Sleep refused to come.
Every time I closed my eyes, the world flickered flashes of gold and black, light twisting into wings, a voice whispering from somewhere inside my blood.
When I finally did drift off, it wasn't rest.
It was connection.
I found myself standing in a place that wasn't a place a sea of stars suspended in silence. The constellations pulsed like heartbeats, and beneath my feet, the ground shimmered like glass.
And there, across the endless space, stood Aster.
He looked… the same, but not. His eyes glowed faintly, his outline flickering like fire through fog.
We stared at each other.
"This isn't real," I said.
He shook his head. "No. It's the bond."
"Then why are we here?"
"Because it's not finished binding." His gaze lowered to my chest, where the black mark pulsed slowly. "Our energies are still syncing. Until it stabilizes, the link will draw us into shared space when we're unconscious."
"Shared space," I echoed, half dazed. "Like a dream?"
"Something deeper."
The silence between us stretched. Neither of us moved.
In the faint glow of starlight, his expression softened the guarded commander stripped away.
"You feel it too," he said quietly. "Don't you?"
I hesitated. "The pulse?"
He nodded. "When you breathe, I feel it. When your magic stirs, it echoes in me."
The realization sank in slowly. I wasn't alone in my own body anymore and somehow, that should've terrified me.
But it didn't.
"It's strange," I admitted. "It feels like you're… here."
"I am." His voice gentled. "Always, now."
The words carried more weight than they should have.
I looked away. "Then if I fall again"
"I'll feel it first," he interrupted. "And I'll stop it."
Something flickered in the air between us a current of heat and power, sparking faintly across the space separating our hands.
The stars around us brightened.
And before I could think, the mark on my chest pulsed answering something in him.
The same light glowed beneath his collar, mirroring mine.
Pain flared. Then warmth.
Then something else entirely a resonance so pure it hurt.
Our magic intertwined in the air, spiraling upward in a ribbon of black and gold.
For a heartbeat, I saw everything his memories bleeding into mine.
A boy kneeling before the Council.
A sword dripping starlight.
The moment he first saw me on the battlefield, and the quiet thought he never voiced:
Not him. Don't let it be him.
I gasped. The vision shattered.
Aster staggered back, hand clutching his temple. "You saw"
"Yes."
His expression tightened, pain and guilt twisting in his eyes. "That wasn't supposed to happen. The bond… it's unstable."
The stars flickered, then began to fade.
Before the dream collapsed, I whispered, "Aster what were you protecting me from?"
He didn't answer.
His last words echoed as the void pulled us apart:
"From myself."
Erian woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat. His heart beat too fast two rhythms, not one. His and Aster's.
From the other side of the barracks wall, a voice whispered faintly, exhausted but alive:
"I felt it too."
The bond thrummed once, deep and alive, beneath his skin.