Maltherion looks toward the darkness beyond the slab, irritation cutting across his gaunt features. Through the tether, I feel it then: heat, rage, and the unmistakable violent pressure of Rhazek getting closer. He is not distant anymore. He is not safely controlled. He is coming through whatever stands between us like the world has offended him personally.
The tether vibrates.
Not gently.
Violently.
It thrums through my ribs, my wrists, my bound ankles, and the carved stone beneath me. The siphon channels flare as they try to use the resonance, but Rhazek’s presence hits the bondwith such force that the ritual cannot decide whether to drink from it or recoil.
Maltherion bares his teeth. “No.”
I smile, though blood slicks my lip and my vision darkens at the edges. “He found me.”
“He found the path,” Maltherion says, his voice sharpening. “That is not the same as reaching you.”
Another impact shakes the realm.
This time, something screams.
The sound is not human, and it does not last long.
Maltherion releases my throat and slams both hands against the slab. The siphon channels blaze violet-black, and the pressure drives down into me so hard my back arches against the bindings. My heart stutters, skips, catches, then falters again.
The darkness at the edges of my vision thickens.
My fingers are numb. My lips are cold. The black veins across my collarbone creep higher, brushing the base of my throat. I can feel the ritual trying to turn my body into a door it can close.
I think of Corin on the kitchen floor, blood on his mouth and a joke dying between his teeth.
I think of Rhazek freezing beneath my hand when the bond steadied instead of broke.
I think of the house, the wardlight, the chalk circle, the ugly little marks on the wall where Corin made terror into data because it was better than helplessness.
Maltherion bends over me, his hollow chest yawning like a starving altar. “Give me the rhythm.”
I close my eyes.
I take one final steady breath.
Inhale for four.
Hold for six.
Exhale for eight.
I send that rhythm down the tether with everything I have left, not as surrender, not as plea, but as an anchor thrown into a storm.
Find me, I think.
Then I hold the line.
16
RHAZEK
Sable’s final breath reaches me through the tether like a hand thrust through flame.
It is measured, disciplined, and violently alive despite the ritual trying to turn her heart into an opening for Maltherion’s hunger. The rhythm strikes my core with such force that the fractured pocket realm bends around it. Four counts of will. Six counts of refusal. Eight counts of defiance dragged through pain, fear, and failing blood.
