He was beside her in a blink, crouched low. His hand clamped around her wrist.
“Don’t touch it,” he whispered. “Don’t speak to it.”
“Why—?”
“Because itlistens.”
Her gaze was level. Steady. “I know. It breathes.”
Zarrek stared at Kailorien’s sleeping form. The pulse at the nape of his neck was darker now. Weighted. Waiting.
His voice wavered. “That one isn’t your burden, Auryn.” A beat. “It’shis.”
She held his eyes. Silent. Unreadable.
Then turned back to Resh.
“Zarrek,” she said, soft but sure, “I never faced him with one foot on shore and one in water.”
Her fingers trailed over his shoulder, where the runes glowed beneath her touch.
“Either I help him. With everything I am. With everything that means. Or I don’t.” A beat of silence. “Do you understand?”
Zarrek’s jaw worked. His voice came rough. “He doesn’t want you using that power, Auryn. I’m betraying his orders. I should stop you—”
She whispered, “You love him. So,you won’t.”
Auryn’s gaze wasn’t defiant. Not pleading. Just…true.
“Please,” she said. “Let me protect him. Even mountains need to sleep, and this one has been vigilant for far too long.”
He stared at her. Looked at Resh.
Even in slumber, the man’s jaw was taut. His breathing was labored, muscular chest rising and falling with every sharp cycle of pain. A vein throbbed in his neck. Sweat beaded along his temple. And yet, the runes weren’t flaring red anymore. They’d shifted to a low, pulsing white—still dangerous, still wild, but…tempered.
Zarrek exhaled shakily. He said nothing more.
He couldn’t bear the way her lips kept moving in silence, pouring herself into a man who would never know the price she paid for his rest. Couldn’t bear the pallor of her skin, the tremor in her hands, or the way she bowed her head over Resh like he was a temple, and she the last priestess left to keep the flame alive.
Not because he was afraid something might go wrong.
But because, for the first time since he’d started railing against the Resh’Agar’s foolishness—since he’d mocked and snarled and warned him off this girl like any good soldier would—
He finally understood.
She loved him.
Not with the clumsy heat of lust or the ache of gratitude.
No.
She loved him the way wildfire loved wind—recklessly, wholly, with the kind of devotion that could consume everything if left untended.
And it broke something in Zarrek’s chest.
Because the world didn’t spare its cruelty, especially for a love like this.
Because Resh would never see her casting as mercy.
