“I assure you, I am suffering comprehensively.”
“Good.”
Corin, because he has no self-preservation where language is concerned, mutters, “They flirt in threats. It is deeply unfortunate for the rest of us.”
Something catches in my mind then—not a thought exactly, but a tug. The contract. The bond. The way the remnants flare when fear divides us and die when choice brings us together. The shockwave had come from surprise, violation, imbalance. But when I reached through the bond during the attack, when Rhazek did not pull away, the fire stabilized immediately.
Not because he owns me.
Not because I am anchored to him.
Because we both choose.
I turn toward the table where the contract text lies beneath scattered papers and ashless scorch marks. My body moves before anyone asks what I am doing. I shove aside a brassinstrument, a cracked inkpot, two loose sheets of Corin’s notes, and the corner of the cursed parchment appears beneath them, its letters shifting faintly as though pretending innocence.
“Sable?” Corin rises behind me.
“There’s another clause.”
Rhazek goes still. “What clause?”
“I don’t know yet.” I drag the parchment closer. The surface is warm under my fingers, almost skin-warm, and the script swims in infernal black, old legal gold, and the faint silver trace of my own bloodline’s magic. “But it’s here. It has to be.”
Corin comes to my side, all mockery drained from him now. “Where are you looking?”
“The stabilization language.” I scan the visible paragraphs, forcing my panic into usefulness. “The merger responded differently when we chose the same direction. It rejected fear. It rejected unilateral sacrifice. Maltherion’s remnants keep exploiting discord, but they cannot survive mutual alignment.”
Rhazek’s presence heats my back. “Sable.”
“Do not interrupt me while I am smarter than you.”
Corin nods solemnly. “A frequent and sacred occasion.”
The letters blur, then sharpen. My eyes burn from smoke and unshed tears, but I keep reading. Down past the main anchor terms. Past the blood exchange. Past the infernal substitution clause Rhazek must have used to graft his life to mine like an idiot with cheekbones. The script resists me, curling its tails inward, hiding meaning inside ceremonial redundancies.
“Oh, you sneaky little bastard,” I whisper.
Corin leans closer. “The contract or Rhazek?”
“Yes.”
My finger stops near the bottom margin, where a line of script is nearly swallowed by decorative binding marks. It is not written like the others. It is embedded beneath them, a foundation stone under a palace built by liars.
I read it once.
Then again.
The room seems to steady around the words.
“Permanent stabilization,” I say slowly, “requires conscious consent from both bound parties after merger.”
Rhazek says nothing.
Corin’s eyes flick quickly across the line. “That was buried deep.”
“It was hidden because it matters.” My pulse pounds, but now there is shape to the pounding, a drumbeat rather than a collapse. “The contract can be forced into a temporary structure by sacrifice, blood, power, all that grim dramatic nonsense. But for the bond to stabilize permanently, we both have to choose it while understanding what it is.”
Rhazek’s voice is quiet behind me. “You understand now.”
