“Not if it reaches your heart.”
His hold firms. I feel his exhale—quick, uneven, the rhythm of someone fighting a battle I can’t see.
“You’ll kill yourself.”
“Then I’ll kill myself saving you.” The words emerge without permission. Raw and honest in a way that strips me bare. “Better than watching you die slowly because I was too weak to finish.”
Silence.
His pulse thunders against my back. I can feel it through the thin fabric separating our skin—fast, erratic, nothing to do with combat or injury.
“Soreia.”
My name on his lips sounds different than it used to. Heavier. An acknowledgment neither of us has put into words.
“One more wound.” I don’t phrase it as a request. “Then I’ll stop. I promise.”
Another silence. Longer this time.
Then: “One more.”
I clear the shoulder wound.
It nearly kills me.
The poison in that gash is deeper, more entrenched, more determined to spread. My magic battles it for what feels like hours—pushing, anchoring, forcing the wrongness to end. My body screams protest. My vision goes white, then gray, then fades toward oblivion.
But the poison yields.
It dies beneath my hands, anchored into a permanent ending, and his flesh finally begins to heal.
I collapse against him the moment it’s done.
He catches me again.
This time, he doesn’t let go.
He gathers me against his body with possessive certainty. I feel his heart beating against my back—slowing now, steadying, the rhythm of a body finally winning its war against the poison.
“Reckless.” The word rumbles through me, vibration as much as sound. “Suicidal. Fucking stubborn.”
“Accurate.” My voice comes out barely audible. “All three.”
His exhale ghosts across the top of my head. His arms lock around me—not painful, but absolute. The hold of a predator who has decided to keep.
I should pull away. Establish distance. Remember that this alliance is temporary, that survival partnerships don’t require physical contact, that letting him hold me like this means things I’m not prepared to name.
I stay where I am.
I let him hold me instead.
Minutes pass.Maybe hours.
The shrine adjusts around us—stone shifting, debris finding new configurations, the building accommodating its further damage. The light through the collapsed ceiling changes as clouds move across the sun. Shadows lengthen in the alcoves where offerings once burned.
I regain enough strength to sit up on my own.
Kaster doesn’t immediately release me. His arms loosen but don’t withdraw, maintaining contact even as I straighten against the altar’s edge. His heat against my back is a constant presence—not uncomfortable, not unwelcome.
