if I didn’t hold on with everything I had left I would disappear. It was… terrifying. Then I felt it, felt you reaching through the darkness that was suffocating me." Her eyes found mine, wide and haunted. "You found me…" The words died on her lips.

  “While I was unconscious… What happened? Please, tell me everything,” she asked, glancing at the brutalized bodies of the monsters scattered around the cavern. “What happened with the Darroch? Why do you look so different? Do your people have the ability to change forms at will?”

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  I gave an exhausted laugh. “No, nothing like that.”

  “But you killed the Darroch? All three of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then explain it to me. How are you so strong now?” she pressed. “When we fought the Umbral Chimera, I thought you were… weak. You had no magic and seemed untrained in combat.”

  I flinched. The words cut deep, but it wasn’t as if they weren’t true. It was obvious she was feeling confused on how I went from a terrified skinny guy with confidence issues to the ripped vampire aesthetic and the ability to tear apart monsters with my bare hands that she was seeing now. Honestly, I didn’t blame her. I lived through the entire thing and still didn’t believe it.

  "Ok. This will probably sound insane,” I started, a little unsure where to begin. “After you passed out the Darroch came and started breaking through the barrier. There was no way out so I did something I really didn’t want to do."

  “I can feel how much pain you went through. What was it?” Lyren asked, looking at me with compassion written on her face.

  I recounted the fragments I could piece together, though gaps remained where the beast had seized control. When I described accidentally channeling the magic that transformed me while fleeing the Darroch, Lyren leaned forward.

  "This magic, what was its nature?" she asked, curious.

  "Purple? I don’t know. My entire knowledge base on magic comes from video games and movies." My fingers combed through my new jet-black hair, now a stark contrast against skin bleached of all color. "The woman, Nyxora, said she'd been watching me for years, offering some 'gift' inside my dreams that I'd always refused. Dreams I could never quite remember when I woke up..." I shook my head. "When I thought we were both going to die in that cave, I finally accepted whatever she was offering. And it changed me into... this."

  Lyren's body turned to stone beside me. Her fingernails carved crescents into my forearm as terror flooded through our bond, raw and electric, stealing the breath from my lungs.

  The name "Nyxora" left Lyren's lips as a whisper that frosted the air between us. Her eyes widened to perfect circles. "The Dark Queen herself brought you to our world?"

  I winced as her nails dug crescents into my arm. "Ease up there," I said, trying to loosen her grip. "She materialized right here while you were slipping away."

  "The Devourer of Dreams stood in this sacred place?" Lyren's voice cracked, her face draining of all color.

  "Yes, and until she appeared with her whole 'immortal queen' introduction, I had no clue who she was," I said, rubbing my arm where her nails had been. "I was a bit preoccupied with keeping you alive."

  Lyren stared at me as though I'd grown a second head. "She may have shown me how to purge the corruption from your body," I continued, "but I'm not naive enough to trust her. Now would you mind explaining exactly why mentioning her name has you looking like you've seen a ghost?"

  She pulled away from me, her body swaying like a sapling in a strong wind. Flakes of dried black venom crumbled from the corners of her pale lips.

  Lyren's face drained of all color. "Nyxora commands the Daemon realm with power rivaling the lesser gods." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Had she truly materialized here, we would be nothing but scattered bones and memory."

  She spun toward me, her small frame vibrating with a cocktail of emotions that crashed through our connection, terror, rage, confusion, exhaustion, all hitting me with such force I nearly staggered. My hand instinctively went to my chest where the soul bond pulsed between us. I'd need to figure out some way to build walls around this connection, and soon.

  "The Daemon Queen aided you?" Lyren's voice cracked. "The same tyrant who once blackened our skies with her armies?"

  "I had no idea who she was or what she did to your people. And I don't understand it either," I said, pressing my palm against my sternum. "But feel this. You know I'm not lying. And think about it, how would some random human from another world even know her name?"

  She tentatively touched the same spot on her chest, closing her eyes. When she opened them she looked into my eyes, her expression turned to shock. In that moment I knew through the bond that she had realized what the connection between us really was. I couldn’t meet her eyes I looked down at my clawed hand, clenching it shut. "Lyren, I…" How could I explain it? "Nyxora told me it was the only way I could keep you from becoming one of them," I finally blurted.

  Her silence hung between us like a physical weight. I stared at the ground, watching my own blood drip from where my claws had pierced my palms. "When the corruption was taking you," I said, each word feeling like gravel in my throat, "Nyxora offered me a choice that wasn't really a choice at all. She wanted me to... own you. To bind your soul. But I couldn't, I wouldn’t do that." I risked looking up at her face, those emerald eyes stared into me with such intensity I wished I was back trying to stare down Nyxora. "So I made the bond flow two ways instead. It was the only thing I could come up with.”

  "Look at what I’ve become," I said, opening my clenched fist. I watched as the four furrows from my claws sealed over in less than a second, like they were never there. "Where I come from, magic is a fairytale... Back home, I drove drunk college kids home from parties and lived in a basement apartment with mold in the shower. Twenty-four years old and I can’t hold a real job or even finish college." I squeezed my eyes shut. "I'm nobody. All I do is fuck everything up. And now I’ve ruined your life too. I’m… I’m sorry."

  Lyren didn’t speak. The silence stretched on. I closed myself off from the bond as best I could, not wanting to feel what she thought of me. I had violated her in a way that was unforgivable, something so shitty that my own soul had tried to forcibly stop me. I really should have just let myself die. She hates me. I know it.

  After a moment I heard a sigh and a small, warm hand gently wrapped around my own. I looked up. She was standing right in front of me. Her emerald eyes filled with empathy.

  “You are quite melodramatic sometimes aren’t you?” She said, and I let out a little snort. “You saved me from a fate that I can’t even imagine,” Lyren spoke softly. “This thing between us will take some time to figure out. For now, I don’t know anything about you, Myles from another world, but…” she paused, touching her own chest right over her heart. “We should probably change that.”

  Lyren's smile reached her eyes, warming them to a sparkling green. I opened myself to our connection again, the tension in my shoulders melting away. Through the bond, I felt her forgiveness wash over me like a flood of cool water, so powerful my knees nearly buckled. She stepped forward and wrapped her good arm around me for support, her head barely reaching my chest. My voice came rough and unsteady. "Well then," I managed, swallowing hard. "I'm Myles Garber."

  She pulled back and I extended my hand. Instead of shaking it, she clasped my wrist, her fingers resting against my pulse. The formality of it was almost ceremonial. I mirrored her, my fingers wrapping around her slender wrist. Slight mischief sparkled in her eyes as they met mine. She inclined her head slightly. "I am Lyren Estril," she said, voice clear and measured, "Hunter of the Sealdair and daughter of King Tegis Estril of the elven kingdom of Verdantyre."

  My eyes went wide. Wait, what now? I was holding hands with a real-life elven princess.

  "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Myles Garber," she said, clearly savoring my slack-jawed reaction.

  Her revelation about being royalty cut through the heaviness hanging over the blood-stained grotto, but the smile faded from her face as she glanced toward the tunnel entrance.

  "I have no idea how long we were out or what time of day it is but we have a lot of ground to cover to get back to Velis. The Darroch avoid sunlight, most dark things do. So assuming it’s early enough in the day we shouldn’t have to worry about any more of them attacking."

  Lyren's words about dark creatures and sunlight tumbled in my head as I retrieved my shirt from the moss. "So the Darroch fear daylight," I said, examining the tattered button-down between my clawed fingers, "but those chimera things hunt during the day?" The fabric hung in ribbons, a casualty of the non-stop action scene that had been taking place since I arrived. Even if it had been intact, it probably wouldn't have stretched across my new frame.

  Lyren leaned on her staff, her face tightening as she shifted her weight. "The Umbral Chimeras aren't Daemon-born. They're creatures of our world, twisted by forbidden arts into something... unnatural."

  "Hold on," I said. "Your arm needs support." I held up the ruined shirt. "May I?" She nodded. I fashioned the remains of my shirt into a makeshift sling. With her arm now secure, we took one last look at the tainted moonwell, the horrors and revelations of the night settling between us like a silent promise. Then we turned and headed out the tunnel and into the forest.