The scream didn’t stop when the beast died.

  It didn’t belong to the beast.

  It belonged to the cold thread—the one that felt like snow packed into lungs and held there until you learned how not to panic.

  Jina staggered out of the ravine with Lysander’s hand locked around her elbow, her breath coming in sharp, uneven pulls. The cliff walls opened up into a broken path carved along a ridge, narrow enough that one bad step would send you tumbling into jagged stone.

  Wind hit them hard the moment they cleared the ravine mouth.

  Cold, dry, full of grit.

  Jina blinked and tasted dust.

  Her chest hurt in a way she couldn’t blame on poison alone.

  The threads were lit like live wires.

  The hot one pulsed—awake, angry, watching.

  The sharp one flickered with amusement, like it had front-row seats to her mistakes.

  The fire one thrashed, restless, hungry.

  And the cold one—

  The cold one was tight as a drawn bow.

  “Again,” Lysander said, voice low. “Tell me.”

  Jina swallowed, throat raw. “He’s—” She had to stop and breathe. “He’s in danger.”

  Lysander’s grip tightened.

  He didn’t ask how she knew.

  He didn’t waste time being skeptical.

  He looked ahead, at the path curling upward toward higher ground, and made a decision.

  “We move faster.”

  Jina let out a short, humorless laugh that turned into a cough.

  “Great. Tell my organs.”

  Lysander didn’t respond. He just shifted so his body was slightly in front of hers, blocking the worst of the wind. His leg—healed enough to hold weight—still wasn’t perfect. She could see the way he favored it by a fraction.

  He was injured.

  He was still pulling her uphill.

  Jina hated that her first reaction was gratitude.

  Hated it because gratitude made her soft, and soft got you killed.

  The cold thread yanked.

  A spike of чужой fear slammed into her so hard her fingers went numb.

  Jina stumbled.

  Lysander caught her instantly.

  “Breathe,” he ordered.

  Jina sucked in air and forced it out through clenched teeth.

  Not my fear. Not mine. Not mine.

  Her vision steadied.

  Barely.

  She looked down the path.

  Rock steps. Loose gravel. A drop to the left that made her stomach flip just thinking about it.

  She lifted her gaze quickly, refusing to give vertigo a foothold.

  “Who is he,” she rasped, because she needed something to anchor the panic. “The cold one.”

  Lysander’s eyes flicked to her face. “Theron.”

  A name.

  Okay. Good.

  Theron.

  Cold thread. Controlled terror. Logic wrapped around fear like armor.

  “Can you… do anything,” she asked. “Can you send—”

  Lysander shook his head once. “Not from here.”

  Of course.

  You couldn’t send a message across a cursed wasteland by willpower and guilt.

  But she could feel him.

  That was the sick joke of it. The bond made distance meaningless in the worst way.

  Jina’s hand drifted toward her sternum.

  The threads hummed, responding like nerves.

  Lysander’s gaze snapped to her hand.

  His eyes sharpened.

  “Don’t.”

  It wasn’t loud.

  It didn’t need to be.

  Jina’s jaw tightened. “I wasn’t—”

  “You were,” Lysander said.

  Jina closed her mouth.

  Because he was right.

  Her instincts had reached for the only lever she had.

  Touch the bond. Pull. Push. Fix.

  But Chapter Five had taught her what happened when she treated soul-threads like ropes.

  Blood. Backlash. Screaming.

  And if she tried something stupid now, on a cliff path, she wouldn’t just hurt herself.

  She’d fall.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  And then Lysander would follow.

  Because of course he would.

  Jina swallowed hard.

  “Fine,” she bit out. “No bond-touching.”

  They climbed.

  The path narrowed as they went, the rock worn smooth in places, jagged in others. It didn’t feel like a road made for people. It felt like a scar the earth had learned to live with.

  Wind slapped Jina’s face, stole heat from her skin, then replaced it with the sticky warmth of fever under her ribs. Her body couldn’t decide which kind of dying it preferred.

  The poison sat heavy in her blood.

  The Heal she’d poured into Lysander had left her hollow.

  Her legs trembled with each step like they wanted to quit.

  She kept moving anyway.

  Because if Theron was in danger, and she was tied to him, then his pain would keep ripping through her until either he stabilized—

  Or he didn’t.

  The cold thread pulsed again.

  A wave of fear, tight and controlled, punched through her chest.

  Jina’s breath hitched.

  Images flashed—fast, incomplete, like a fever dream someone else was having.

  A narrow room.

  Chains.

  A bright blade.

  A voice saying something she couldn’t hear.

  Theron’s fear wasn’t frantic.

  It was calculated.

  It felt like a man counting seconds until a trap snapped shut.

  Jina bit down on her tongue hard enough to taste blood.

  “Lysander,” she said, voice shaking despite her effort. “He’s not just scared. He’s—he’s bracing.”

  Lysander’s gaze flicked to her, then forward again.

  “We still move,” he said.

  “Helpful,” Jina snapped.

  Lysander didn’t react.

  He just kept climbing.

  That calm was infuriating.

  It was also the only reason she hadn’t fallen yet.

  Jina’s foot slipped on loose gravel. Her stomach lurched as the world tilted toward the drop.

  Lysander grabbed her forearm and yanked her back.

  Hard.

  Too hard.

  Jina’s arm jolted. Pain shot up to her shoulder.

  She hissed and yanked her arm away on reflex.

  Lysander stilled, eyes narrowing—already adjusting, already recalculating.

  “Don’t pull away,” he said.

  “I wasn’t planning to take a swan dive,” Jina shot back.

  His voice stayed flat. “Then listen.”

  Jina’s temper flared hot in her chest.

  Not just at him.

  At the cliff.

  At the poison.

  At the threads yanking her soul like it was a toy.

  At the fact she could feel someone dying far away and couldn’t do anything except keep walking.

  Her frustration needed somewhere to go.

  It found the nearest target.

  “Stop treating me like—like luggage,” she snapped.

  Lysander’s eyes flicked to hers.

  They were sharp.

  Not offended.

  Wounded.

  He didn’t speak, but the silence was heavy enough to be an answer:

  You’re dying. If I don’t hold you, you fall. If you fall, you die. If you die, I fail.

  Jina knew all that.

  Knowing didn’t make her less angry.

  The cold thread yanked again.

  Theron’s fear spiked—tightening into something like pain.

  Jina’s chest seized. Her vision blurred.

  She stumbled.

  Lysander grabbed her again.

  And something inside her snapped.

  Not a big dramatic break.

  A small one.

  A tired one.

  A human one.

  “Stop,” she breathed.

  The word didn’t come out like a normal word.

  It came out with weight.

  Like the air itself leaned toward it.

  Jina felt it the instant it formed—felt something old and sharp rise behind her tongue, a splinter-word that didn’t belong to Jina Park.

  It belonged to Aurelia.

  It belonged to a girl who had learned that words could be chains.

  The world responded.

  The air in front of her thickened.

  The threads flared bright, humming like struck strings.

  Lysander froze.

  Not because he was startled.

  Because his body recognized it.

  His pupils widened. His shoulders went rigid.

  For a single, horrifying heartbeat, he looked like a man hearing a command he couldn’t disobey.

  Horror flashed across his face so fast Jina almost missed it.

  Almost.

  But she saw it.

  And something cold crawled up her spine.

  This is what she did to him.

  Not the bonds. Not the court. Not Diadem.

  This.

  This single word with teeth.

  Jina swallowed hard, forcing the word back down before it could sharpen into the true thing.

  She coughed instead—rough, ugly, human.

  “Stop—” she rasped again, softer, weaker, “—stop for a second. I’m… I’m slipping.”

  The air loosened.

  Like a fist unclenching.

  The pressure vanished.

  The threads dimmed to their usual glow.

  Jina’s knees shook.

  Lysander didn’t move.

  He was staring at her mouth, not her eyes.

  Like he didn’t trust what might come out next.

  Jina’s throat went dry.

  She could have said something stupid right then.

  She could have explained.

  She could have apologized.

  She could have admitted she was terrified of herself.

  Instead, she did what she’d been doing since she woke up in a dead girl’s body:

  She lied by omission.

  “I’m fine,” she said hoarsely.

  Lysander’s jaw tightened.

  “You’re not,” he said.

  Not accusing.

  Flat fact.

  His gaze lifted from her mouth to her eyes.

  Careful. Controlled.

  And underneath it, a warning he didn’t speak out loud:

  Don’t do that.

  Jina’s stomach twisted.

  “I didn’t mean to,” she said, and hated how small it sounded.

  Lysander didn’t answer immediately.

  The wind surged, hissing over rock.

  Far below, something shifted—a distant scrape, maybe a stone sliding, maybe a beast moving in shadow.

  Lysander’s eyes flicked away, scanning. Always scanning. Then back to her.

  “Do you understand what that was,” he asked quietly.

  Jina’s breath caught.

  The honest answer was yes.

  She understood too well.

  It was power. It was compulsion. It was the part of Aurelia she most feared becoming.

  The part that didn’t need chains because she could build them out of syllables.

  Jina forced her face steady.

  “I know I said a word,” she said. “And I know it wasn’t… normal.”

  Lysander’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t say it again.”

  Jina nodded quickly, too quickly. “I won’t.”

  That was another lie.

  Because she didn’t know if she could keep it from happening when fear or rage spiked.

  She didn’t know where the line was between “speaking” and “Commanding.”

  And that terrified her more than the cliff edge.

  The cold thread pulsed again—sharp, urgent.

  Theron’s fear surged.

  Jina flinched and pressed her fist to her sternum.

  Lysander caught the movement.

  “Which one,” he demanded.

  “Theron,” Jina said through clenched teeth. “He’s—he’s worse.”

  Lysander’s jaw tightened.

  He shifted position, moving in front of her again.

  “Then we go,” he said.

  Jina stared at him.

  He was still giving instructions.

  He was still making decisions.

  He was still being the one with control.

  And after what just happened, that should have made her furious.

  Instead, it made her nauseous.

  Because she’d tasted what real control felt like in this body.

  And she never wanted to taste it again.

  They climbed.

  The path zigzagged up the cliff face, narrow ledges cut into stone, places where the rock crumbled underfoot. Jina kept her eyes on Lysander’s boots, on the safe spots he chose.

  Her lungs burned.

  Her pulse skipped.

  The poison dug in, slow and mean.

  She felt the temptation rise again when her foot slipped—

  That sharp, easy thought:

  Stop.

  One word and her body wouldn’t have to fight gravity. One word and the world would obey.

  Jina bit the inside of her cheek until blood filled her mouth.

  No.

  No no no.

  She would not become Aurelia’s worst habit.

  Her knee buckled.

  Lysander caught her again, this time gentler, as if he’d learned from the near-Command too.

  He didn’t yank.

  He steadied.

  And that somehow hurt more.

  Jina swallowed blood and looked up at the ridge ahead.

  A jagged line against a gray sky.

  If they reached the top, maybe she’d see the outpost. Maybe she’d see smoke. Maybe she’d see anything that meant not alone in the Wastes.

  Her vision blurred again.

  The cold thread yanked.

  Hard.

  So hard her breath cut off.

  Jina stumbled, clutching at her chest.

  The fear that slammed through her wasn’t just fear now.

  It was pain.

  It was the sensation of something tightening around a throat.

  Theron—Theron was being restrained.

  Or choked.

  Or—

  Jina gasped, eyes watering.

  “Lysander,” she croaked. “He’s—”

  The thread yanked again.

  Stronger.

  Jina’s mouth opened on instinct.

  The splinter-word surged up like it had been waiting for this exact moment.

  Stop.

  Not a request.

  Not a plea.

  A command aimed at the universe.

  Jina felt it gather behind her teeth—heavy, absolute, hungry.

  Her whole body leaned toward it.

  The air thickened again, reacting before the word even left her tongue.

  Lysander’s eyes snapped to her face.

  Pure alarm this time.

  Jina clamped her jaw shut so hard it hurt.

  She swallowed the word like it was poison.

  Pain tore through her throat.

  Her eyes burned.

  She shook her head violently, as if she could shake the power loose.

  No.

  No.

  She would not.

  The cold thread screamed.

  And Jina felt it—felt a distant, controlled mind finally crack under pressure.

  A single thought, sharp as glass, slammed through the bond and into her bones:

  They found me.

  The cliff path tilted under her feet.

  The wind roared.

  And somewhere inside her chest, power churned—awake, waiting, and far too ready to obey her next word.

  [Power]