The pain comes without warning.
Not like a blade.
Not like a burn.
As if something, somewhere,
had pulled too hard on a living thread.
Lunaya doubles over.
A breath is torn from her lungs.
Her knees hit the damp ground, and this time,
no one is there to catch her quickly enough.
"Lunaya!"
Kael is already kneeling in front of her, but his hands hesitate.
He feels the vibration.
He feels that what is passing through her is not hers alone.
Her heart is beating too hard.
Too fast.
A sudden chill spreads through his chest, followed by a strange,
contradictory warmth.
Fire.
Shadow.
Something ancient that doesn't respect boundaries.
"Don't touch her."
Dravik's voice is low. Tense.
He hasn't taken another step,
but the ground beneath his feet is smoking slightly.
"It's not her who's trembling," he adds.
"It's the bond."
Sahr doesn't smile.
For the first time in a long time, his face is closed,
focused, almost worried.
He watches Lunaya as one would watch a chemical reaction,
that has become unstable.
"She's not supposed to feel that," he whispers.
"Not at this distance."
Lunaya puts a hand to her chest.
Beneath her skin, the silver-black thread pulses violently.
Stronger than in the Sanctuary.
More brutally.
"Erynd..."
His name leaves her lips without her deciding to say it.
And the moment she pronounces it,
the world responds.
An invisible shockwave ripples through the clearing.
The leaves freeze in mid-motion.
The air compresses, as if sucked toward a single point.
Lunaya screams.
Not in fear.
In connection.
In her mind, the image explodes.
A tower.
Not the ritualized vision.
Not the past.
The present.
The black stone.
The runic chains shining too brightly.
The circle on the ground activating now,
not in a memory.
Erynd raises his head.
His silver eyes stare at her through something thicker,
than the world.
"No."
His voice is weak. Broken.
But she hears him.
He feels her call.
And that.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
The runes around him blaze.
A Corbin turns abruptly.
"She touched the thread."
"Impossible."
"The name reacted."
A shadow wing spreads out.
"Cut it off."
Too late.
Lunaya is thrown backward.
Kael catches her this time, but the impact knocks him back a step.
His throat burns.
His instincts scream.
"It came from him, he growls.
They hurt him. And it passed through to her."
Lunaya shakes violently.
Silver blood flows from her nose, slowly, silently.
"I... I didn't mean to...
I felt him suffer."
Dravik clenches his teeth.
"They sensed your response."
Sahr closes his eyes for a split second.
"Then it's done."
"What?" asks Kael, already ready to kill someone.
Sahr reopens his eyes.
"They know you can reach it without a ritual."
And now they'll speed things up."
Lunaya struggles to her feet.
Her legs are shaking, but her gaze is clear.
Too clear.
"I'm not just the key anymore, she says.
I'm the trigger."
A heavy silence falls over them.
Far, far away,
an ancient bell tolls.
Not a sound.
A vibration in the bones.
Dravik slowly raises his head.
"They're closing the circle."
Kael pulls Lunaya close, rage and fear mingling.
"Then we can't afford any more mistakes."
Sahr murmurs, almost to himself:
"No."
A dangerous smile, devoid of any lightness, touches his lips.
"We don't have time."
And somewhere, in a tower of black stone,
a man with broken wings smiles despite the pain.
Because she answered.
And because now
The bond is awakened for real this time.