He had tried. Cauldron damn him, he had tried. To be patient, to be kind, to be understanding of the cold distance Elain placed between them. He had waited for a flicker of something, anything, that would justify the bond tethered between them.

But there was nothing.

Just silence. Just a quiet, lingering sorrow that did not belong to him.

“You made a mistake.” His voice cracked, his throat tight. “You bound me to someone who will never want me. I release her. I release this. If you are listening, I beg you—”

A sharp, searing pain lashed through his chest.

Lucien gasped, staggering to his feet, clutching his ribs as if something had been ripped from them.

He braced himself against a tree, his vision swimming, his breath coming fast and uneven as the pain unfurled into something vast and hollow. A gaping, yawning absence deep in his soul.

The bond was gone.

Severed.

Lucien swayed, lightheaded, disoriented by the unbearable emptiness where it had once been.

The Cauldron had answered.

And yet, before he could even breathe in his newfound freedom—before he could even process what it meant—another force slammed into him.

A rush of warmth. Of fire and light. Of something infinitely stronger, deeper, more real.

His heart stuttered.

He turned, as if drawn by an unseen force, his feet moving without thought, his body caught in the pull of something inevitable. He pushed through the trees, through the thick underbrush, his pulse pounding in his ears—

And then he saw her.

She was sitting at the edge of a pristine, moonlit lake, her bare feet skimming the water, ringlets tumbling over her shoulders in soft waves. The light of the stars reflected in her eyes—silver, endless, luminous.

Lucien’s breath caught.

Because he felt it. The unmistakable, undeniable pull of a bond that was no longer a shackle, but a lifeline.

The bond between him and Elain was gone.

And in its place, this one had snapped into existence.

With her.