Corin’s hand tightens around the iron stake he has taken to carrying. “He looks like a funeral learned how to smirk.”
Maltherion’s gaze lowers to Corin, interest sharpening his projected features. “And there is the cured brother. How quaint. The little miracle stands on his own feet.”
Corin lifts the stake slightly. “The little miracle also has excellent aim.”
Sable grips his sleeve. “Do not volunteer yourself as bait.”
“I’m not volunteering. I’m being charming.”
“You’re being suicidal with cheekbones.”
Maltherion laughs softly, the sound brushing the wardline and making the sigils flare in irritated response. “Mortals do become lively when improperly exposed. It is one of the few entertaining side effects.”
I step forward until the threshold sigils glow beneath my boots. “You are outside permitted range.”
“I am outside your reach,” Maltherion replies. “Let us not confuse the two.”
“You are projecting because the wards concern you.”
“I am projecting because I enjoy watching caged things pretend at sovereignty.”
Sable’s pulse spikes again, and the tether draws tighter. I keep my expression still, though every instinct in my manifested form wants to place myself more fully between her and the projection. The impulse is primitive, immediate, and unbecoming. I do it anyway, because strategy and instinct have aligned too cleanly to ignore.
Maltherion notices.
His smile widens. “Ah. There it is. The Collector, fitted with a mortal leash.”
Sable bristles beside me. “Call me a leash again and I’ll find a way to make you swallow your own projection.”
Corin glances at her. “That was very specific.”
“I’m inspired.”
Maltherion’s attention settles on her, and the air around the roofline darkens. “You are the anchor.”
I do not move.
I do not react.
I let silence answer first, because anything I say too quickly gives him shape to cut.
Sable, however, has never believed in silence when a fight will do. “And you are the devourer sniffing around my house like a starving dog.”
Corin winces faintly. “Bold.”
“Accurate,” she says.
Maltherion tilts his head. “Rhazek, your mortal speaks as though she has not yet understood the difference between courage and expiration.”
“She understands more than you would prefer,” I say.
“Does she?” His gaze drops to her chest, not with desire but with calculation, following the pulse I know he can sense even through the wards. “Then perhaps she understands that anchorbonds rely upon continuity. Interrupt the heart, and the tether loses its rhythm. Force cardiac arrest, and even a beautifully mutated contract can be severed before it remembers how to defend itself.”
Sable goes still.
Corin moves half a step in front of her.
The action is immediate and useless, but not meaningless. His restored aura flares again, brighter than before, and I feel the old curse pathways inside him harden around infernal residue like wire pulled tight. He is afraid, but the fear does not send him backward. It clarifies him.
