Page 286 of Elemental Becoming

“And,” he says, his voice turning grave, “I think we were wrong about the bond.”

A prickling, unsettling chill creeps down my spine.

“Wrong how?”

Valen meets my gaze, his expression carefully neutral. Too neutral. It puts me on edge.

He hesitates, for a moment, then speaks. “It has nothing to do with you being the Spiritborn. It’s tied to the Shadow Realm.”

My pulse pounds in my throat, a slow, dragging beat.

“What exactly do you mean?” I ask softly.

“We assumed the bond formed because you’re the Spiritborn,” Valen says. “Part of your awakening. Part of yourdestiny. That it was meant to happen because of who you are.”

A weight settles in my stomach. “And now?”

Instead of answering, Valen turns the journal toward me. The ink is faded, the script jagged and hurried. But the words stand out stark against the page.

The Warden’s power is not bound by time. The bond will always lead them back to where it began. To where it must end.

I stare at the words, my stomach twisting. The Warden’s power. Not the Spiritborn. Not a gift from the gods. I already know what that means.

Thane.

My mouth feels dry, but I need to hear Valen say it. “Valen, what are you saying?”

“We assumed the bond was just a rare connection. Something Elemental. Something sacred.” His fingers drum against the table. “But if this record is accurate, then the bond isn’t just connecting you and Thane.”

The phantom feeling of spiders skittering along my spine raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

“Then what is it doing?”

Valen’s expression tightens. “I think it’s leading you somewhere.”

The silence that settles between us is heavy and suffocating.

I stare at him. “I don’t understand.”

“Every reference I’ve found describes the bond as a path. A thread. A force pulling two people toward a specific outcome. Like how you and Thane found the Starlit chamber. We thought it existed because of the prophecy.”

Valen meets my gaze.

“What if the prophecy exists because of the bond?”

The room seems to tilt beneath me as my mind catches up to his meaning. The bond isn’t a consequence. It’s a cause. A force older than the prophecy itself.

And if it’s leading us somewhere, then someone, long before either of us were born, may have intended it to.

The words feel too heavy. Too final.

A sick kind of dread coils in my gut. Ancient things waking up never seems like a good idea.

I take a deep breath to center myself. “Where is the bond leading us?”

Valen shakes his head.

“That’s what I don’t know yet. The journal is fragmented, and this passage is the only one I’ve found that mentions the bond directly.”