Corin’s voice carries up faintly, strained. “If you two bring the ceiling down, I am not catching it!”
“Deal with it,” I mutter.
Rhazek exhales something that might be a laugh, though it turns into a low sound that vibrates through me instead. His forehead presses against mine, breath syncing with mine without effort, like the bond has finally decided to stop fighting itself.
“I was wrong,” he says quietly.
“Yes,” I reply, because I am not letting him off that easily.
His thumb brushes my jaw, slower now, steadier. “I thought separation would protect you.”
“And I told you it wouldn’t.”
“I understand that now.”
“Good.”
The heat between us steadies further, no longer spiking, no longer tearing. The flickering strands I saw outside—those broken, unraveling pieces of him—shift in the edge of my awareness.
They’re retreating.
Not violently. Not forced.
They fold back into him like something recognizing where it belongs.
I feel it happen.
Every inch of it.
The bond tightens, not painfully this time, but with a deep, grounded weight. The kind that settles instead of snaps.
Rhazek exhales slowly. “The strands… they’re stabilizing.”
“I know.”
“You’re doing that.”
“We’re doing that,” I correct.
His gaze sharpens on mine.
The last of the tension breaks.
Not outward. Inward.
The room stills.
The cracked walls stop creeping. The air loses that brittle, overcharged edge. Even the faint hum of the wards settles into something quieter, steadier.
For the first time since the circle, nothing feels like it’s about to tear itself apart.
Rhazek leans back slightly, pulling me with him until I end up half in his lap, neither of us pretending this is accidental.
His voice is softer now. “You should not have entered the circle.”
“And you should not have tried to rip your soul apart,” I shoot back.
“That was a calculated?—”
