Urgency. Fear. Need so intense, it borders on command.
I turn vicious.
A Glowranth with twin blades comes at me fast and skilled. I let one blade scrape my armour to gain the angle I need, catch her wrist, drive forward, break her stance, and end it in one brutal motion. Blood sprays across my hands.
I don’t slow.
I don’t think.
Pax is in danger.
Another strike. Another kill. I push forward, forcing the enemy line back. They are faltering now. We will hold.
It should be enough.
The bond tears again.
This time it is worse.
It isn’t just fear. It’s conflict. Overwhelming and impossible to interpret cleanly. Hope tangled with grief. Want tangled with something that feels like loss before it has happened.
I feel the tremor under my feet.
Not from the fight.
Deeper.
The air changes, and I look up.
Beyond the tree line, the sky flashes white. Lightning.
Wrong lightning.
Rift lightning.
Everything aligns at once.
Pax.
Jamie.
The medallion.
The Queen’s timing.
Fear slams into me. Not for the battle, but for him.
The sky flashes again, and instinct names it before thought catches up.
A rift. But not like the others. This one is larger and holds.
The bond stretches towards it, pulled taut, screaming.
Pax is going to leave.
The certainty hits with brutal clarity. I cannot ask him to stay. I will not. Even now. Even with something inside me breaking open under the weight of it.
Another soldier comes at me from behind. I turn and kill him without thinking. Blood spatters across my chest.
