“Possible.” His attention stays fixed on the eastern structures. “The variants look rushed. Incomplete designs, like they were shoved into existence before they were ready.”
“Good.”
He glances at me. A brief flicker of attention, though his focus never fully leaves the threat assessment.
“You sound pleased.”
“I am pleased.” I study the terrain ahead, marking potential ambush points and defensive positions out of long habit. “Rushed defenses leave gaps. Careful preparation doesn’t.”
His mouth curves—not a smile, not quite, but close enough to register. “Pragmatic as always.”
“One of us needs to be.”
The eastern structurescontain seven constructs. Three standard scouts, two executors, and two variants that defy easy classification—twisted masses of divine flesh that look hastily assembled, like the god couldn’t decide what form would be most effective and combined several at once.
Kaster handles the heavy threats. The executors engage him with the frenzy of creatures that know they’re outmatched, their massive bodies moving with speed that contradicts their bulk. He adapts mid-combat, adjusting his approach to counter their tactics before they fully form.
I watch him work.
Not with fear anymore. Not with the anxious hope that he’ll survive long enough to protect me. The dynamics have shifted in ways I’m still mapping, but one thing has clarified with absolute certainty:
He’s magnificent.
It’s an observation, clinical and precise. He moves through violence like water through a channel—adapting, flowing, finding the path of least resistance while delivering maximum force. Every strike is purposeful. Every movement serves a function.
He doesn’t fight to prove dominance. He fights to end threats.
And right now, I’m watching him end seven of them.
My part comes after.When the constructs fall, broken and bleeding divine ichor into corrupted soil, I move among them like a harvester claiming crops. My magic reaches into each body and declares the ending permanent.
The world agrees with my judgment.
One by one, the shimmers of regeneration that should be rebuilding these creatures simply... don’t materialize. The divine power that animated them has nowhere to go. My anchoring has closed every door, sealed every escape route, made death absolute in ways even gods apparently didn’t plan for.
Seven kills. Seven endings. Seven fewer threats standing between us and the source.
I finish the last anchor and look up to find Kaster watching me.
His eyes track my movements with an intensity that has nothing to do with combat analysis. Heat flickers behind the focus—hunger barely leashed, want that he’s been directing into violence but can’t entirely suppress.
I hold his gaze without flinching.
Recognition passes between us in that moment. Understanding of what we’ve become, what we’re capable of when we stop fighting separately and start fighting together.
The bond hums in the back of my awareness, but it’s not the bond that makes me cross the distance between us. That’s my own decision.
I reach him and press my palm flat against his blood-streaked chest. Feel his heat pulsing beneath my hand, the steady rhythm of a heart that’s been beating for centuries and will beat for centuries more.
My heart will match that rhythm now. That’s what the mating means. What it guarantees.
“Soreia.” My name in his mouth carries weight. Significance beyond the syllables.
“I could walk away.”
The words emerge without planning. A statement of fact I’ve been circling since we left the cave where everything changed.
His expression doesn’t shift. “You could.”
