Behind me, Rhazek takes his place—not in the shadows this time, not hovering like a distant threat, but within the room, within reach.
And for the first time since I signed that contract, the bond doesn’t feel like a chain.
It feels like something I might actually learn to wield.
8
RHAZEK
The stabilization does not fade.
That is the first anomaly I confirm when the house settles into morning and the mortal world resumes its predictable, fragile rhythm. I remain stationed near the entrance, not because I lack the ability to move, but because movement is no longer required to maintain coherence. The strain that once accompanied manifestation—the subtle erosion at the edges of form, the constant need to recalibrate against environmental resistance—has diminished to a faint memory.
I feel it in my core.
Not as borrowed strength.
Not as a temporary reinforcement.
As residual alignment.
The echo of her touch remains embedded in the tether, a structural correction that persists beyond the moment that created it. My form holds without effort, without the constant, low-grade distortion that has defined every manifestation I have undertaken in the mortal plane for centuries.
This is new.
This is dangerous.
And I do not retreat from it.
Outside, Corin moves through the yard with a wooden practice blade, his movements faster than they were the previous night. He pivots, strikes, recovers, and adjusts with a fluidity that suggests not only increased strength but accelerated learning. The blade whistles faintly through the air, cutting arcs that would have been beyond him even in peak health before the wasting took hold.
I watch.
He notices.
“You’re doing it again,” he calls without breaking his stance.
“Observing,” I reply.
“That word is getting worn thin.”
“It remains accurate.”
He spins the blade once in his hand, testing balance, then lunges forward in a controlled strike against an imaginary opponent. His footwork is cleaner now, less hesitant, and his recovery is immediate.
“I’m faster,” he says.
“Yes.”
“I don’t get tired the same way.”
“Yes.”
He lowers the blade and looks at me directly. “Say it like it matters.”
“You are no longer operating within human limitations.”
“That’s better,” he says, though the humor in his tone is edged with something else now—awareness, perhaps, or the beginning of unease.
