Corin’s eyes widen. “Well. That is new.”
Sable’s voice comes from behind him, strained but steady. “Rhazek, stop pulling away.”
The words hit harder than Maltherion ever did.
I almost argue. The old reflex rises like a beast with many scars. I want to tell her I am dangerous. I want to tell her proximity to me has always been a form of weather, and weather does not ask permission before it drowns villages. I want to list every reason distance is discipline, every proof that my hands are better suited to breaking chains than holding something precious.
But her power is in mine, and mine is in hers, and the corruption is not spreading through that union.
It is dying in it.
I stare at the shard as our joined flame eats through its center. The flecks in my core recoil from the merged current, not drawn to it now but terrified of it. When I was alone, they hidin my cracks. When I stepped away, fear widened those cracks. When Sable’s hurt struck my fear, the remnants found a door.
But when she reaches for me, when I stop resisting the place she has carved into my being, the bond does not weaken.
It becomes a furnace with two hearts.
I cross the room in three strides.
Sable’s breath catches, but she does not retreat. I reach for her, not with caution, not with that insulting carefulness that pretends distance is kindness. I cup the side of her face with one hand and set the other at the back of her neck, feeling the frantic pulse beneath her skin.
The bond floods open.
The chamber ignites with warmth.
Corin shouts something vile as the last of the shard flares bright, then collapses into a rain of harmless black ash that vanishes before it reaches the floor. The iron rod drops with a clatter. The hearth settles. The vials stop rattling. The candles relight one by one, small flames trembling as if embarrassed to have witnessed us.
For several seconds, no one speaks.
Sable stares up at me, her eyes glassy with fury and fear and something so tender it threatens to ruin what remains of my restraint.
“You absolute ass,” she whispers.
“Yes,” I say.
“You thought letting go of me would protect me?”
“Yes.”
“You were wrong.”
“Yes.”
Corin bends to retrieve his iron rod, muttering, “Miracles do happen. He can learn.”
I ignore him. My thumb brushes Sable’s cheek, and the bond answers with a deep, resonant warmth that rolls throughmy chest and settles the last snarling edges of panic. I look inward again. The flecks are fewer now. Not gone entirely, but diminished, cornered, afraid of the golden seam where Sable’s magic runs through mine.
Not contaminated.
Strengthened.
“I saw the remnants,” I say quietly. “I thought if I stayed close, they would crawl into you.”
Sable’s hand closes around my wrist. Her fingers are cold. I hate that they are cold. “And did they?”
“No.”
“Why?”
