Corin sighs. “The romance is unbearable before breakfast.”
I look at Sable’s cheek again, at the burn I caused by forcing her to break through my barrier. The old instinct rises in me, urging distance, control, unilateral action dressed in protective language. The bond reacts at once, not with panic, but with a warning pressure, as if Sable’s will has learned to knock from the inside.
I breathe through it.
“Equal lines,” I say.
Her expression softens by a fraction. “Equal lines.”
“No severance.”
“No severance.”
“No heroic improvisation.”
She gives me a look. “That rule applies to you more than me.”
Corin raises a hand. “As the appointed witness and reluctant structural support, I second that with enthusiasm.”
I extend my hand toward Sable. “Then we redraw it.”
She takes my hand without hesitation.
The bond steadies.
Together, we step into the ruined circle. The earth is warm beneath my boots, though frost still clings beyond the outer ring. I burn away the remaining severance script with a controlled sweep of my hand, stripping the old runes down to their foundational grooves. Sable kneels beside me and opens the small blade she carries with too much competence for my comfort.
I catch her wrist. “How much?”
She gives me a flat look. “A line, not a tragedy.”
“I have learned to ask.”
“That is irritatingly attractive growth.”
Corin makes a strangled noise. “Please remember I am armed and nearby.”
Sable cuts her palm cleanly, no hesitation, no drama. The scent of her blood strikes the air, copper-bright and human, and my teeth ache with a predator’s old reflex before the bond corrects me sharply enough to make my jaw clench. She notices. Of course she notices. Her thumb brushes my knuckles with maddening gentleness.
“Easy,” she murmurs.
“I despise that you can feel that.”
“No, you don’t.”
I do not answer because lying at dawn feels inelegant.
She presses her bleeding palm to the first groove. Her blood moves into the earth in a deep red line, not spreading randomly but following the shape of a new sigil. I carve beside it with my essence, drawing a thread of infernal fire from my core and laying it into the adjacent groove. Her line smells of iron and winter roses. Mine smells of sulfur, smoke, and ancient stone split by heat. The two lines do not touch, but they mirror each other with perfect, unnerving precision.
Corin moves around the perimeter while we work, driving iron anchors into the ground at measured intervals. Each stakelands with a hard, clean sound. He does not rush. His improved strength shows in the way the iron bites deep without requiring a second strike, in the way his shoulders remain level, in the quiet density of his aura pressing against the circle’s outer edge.
Sable glances at him. “You’re stronger.”
Corin pauses with one hand on an anchor. “How rude of you to notice.”
“She’s right,” I say.
“Even ruder.”
