“I know,” I whisper. “That is what scares me.”
His hand covers mine.
The cracked windows glitter around us. The hearth burns low again, subdued after its outburst. Corin stands beside the contract, iron rod in hand, pretending not to watch us with the bleak tenderness of someone who has seen too many bargains end badly.
I look from Rhazek to the hidden clause, then back again.
The answer is there.
Not complete. Not safe. Not easy.
But there.
“We choose together,” I say. “Not you for me. Not me for you. Together, or not at all.”
Rhazek’s fingers tighten around mine.
In the bond, the remaining flecks of Maltherion’s corruption draw back as if my words have teeth.
Good.
20
RHAZEK
The yard outside the ruined house is cold enough to make the grass glitter silver under the moon, but the frost melts wherever my shadow falls.
Sable stands on the threshold behind me, wrapped in fury instead of a cloak, and I refuse to turn around because one look at her will make hesitation feel righteous. Corin follows me down the steps, his boots crunching over gravel and frozen weeds, his irritation sharp enough to cut through the night air.
“For the official record,” he says, “this is a catastrophically stupid idea.”
“Noted.”
“I would like the record to include that I said catastrophically, not merely dramatically. There is a hierarchy of idiocy, and you have sprinted to the top wearing a crown.”
“Stand guard.”
“Ah, yes. Excellent. I do love being assigned perimeter duty at a suicide ritual.”
“It is not suicide.”
“No, of course not. It is self-mutilation with romantic branding.”
I stop in the center of the yard where the earth is bare, black, and hard beneath the frost. The house looms behind me with its cracked windows and exhausted chimney smoke, while beyond the yard the trees stand shoulder to shoulder in the dark, their bare branches clawing at a bruised purple sky. The air smells of iron-rich soil, old rain, and the scorched residue of Maltherion’s remnants clinging to my skin like a curse too arrogant to die cleanly.
Sable’s footsteps halt at the edge of the porch. “Rhazek.”
My name in her mouth is a command, a plea, and a blade.
I kneel, and the ground hisses when my palm touches it. Heat pours from my hand, sinking through frost, roots, stones, and the old bones of buried things that never learned to stay dead. I draw the severance circle with fire first, then blood, carving a ring of molten red into the yard as runes flower along its edge in the old infernal script. Each character arrives sharp enough to cut the eye. The language resists the purpose, twisting beneath my will, offended by renunciation when it was bred for conquest, ownership, and permanence.
I force it into obedience.
Behind me, Sable comes off the porch. “Do not do this.”
Corin shifts at the circle’s perimeter, iron rod in one hand, his other hand extended toward her without quite touching. “Sable, stay back.”
“Do not tell me to stay back while he stands there preparing to rip eternity out of his chest.”
