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The hall existed in a pocket of neutral space, a locale neither Mortaine nor Dwayne territory. Ancient stone walls bore no crest, no color, no allegiance. Wards older than centuries of animosity hummed beneath Lilith's skin, pressing down with the weight of enforced civility.
She stood alone in the center of the chamber, waiting. A cold dread settled in her stomach, a familiar companion these days. Every breath felt thin, weighted by the blight that slowly consumed her coven, a blight she sensed deepening within her own core, though she fought to hide its progress.
The doors opened with a sound like grinding bones. Damian entered first, his black hair catching the crystalline light that fell from enchanted crystals suspended above. His golden eyes found hers across the empty space, and heat rushed into her face before she could suppress it. The unexpected jolt of awareness was a betrayal from her own body, a physical reaction she despised.
Behind him came the Arbiter.
She was ancient in the way that truly mattered, her presence occupying more space than her physical form warranted. Lilith had heard rumors of her, whispered in the oldest texts, a woman who had witnessed the original rivalry, who had negotiated the first fragile treaties between their covens. The robes she wore might have been white or silver or something that predated the concept of color, shimmering with an otherworldly glow.
“You both know why you are here,” the Arbiter stated. Her voice was not loud, but it filled the chamber completely, pressing against the walls with authority.
“Because our families are dying?” Lilith's tone was sharp as broken glass. “How tragic for us both.” Her thoughts immediately flashed to Lucy, her younger sister, whose translucent skin already showed the faint, darkening tracery of the blight's third stage. Each labored breath, each weakening flutter of her life force, was a knife to Lilith's heart.
Damian's mouth curved into that infuriating smile. “I assumed we were here so you could beg for mercy, Mortaine. How generous of you to save time.” His gaze was calculating, assessing her, and Lilith felt a surge of familiar animosity. She knew that behind his arrogance, he was equally desperate, equally aware of the ticking clock.
The Arbiter raised one weathered hand. The gesture was small, yet both of them fell silent instantly.
“The blight consuming your covens is not natural,” the Arbiter explained. “It is a magical construct, deliberately engineered. Its origin point lies on neutral ground, in a place neither of your families has dared to trespass for two hundred years.” Her words hung heavy in the air, laden with accusation and ancient knowledge.
Lilith's stomach twisted. She saw Damian's jaw tighten imperceptibly. He knew something, she realized, a piece of this puzzle she was still missing.
“What you do not know,” the Arbiter continued, her gaze sweeping between them, “is that the blight is keyed to your bloodlines specifically. It will not stop spreading until the magical debt between your houses is settled. This debt, a wound carved into the very fabric of your covens’ connection, is the fuel for the blight. There is only one way to break the cycle and repair that magical tearing.”
The Arbiter turned to a table beside her. On it lay a single book, bound in leather that looked disturbingly like human skin, its ancient pages whispering of forgotten power.
“The Rite of Crimson Union,” the Arbiter announced, her voice resonating with ancient power. “A binding ritual designed centuries ago as a peace offering between your founders, intended to weave their destinies into one. It requires the two most powerful heirs from each coven to merge their magic through a series of intimate, soul-binding acts: blood ritual, memory sharing, and physical union at the moment of magical alignment. This union, when completed successfully, rebalances the magical debt by creating a new, unbreakable bond between the opposing lines.”
Lilith's entire body went rigid. She felt the color drain from her face and did not bother trying to stop it. The implications were horrifying.
Damian had gone very still, his golden eyes narrowed. When he spoke, his voice was soft as a predator's breath, laden with barely contained fury. “You are asking us to do what, exactly?”
“To connect,” the Arbiter stated with the blunt practicality of someone who had heard the word applied to every situation, romantic or otherwise. “To bind your magic to his. To let him inside your mind, and to to let him see you inside his, without reservation.”
“Absolutely not,” Lilith said, the words a raw protest ripped from her throat. The thought of such forced intimacy with *him* was a torment.
“No,” Damian agreed, his voice equally emphatic, but his eyes were fixed on Lilith with an intensity that made her skin prickle. A dangerous calculation burned within their depths.
“Then the blight will consume both your covens within three months,” the Arbiter declared, her voice cold and unyielding. “Your younger sister, Lilith, will be among the first to fall. The deterioration is exponential once it reaches the third stage of infection. She is already there, on the precipice.”
Lilith felt the words like a physical blow, a vicious strike to her deepest fear. She did not correct the Arbiter's assumption that Lucy was younger, did not do anything except stand there, breathing, while the world tilted around her. Lucy’s gasping breaths echoed in her memory, making the Arbiter’s words horribly concrete.
“The ritual must be completed by the winter solstice,” the Arbiter continued, unmoved by their reactions. “That gives you approximately five weeks. The ritual itself will require seven stages, each more demanding than the last. If either of you dies during the process, the other will be magically bound into their coven's service for the remainder of their life, a slave to their own bloodline.”
“How comforting,” Damian observed, his dry humor like a knife cutting through glass, a brittle shield against the chilling reality.
“There is one more thing,” the Arbiter added, her gaze lingering on the ancient book. She opened it, and pages seemed to flutter in a wind that did not exist. She pointed to a passage written in a hand that looked hundreds of years old. “The ritual has been attempted three times in recorded history. All three times, only one heir survived.”
The words hung in the crystalline air like poison, a cold, undeniable truth.
Lilith forced herself to look at Damian. His golden eyes met hers, and for a fleeting moment, she saw something that looked like stark fear before it vanished behind his usual arrogant mask, replaced by a grim resolve.
“You are asking us to perform a ritual that has killed everyone who tried it,” Lilith stated flatly, her voice barely a whisper.
“I am telling you that it is your only choice,” the Arbiter corrected, her voice resonating with ancient finality. “Perform the Rite of Crimson Union by the winter solstice, or the blight will consume both your covens. Your families' survival is in your hands. Choose.”
The Arbiter stepped back. The doors to the chamber opened, revealing the path out, a silent invitation to flee.
Neither of them moved. The air thrummed with unspoken questions.
“How do we know it will work?” Damian asked, his voice carefully neutral, though she could hear the tension underneath, vibrating like a taut wire.
“You do not,” the Arbiter replied. “You know only that if you do not try, you lose everything. That is the nature of curses, heir. They do not offer certainty. They offer choices between impossible things.”
Lilith's mind was racing, a tempest of desperate thoughts. She thought of Lucy, of the dark veins spreading beneath her sister's translucent skin, of the way her breathing had become increasingly labored. Five weeks. The Arbiter had said five weeks, not three months, before Lucy would be gone completely. The deadline was far more immediate, far more terrifying than she had initially grasped.
“If we agree,” Lilith said slowly, her voice strained, “what are the terms? Can we break the bond once the ritual is complete?”
“The bond,” the Arbiter explained, “will be absolute. If you survive, it will persist for the remainder of your natural lives. You will share a magical connection that no normal means can sever. You will be able to sense each other across great distances, a constant thrumming awareness of the other’s presence. You will feel the intensity of the other's emotions when they are at their peak. You will be, in essence, two souls bound to a single fate, intertwined until death.”
“Sounds like hell,” Damian observed, a sardonic edge to his voice.
“It sounds like survival,” the Arbiter countered, her gaze unwavering.
Lilith looked at the ancient book, at the Arbiter's unreadable face, at Damian standing on the opposite side of the chamber with his arms crossed and his expression guarded. She thought of what would happen if she refused, the slow, agonizing death of her sister, of her entire coven. She thought of the way Lucy had looked at her with such desperate hope, as if Lilith alone could fix this impossible situation.
“I accept,” Lilith said, the words a bitter taste on her tongue. It was not a choice, only surrender to a cruel fate.
She heard the sharp intake of breath, but she did not look to see if it came from Damian or the Arbiter. Her gaze remained fixed on the Arbiter’s ancient face, her resolve hardening even as her heart ached.
“The terms are the same for me,” Damian stated after a charged moment. His voice was grim, devoid of its usual mocking lilt. “I will perform the ritual.”
The Arbiter inclined her head. “Then it is decided. You will begin five days hence, at sunset, in the ritual chamber beneath the Mortaine estate. Both covens will witness the blood pact that initiates the binding.”
“My family will crucify me,” Lilith said, a cold laugh escaping her lips.
“And mine will flay me alive,” Damian agreed conversationally, his golden eyes meeting hers across the distance. “Yet here we stand, agreeing to it anyway, because there is no alternative.”
The Arbiter moved toward the doors. She paused as she passed between them. “One final warning, heirs. The Rite will demand things of you that you do not expect. It will demand honesty. It will demand vulnerability. Most dangerously of all, it will demand trust in the person you were born to hate.”
She was gone before either of them could respond. The doors closed silently behind her, sealing them in.
Lilith and Damian stood alone in the crystalline chamber, separated by half the distance of the room and a centuries-old history of bitter rivalry.
“Well,” Damian said after a long moment of silence, his voice breaking the tense quiet, “this should be interesting.” His eyes held a dangerous glint, a mixture of challenge and grim acceptance.
Lilith could feel her pulse thundering in her throat, a frantic drumbeat against the silence. The thought of performing the Rite with him, of allowing him inside her mind, of binding her magic to his, felt like a violation. It felt like a death sentence. It felt like the only way to save Lucy, the last, desperate gamble.
“Do not,” she said coldly, her voice laced with ice, “attempt any of your usual games with me, Dwayne. I am not in the mood to spar.”
“Not even a little?” His smile widened, a predatory flash of teeth. “I find that hard to believe, Mortaine. You live for this, for the challenge.”
She wanted to hit him. The urge was so fierce and immediate that her fingers curled into tight fists, nails digging into her palms. “Stay away from me until the ritual begins. If you approach me before then, I will make sure we both burn, and the ritual will fail before it even starts.”
“Such passion,” he said softly, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “I look forward to channeling it into something more productive.”
Lilith turned and stalked toward the doors, her robes rustling with her furious exit. Behind her, she heard him laugh, that dark, satisfied sound that made her want to scream until her throat was raw.
Five weeks. She had five weeks to figure out how to survive binding her soul to the one man in the world she hated more than herself. Five weeks to find a way to save Lucy before the ritual consumed them both, a desperate race against time and an impossible intimacy.