Sable extends her hand, palm up. “Give it to me.”
Every scar in me objects.
“No,” I say, and the circle shudders.
Her eyes do not move from mine. “Rhazek.”
“I can keep it from you.”
“I am not asking you to keep it from me.”
“The shard will use any opening.”
“Then stop giving it your fear to chew on.”
That silences me more effectively than any command.
The dark red flare in my core pulses, hungry at the word fear. It likes the shape of my resistance. It feeds on the old conviction that I must stand between Sable and every danger, even when the danger is made worse by my refusal to let her stand with me.
My hands shake.
I have led armies without trembling. I have faced gods with my throat open to their knives and found the whole experience tedious. Yet opening my grip on this bond feels like stepping off a cliff while holding her hand and trusting the fall to become flight.
Sable’s voice lowers. “I’m here.”
The simple words move through me with unbearable force.
I stop speaking the incantation.
The circle holds its breath.
Slowly, deliberately, I unclench my hands and release control of the energy flow.
The bond surges toward Sable.
My entire body locks against the instinct to snatch it back. The corruption flares, dark red turning almost black, sensing motion and weakness. But Sable receives the current without flinching. Her bloodline brightens in the soil, red deepening into a luminous rose-gold that spreads through the spiral with calm authority. She does not yank. She does not dominate. She guides.
The power stops fighting.
It is so immediate that I nearly lose my footing.
The ritual heat smooths out, no longer bucking against the perimeter. The iron anchors quiet. The ground beneath us ceases its trembling and settles with a low, resonant hum that I feel through the soles of my boots and up into my bones. The corruption remains, but the dark red flare shrinks under the equalized pressure. Sable’s will does not attack it head-on. She gives my fire a shape to move through, and together the joined current boxes the shard in without feeding its hunger.
Corin exhales loudly from the perimeter. “Well, look at that. The man learned sharing before noon.”
Sable does not smile, but her eyes warm. “Keep breathing.”
I take a breath because she asks it of me, and because the ritual seems to require the humility of lungs.
The air tastes different now. Less ash. More rain. More living earth opening under dawn.
Sable lifts her other hand, and I place mine above it, not touching yet. The current gathers between our palms, a sphere of gold-threaded crimson with a single dark red shard trapped at its center. The remnant twists, furious and small, striking the inside of the sphere again and again. Each impact sends a faint vibration through my teeth.
“It’s resisting,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Can we burn it?”
