“Now.”
Nick’s pulse stopped.
“No,” he said again, more broken this time, the word barely a word at all.“She’s not ready.”
Kara gave a strained laugh that dissolved into pain halfway through, her free hand fisting against the stone.“I would also like to formally object to this experience.”
Verna slid one arm around Kara’s shoulders, steady as bedrock.The elder female’s ancient eyes lifted to Nick then, holding him in place as surely as a hand on his throat.
“You do not need to be ready.”
A pause.A breath.A whole world tilting.
“You only need to love her enough to stay.”
The words hit harder than any blow.Harder than any wound he had ever taken in battle, in any pit, in any dark place a younger Nick had once thought would end him.
Nick swallowed against the brutal pressure in his throat.He nodded once, sharp, because he did not trust his voice.
As another quake ripped through the foundations, Nick cupped his hand under Kara’s head to protect her skull from the trembling rock.
The foundation light immediately surged brighter beneath her body.
Light raced outward from the place where she lay, racing along the cracks like rivers finding old channels, washing silver-gold up the stone and across the platform in a wave.
Every troll in the chamber noticed.Heads turned.Weapons stilled mid-swing.Even the Troll King paused for one heartbeat, his gaze cutting toward her.
The corruption recoiled violently from the edge of the platform, hissing as it shrank back.
The creatures shrieked, the sound clawing through the air.
And Kara screamed.
Nick nearly came apart at the sound.
“I’m here,” he said immediately, gripping her hand hard enough that any other female probably would have crushed his fingers by now.He brought her knuckles to his mouth, pressed his lips to them, breathed her in.“I’m right here, baby.”
Tears slipped down Kara’s face as she looked at him, her eyes searching his like she expected him to vanish.
“I’m scared.”Always so honest and raw.
Kara Luisa, who had stared down monsters and kings and trauma that should have broken her, finally admitted fear.
Nick kissed her forehead fiercely, then her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, as though he could press the fear out of her with his lips.“I know.”
Another contraction hit harder than before.Kara’s back arched off the stone, her teeth clenched so tight that he heard them grind.
The foundations answered instantly.
Silver-gold light exploded outward beneath the platform in massive waves that slammed into the spreading corruption hard enough to force it backward across the chamber.The wave rolled through the broken stone like a tide, dragging the dark with it, smashing tendrils against the abyss walls.
Every creature from the corruption screamed.Some fell.Some burned.Some simply came apart at the seams.
The mountain itself groaned, deep and long, as though something enormous had shifted in its sleep.
Verna’s eyes widened slightly, her composure cracking for the first time.“She’s synchronizing.”
Kara gritted her teeth, sweat plastering hair to her temple.“That sounds fake.”
