The hall emptied slowly.
Not because anyone lingered—but because no one trusted their legs to move too fast.
Veyla walked back to her chamber with measured steps, shoulders squared, chin lifted. The discipline she had learned as a princess carried her through corridors that now felt narrower than before, every torchlight stretching shadows that clung to her skin.
The bond had quieted.
Not vanished.
It lay coiled now, alert and watchful, like something that had learned patience and found it terrifyingly effective.
By the time the door closed behind her, the ache returned.
She leaned her forehead against the wood, breathing shallowly, letting the pressure crest and pass. The training hall had demanded control. This room offered no such mercy.
She crossed the space slowly and sat on the edge of the bed.
Her hands were still trembling.
*I didn't touch him,* she told herself.
Her body did not care.
The memory of closeness replayed with painful clarity—the heat of Khorg's presence, the way the air had thickened between them, the unbearable pull that had screamed for contact and been denied.
Her skin tingled as if brushed by invisible fingers.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
"No," she whispered.
The sensation lingered.
A phantom.
She lay back carefully, staring up at the ceiling as darkness gathered in the corners of the room. The stone felt colder than it had the night before. Or perhaps she was simply more aware of what warmth was missing.
Sleep came eventually.
Not gently.
Her dreams dragged her back to the circle.
Not the ritual hall, but the space between bodies—the five paces that had become a battlefield of restraint. Khorg stood before her, closer this time, golden eyes dark with need and pain.
He reached for her.
She reached back.
Their hands almost—
She jolted awake with a gasp.
Her heart hammered violently against her ribs.
The ache flared sharp and sudden, breath stealing in its intensity. Her skin burned where no one touched it. She curled onto her side, clutching the sheets, waiting for the sensation to ebb.
Across the citadel, Khorg Ironmaw woke with a snarl lodged in his throat.
He had dreamed of her scent.
Not the corrosive edge that sickened him, but the warmth beneath it—the undertone his wolf insisted belonged to home. In the dream, it had wrapped around him like smoke, calming, grounding.
Then he had reached for her—
—and woken gagging, stomach twisting violently as the phantom sensation clashed with reality.
He spat onto the stone floor, chest heaving.
"Damn it," he growled.
His wolf paced furiously, enraged by the denial, confused by the absence.
*She was there.*
"No," Khorg snapped. "She wasn't."
The bond pulsed painfully in response.
He rose and stalked the length of his chamber, boots heavy, claws flexing as if they might find purchase in the ache itself. Every instinct screamed for movement—toward her, toward proximity—while every lesson drilled into him demanded restraint.
Control.
It tasted like ash.
Vinculus Noctaryn did not sleep at all.
He sat upright in a high-backed chair, hands folded loosely in his lap, staring into the dimly lit room as if it might confess something if watched long enough.
The phantom sensation came for him quietly.
A brush of warmth along his wrist.
He froze.
The feeling was precise. Intimate. Entirely unwelcome.
He lifted his hand slowly, inspecting it for any sign of contact.
There was none.
And yet—
His blood stirred, the instability flaring sharply before he forced it down with sheer will. He clenched his jaw, anger flashing hot and immediate.
*This is contamination,* he thought.
*Hallucination born of deprivation.*
He stood abruptly, cloak whispering against the floor.
"Enough," he murmured to the empty room.
The word had no effect.
Back in her chamber, Veyla sat up again, long before dawn.
The dream clung to her, vivid and unfinished.
Her hand drifted to the space beside her on the bed—then stopped.
She withdrew it quickly, pressing her palm flat against her own chest instead.
Her heart raced.
"This is getting worse," she whispered.
A soft knock sounded.
She startled.
The door opened just enough for Madame Zora to peer inside, one eyebrow raised.
"Ah," the witch said lightly. "You too?"
Veyla frowned. "Too what?"
"Dreaming," Zora replied, slipping inside and closing the door behind her. "Or rather—not."
Veyla swallowed. "It felt real."
Zora nodded. "Phantom touch. Early stage."
"That doesn't sound reassuring."
Zora shrugged. "Depends on your definition of 'reassuring.'"
She sat on the edge of the table, swinging her legs idly.
"The bond doesn't like being ignored," she continued. "It adapts. Finds other ways to remind you it exists."
Veyla's fingers curled into the sheets. "Can it make us lose control?"
Zora considered.
"Yes," she said. "If you let it."
Veyla's breath hitched. "And if I don't?"
Zora smiled faintly. "Then you'll suffer beautifully."
Veyla laughed weakly. "You're terrible."
"I know," Zora said cheerfully. "It's why I'm still alive."
She sobered slightly.
"The trick," she added, "is to remember that sensation is not permission. Just because you feel something doesn't mean you act on it."
Veyla closed her eyes.
The training hall came back to her—the held breath, the denied step, the strength it had taken to stay still.
"I can do this," she said softly.
Zora's gaze sharpened, approving.
"Yes," she agreed. "You can."
She moved toward the door, then paused.
"Oh," she added casually, "it's going to get more… vivid."
Veyla's eyes flew open.
"How much more?"
Zora grinned. "Enough to test whether you really meant that."
The door closed.
Veyla lay back down slowly, staring into the dim light as dawn began to bleed through the window.
Somewhere beyond stone and rules, two immortal beings were awake as well, haunted by sensations that had no source and no relief.
The bond had found a new language.
And it was learning how to speak through absence.