"Amaria—"
"Don't." I lunged with a strike he barely blocked. "Don't you dare stop now."
Our blades locked. Hilts kissing. His face inches from mine. The red thread on his wrist caught between our hilts, pulled taut.
"We’re past the line," he growled.
"Then draw a new one."
My eyes blazed and I shoved into the lock, using my whole body weight, and his balance broke—just for a second, just enough. I hooked my ankle behind his andtwisted.
We went down together.
The impact drove the breath from my lungs. We rolled—dirt and limbs and steel—and when we stopped, I was on top, thighs pinned on either side of his hips, my dagger at his throat.
His chest heaved beneath me. His eyes were black, pupils blown wide, fixed on my face with an intensity that made my blood sing.
And then I felt it.
The heat and a ripping sensation.
Fire blooming and spreading outward, my Luminar mark ignited. And buried within it, deeper, the restless pulse of my Shadowmark rising to meet it.
Both of them. Reaching.
I looked down.
Our chests were nearly touching. The thin fabric of my tunic was all that separated my Marks from—
His Soulbinding Mark blazed to life.
I saw it through his shirt—crimson threaded with silver, throbbing in time with the rhythm in my own Mark. Answering mine,reachingback.
"Amaria," he commanded. "Move. Now."
But I couldn't.
My body wouldn't obey. The pull behind my sternum had turned into a hook, dragging me forward, and his hands came up to my shoulders—gripped—his marks were so close, so bright, and mine were begging for contact—our bodies and Marks pulling together like magnets.
Our chests touched.
Mark to Mark.
And everything broke.
I'd been struck by magic before. Burned. Blasted. Thrown across rooms by forces that didn't care what I was made of.
This was nothing like that.
This wasrecognition. Like every cell in my body had been waiting for this exact collision and was screamingfinallyso loud it tore me apart from the inside.
The jolt ripped through me—molten and blinding. My Luminar blazed like a star going nova. My Shadowmark seized, raking up my spine. His thread split them both down the center andboundthem.
Pain bloomed in my torso. Unbearable.Shared.
Eryndor's body went rigid against mine. His skin blistered and sizzled. Black veins erupted along the skin of his torso.
A scarlet brand. Carved into his flesh like a shackle.
