...The wind screamed through the towers of the High Keep like a dying beast, clawing against the stones, rattling the ancient windows. Thunder cracked somewhere beyond the fortress walls, but inside, everything was quiet too quiet....

...Prince Corin of Astrale walked through the eastern corridor, his bootfalls crisp against polished obsidian tiles. Despite the storm outside, he wore no cloak. Cold didn’t bother him anymore. Not since the night the stars bled red and the oracle whispered his fate like a curse....

...He had trained for war. He had studied diplomacy. He had endured pain. But nothing, nothing had prepared him for this....

...The Binding....

...“Your Highness.” Commander Rellan kept pace beside him, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. “You don’t need to see him until the ceremony. It’s tradition for a reason.”...

...“Tradition is why our world is crumbling,” Corin muttered. “I want to see who I’m giving my soul to.”...

...Rellan didn’t argue. He rarely did anymore. Corin appreciated the silence....

...The descent into the lower dungeons was like entering another world. The torches on the walls flickered weakly, as if afraid to illuminate what lived in the dark. Magic wards hummed faintly beneath Corin’s boots, woven into the stones centuries ago to keep prisoners and power contained....

...At the base of the stairs, a guard handed Corin a key. “Be careful, Your Highness. He hasn’t spoken a word since we dragged him from the ruin.”...

...Corin accepted the key without comment. The guards stepped aside, clearly relieved to be excused....

...He stopped outside the final cell....

...His heart beat once. Loud and slow....

...He unlocked the door and pushed it open....

...Inside, the mage sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, hands chained, his wrists etched with glowing glyphs. He didn’t look up right away. His hair, silver-white and too long, hung like silk over his face. He looked impossibly young barely older than Corin and yet there was something ancient about the stillness in him. Like he had been waiting a long time for something....

...When he did lift his head, their eyes met and Corin stopped breathing....

...One eye was deep violet. The other, molten gold. Not human. Not entirely. And yet…...

...“You’re late,” the mage said quietly....

...Corin blinked. “You knew I was coming?”...

...“I saw it,” the boy said. “You, standing in fire. Bleeding. I was crying. And we were both burning.”...

...Corin frowned. “You’re a seer?”...

...“I’m cursed,” the mage replied, voice calm but not emotionless. “My name is Silas.”...

...He stood slowly, chains dragging across the floor, but made no move toward Corin. “You came to see the monster. But I’m not the monster, Prince Corin. I’m the offering.”...

...Corin swallowed hard. “You don’t sound afraid.”...

...“I am. Just not of death.”...

...The silence between them stretched. A pulse of magic stirred in the air, Corin could feel it prickling along his skin, like a storm building behind the boy’s calm eyes....

...“I don’t want to die,” Silas whispered. “But one of us has to. That’s the price of the Crimson Vow.”...

...And as Corin stared at the boy the kingdom had locked away, a thought rooted itself deep in his chest:...

...I won’t let it be you....

...\~Silas's POV\~...

...The prince’s scent lingered long after he’d gone smoke, cold iron, and a trace of something bitter and electric, like ozone before a lightning strike. Silas inhaled it without meaning to. His senses were sharp lately. Sharper than they should be. Side effects of the Binding mark pulsing faintly beneath the glyphs carved into his skin....

...He shifted, wincing as the iron manacles dug into his wrists. The chains were enchanted, heavy with old magic, but it was the glyphs drawn in glowing ink that refused to fade that burned him. They pulsed faintly with the rhythm of his heartbeat. Not pain. Not exactly. But a constant reminder....

...Of what he was....

...What he wasn’t allowed to be....

...Not anymore....

...The dungeon cell was carved from obsidian and sealed with wards older than any language still spoken. It reeked of mold and blood and despair. Yet Silas had known worse places most of them inside his own mind....

...He let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes....

...The prince’s face burned behind his eyelids. Not just the face Corin wore now, but every variation Silas had seen in dreams and visions: Corin with fire in his hair and tears on his cheeks. Corin bloodstained and gasping, begging the gods for mercy. Corin smiling through cracked lips in a field of flowers that didn’t exist....

...You’re late, Silas had said when he first saw him. But that wasn’t true. Corin had come at the exact moment fate allowed it....

...The storm inside Silas stirred. It was always there, just under his skin magic that didn’t belong to him but clung to his bones like frost. Wild, hungry, twisted by prophecy and tempered by fear....

...He should have died at the ruins. Should have let the curse finish what it started. But something had pulled him back. Something had held him, warm and furious and alive....

...Corin....

...Or the idea of him....

...He looked at me like I wasn’t a person. Like I was a task....

...Silas clenched his fists until the glyphs sparked, pain flaring up his arms. He welcomed it. It was something real....

...He could handle being hated. He’d been hated before. But indifference? That cold, clinical curiosity?...

...That was worse....

...Because it meant Corin hadn’t seen it yet. The thread. The bond. The inevitable chain that tied them together, tighter than blood, deeper than magic. The Crimson Vow wasn’t just a ritual. It was a sentence. One lived. One died....

...Silas let the silence settle again, broken only by the distant echo of boots and the slow drip of water from the ceiling. And then.....

...Footsteps. Quicker this time. Lighter....

...The lock clicked, metal against metal....

...A servant girl peeked through the door, wide-eyed and pale. She held a tray of bread, dried fruit, and water that tasted like ash....

...She didn’t speak. Just set it down and fled....

...Silas didn’t touch it. He wasn’t hungry. Hunger felt too human....

...Instead, he stared into the shadows, where the light didn’t quite reach....

...“Please,” he whispered to the silence, voice barely audible. “Don’t let him be kind. Don’t let him try to save me.”...

...He drew his knees to his chest, chains rattling. The air felt too tight....

...“Because I’ll let him.”...

...And that would be the end of everything....

...\~End of POV\~...

...Corin didn’t speak on the way back from the dungeon. Commander Rellan followed in silence, the heels of his boots echoing behind him like a second heartbeat. The deeper Corin ascended into the High Keep, the heavier the air became not from the storm outside, but from the weight of what waited above....

...Duty. Ceremony. Fate....

...They had names for it. Pretty words, polished like silver and fed to him since childhood like holy scripture....

...He didn’t believe in any of it....

...Not anymore....

...The corridor to his chambers was empty, save for two guards stationed at the archway. They saluted as he passed, but he barely saw them. His thoughts were still in the cell below, where silver hair draped across pale skin, and one violet and one golden eye watched him like they already knew how he would end....

...You came to see the monster....

...But there had been no monster in that room....

...Only a boy....

...Corin shoved open the door to his chamber and stepped inside. The fire had already been lit in the hearth, casting long shadows across stone walls draped in royal blue tapestries. A table had been set with untouched wine and fruit. His bed was neatly made, the linens smoothed and stiff. Everything in its place....

...Except him....

...He crossed to the far side of the room and braced his hands against the cold stone windowsill, staring out at the capital beyond. Thunder cracked again, low and distant. Red lightning flickered across the underbelly of the clouds like bloodstained veins....

...“A good omen,” the priests would call it. “Crimson sky on the eve of the vow.”...

...Corin closed his eyes. He didn’t want omens. He wanted answers....

...He thought of Silas’s voice. Low. Measured. Like he’d been forced to learn how to speak without trembling....

...“I don’t want to die,” Silas had said....

...The words haunted him....

...Not because they were tragic but because they were honest. And Corin had grown up choking on lies disguised as loyalty....

...His reflection caught in the glass, sharp cheekbones, dark brows furrowed, mouth set in a grim line. He looked like his father. Not in features, but in weight. In the way responsibility hunched his shoulders and hardened his gaze....

...When he was thirteen, they told him he would be the first royal to bind a mage in over two centuries....

...When he was fifteen, they told him the Crimson Vow could only be done once in a generation and it would cost someone their life....

...When he was seventeen, he watched a prisoner collapse after a failed bond. Bones turned to ash in front of the Council. Magic surged out like a scream that had no voice....

...They warned him then. This is what happens when the soul rejects the chain....

...And now he was twenty-one....

...And Silas was waiting....

...A knock at the door broke the silence. Corin didn’t move....

...“Enter,” he called without turning....

...Rellan stepped in, rain clinging to his cloak....

...“The Council wants your confirmation,” he said. “That you accept the Binding. Officially.”...

...Corin didn’t answer....

...“You knew this was coming,” Rellan said, softer now. “You’ve been trained for it.”...

...“I was trained to be a weapon,” Corin snapped. “Not a killer.”...

...Rellan didn’t flinch. “This is not murder. It’s sacrifice. The mage understands that.”...

...“No. He accepts it. There’s a difference.” Corin turned, eyes sharp. “He’s not broken, Rellan. Just… resigned. Like he’s been waiting for someone to finish burying him.”...

...Rellan said nothing. Which only made Corin angrier....

...“He said he saw me in flames. That we were both burning.” His hands curled into fists. “He knew I was coming.”...

...“A seer’s vision,” Rellan muttered. “Fragments. Dreams. They mean little.”...

...“No,” Corin said, stepping forward. “He felt it. And I did too.”...

...The air thickened with silence....

...Finally, Rellan sighed and removed his gloves. “I served your father for twenty years. I’ve seen the way duty can rot a man from the inside out. But this, this is bigger than you. Bigger than him. You know the cost if the bond fails. You’ve seen the capital tearing itself apart. War is at our doorstep, and the gods aren’t answering anymore.”...

...Corin sat heavily on the edge of his bed....

...“I don’t want to kill him,” he said quietly. “But if the Vow works… and it chooses him to die…”...

...He trailed off....

...What was the point in finishing the sentence? Everyone knew how it ended....

...The Crimson Vow only bound one mage to one soul. Only one of them walked away whole. The other became… ash....

...“It’s not your choice who dies,” Rellan said. “It’s the magic.”...

...But Corin wasn’t sure that made it better....

...Eventually, Rellan left. Corin stayed seated, staring at the fire like it might hold an answer....

...And still, in the back of his mind, Silas lingered....

...Don’t let him be kind, the mage had whispered, once, in a vision Corin didn’t understand....

...Because I’ll let him....

...That had been the moment he realized. Silas wasn’t afraid of pain or death....

...He was afraid of hope....

...Of being seen....

...And Corin, damn him was already starting to look....

...He stood and crossed the room. At his desk, he opened the small lacquered box that held his father’s seal. Beneath it, folded in careful parchment, was the original Binding decree the ritual instructions, the vow lines, the execution orders....

...He ran a hand over the paper, fingers trembling slightly....

...Then he did something reckless....

...He took out a blank sheet of vellum and began to write....

...To the Council of High Magi, and the Circle of Royal Blood,...

...If one life must be taken, I offer mine....