Rheon didn't mean to stare.
It just happened.
Elara's face was streaked with ash, her hair tangled, her breaths uneven. She looked fragile, breakable—yet somehow burning from the inside, like she might shatter the world if she didn't get control.
And every time she breathed, his chest clenched.
Literally.
He cursed under his breath. "This emotional sync needs an off switch."
Kael shot him a look. "There isn't one."
Elara froze, hugging her arms to herself. "Please don't look at me like that."
Rheon blinked. "Like what?"
Her cheeks flushed. "Like you… feel what I'm feeling."
Rheon opened his mouth.
He didn't get to answer.
Because the ground beneath them detonated.
A deafening roar echoed through the trees as a burst of white-blue energy shot upward like a flare gun. Birds exploded out of the canopy. Wind punched their bodies sideways.
Kael grabbed both of them—one arm around Elara's waist, the other around Rheon's jacket—dragging them behind a broken aircraft panel as another blast shook the earth.
Rheon yelled, "WHAT WAS THAT?!"
Elara shivered violently. "Something woke up."
Kael cursed. "Phase Two."
Another explosion ripped the ground.
Something massive was climbing out of the earth.
The ground cracked open, and from beneath the soil rose something like a metallic serpent—
no eyes, no mouth, just spiraled plates of armor rotating like gears.
Elara hissed in pain. "It's alive—but not alive—It's reacting to us."
The creature's plates snapped into position.
It lunged.
Kael shoved Rheon forward. "Move!"
They sprinted into the forest.
Trees blurred. Branches whipped their faces. Their synced heartbeats slammed in unison—fear amplifying fear.
"Left!" Elara cried.
Rheon didn't think. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her sharply beside him just as the creature smashed through the trees behind them, pulverizing trunks like matchsticks.
Kael vaulted over a fallen log, flipping midair with impossible speed.
Rheon stared, breathless. "Showoff!"
"Run faster," Kael snapped.
Rheon grabbed Elara's waist to steady her as she tripped. The moment he touched her—
A shock hit both of them.
Her panic flooded his chest.
His adrenaline surged into hers.
Elara gasped, collapsing against him. "Rheon—stop touching—your emotions are—too intense—"
He pulled her close anyway, lifting her over a sharp root. "Yeah? Then stop falling."
She flushed violently.
Kael looked over his shoulder just in time to see them pressed together.
His jaw tightened.
His heartbeat spiked.
Elara felt it.
Rheon felt it.
They all did.
And the Spiral reacted.
The creature behind them shrieked as if enraged by their emotional spike and accelerated, tearing through the forest with terrifying speed.
Kael muttered, "Great. Our feelings are making it faster."
"YOUR feelings," Rheon snapped.
Elara stumbled again.
Kael grabbed her hand this time—firm, protective, pulling her against his chest as another blast shook the ground.
"Elara," he whispered, so close his breath brushed her ear, "focus. Your resonance is flaring. You're calling it."
Rheon felt the jealousy punch him in the lungs.
Not his jealousy—Kael's.
Elara's breath caught.
Rheon growled. "Are you kidding me—you're jealous right now?! We're being chased by a murder-lamp!"
Kael didn't deny it.
He just looked at Elara.
She looked away.
Her cheeks burned.
Rheon's heart hammered.
The Spiral pulsed.
And the creature shrieked again, even louder, as if feeding on the emotional chaos.
They burst through the last line of trees—
And skidded to a stop.
A cliff dropped off into nothingness: a roaring canyon carved by a furious, white-water river below.
Rheon stared. "You've GOT to be joking."
The creature burst out of the forest behind them, plates rotating, light collecting along its body.
Elara's eyes widened. "It's charging up. If it fires—"
Kael cursed, dragging them backward. "We jump."
Rheon screamed, "ARE YOU INSANE?!"
Kael met his eyes.
Then said something Rheon didn't expect.
"We're synced. We survive together—or we die together."
Elara grabbed both their hands.
Rheon swallowed hard.
The creature fired.
A beam of spiraled white energy crackled toward them.
Kael shouted, "NOW!"
They jumped.
The blast hit the cliff edge, exploding rock into shrapnel midair as all three of them plummeted into open space.
Wind roared.
Their hands stayed locked.
Elara's scream cut the sky.
Kael tightened his grip, pulling both of them close.
Rheon shouted over the wind, "ANYONE HAVE A PLAN?!"
"No!" Kael yelled back.
"I—I think—" Elara gasped, eyes glowing faintly— "I can redirect vibration—just—hold—me—"
She pressed her forehead to their joined hands.
The Spiral erupted.
Light exploded around them.
The river rushed up beneath like a deathbed of stone and foam.
And then—
Black.