Chapter 21
SABLE
The circle is dead, but the damage it tried to do is still breathing.
“Get up,” I snap, even though Rhazek is already half-moving, half-falling, his weight dragging through scorched grass and broken earth like something pulled back from the edge of a cliff it absolutely intended to jump from.
He exhales something rough that might be a laugh if it didn’t sound like it scraped his lungs on the way out. “You are issuing orders to a creature currently held together by regret and poor decisions.”
“Good,” I fire back, grabbing his arm and hauling harder than my body has any right to manage. “Then you’ll follow them.”
His skin is still too hot under my hands, heat bleeding through torn fabric and into my palms. The yard smells like burnt metal, split dirt, and something older—like lightning struck a grave and didn’t bother apologizing.
The ground beneath us is fractured in a jagged ring where the circle collapsed, and for a second I swear I can still see it—the ghost of it—flickering in the air.
Threads.
Not metaphorical. Not imagined.
Actual strands of something molten and wrong shimmer around Rhazek like torn seams in reality, snapping and recoiling, trying to decide whether to retreat or lash out again.
“Corin!” I bark. “Kill the rest of it.”
“I am trying not to die while doing so,” he snaps back, already moving. He slams iron stakes into the ground one by one along the broken perimeter, each impact ringing sharp and metallic, each strike sending a pulse through the earth that makes the remaining sigils sputter and choke.
“Left side,” I call.
“I see it.”
“Then move faster.”
“Charming,” he mutters, but his hands don’t slow.
Rhazek stumbles again, and this time I feel it through the bond before I see it—his strength dipping hard, his control fraying at the edges. One of those flickering strands lashes out behind him, snapping through the air like a whip before recoiling.
My stomach turns.
“Inside,” I say, more quietly now, my grip tightening. “Now.”
He leans into me more than he would ever admit, his arm heavy over my shoulders, his breath uneven against my temple. “You are smaller than ideal for this task.”
“And you are heavier than necessary. Keep moving.”
Corin drives the last stake down with a sharp curse, and the remaining glow in the yard gutters out like a candle choked by its own smoke.
“That should hold,” he says, straightening. Then he looks at Rhazek—and for once, there’s no sarcasm there. “Get him inside. If those strands decide to snap again, I’d rather they do it somewhere with walls.”
“Working on it,” I mutter.
Between the two of us, we drag Rhazek toward the house. His boots scrape against the ground, catching on broken roots and uneven stone, but he doesn’t fight me. That, more than anything, scares me.
Inside, the air still carries the aftermath of everything we’ve done—burnt magic, cracked wood, the faint metallic tang of stress in the structure itself. The door slams shut behind us, and Corin moves immediately, setting fresh wards along the frame with quick, practiced motions.
I don’t stop moving.
I shove Rhazek toward the nearest chair.
He catches himself on the armrest, straightening just enough to glare at me. “I am not finished.”
“Oh, you are absolutely finished,” I say, and then I physically shove him down.
The chair groans under his weight. He grabs the edge like he’s about to stand again.
“Don’t,” I warn.
“I can stabilize the severance—”
“No.” My voice cracks like a whip. “You don’t get to say that word again tonight.”
Corin glances between us, then moves to the door. “I am locking this down. If the house starts collapsing, I will intervene. Otherwise, you two can attempt to kill each other in peace.”
“Stay out of it,” I snap.
“Gladly.”
The ward flares as he seals it, and then he’s gone—downstairs, leaving us in the strained quiet of a room that has already survived too much.
I turn back to Rhazek.
The bond between us is unstable, pulsing hard enough to make my teeth ache. Anger crashes into fear, fear tangles with something deeper, something raw and desperate that refuses to let go of him even now.
“You thought you could just—what?” I demand. “Cut pieces off yourself and call it a solution?”
His eyes burn. “I thought I could prevent your death from becoming mine.”
“You don’t get to decide that alone.”
“It was not a decision made lightly.”
“That’s worse,” I fire back. “You thought about it. You weighed it. You decided your life was the expendable one.”
His jaw tightens. “If the balance demands—”
“Stop talking like a contract,” I snap, stepping closer. “I am not a clause you can negotiate around.”
The bond flares sharply between us, heat surging, unstable and wild. I feel his resistance, his logic, his stubborn, infuriating need to make sense of something that is not meant to be solved like a problem.
“I am trying to protect you,” he says.
“And I am trying to stop you from destroying yourself in the process.”
“That may not be avoidable.”
I stare at him.
Something in me snaps.
“Shut up,” I say, and then I grab his collar and yank him forward.
He doesn’t expect it.
Good.
My mouth crashes into his before he can finish whatever catastrophic sentence he was about to say.
There is nothing gentle about it.
No hesitation. No careful exploration. It is anger and fear and possession all tangled together, a deliberate claim that says you do not get to leave me like that. His breath catches against my lips, and for half a second the bond spikes so violently I think we might break the house all over again.
But it doesn’t fracture.
It holds.
No—it surges inward.
Rhazek’s hands find me instantly, one at my back, the other gripping my arm like he’s anchoring himself to something real. The heat between us intensifies, but it doesn’t lash out this time. It pulls tight, compressing, focusing.
“Careful,” he murmurs against my mouth, voice rough.
“No,” I whisper back, and pull him closer.
The bond answers.
Hard.
The room trembles, but the cracks in the walls don’t spread. The energy doesn’t explode outward like before. It coils inward, tightening around us, pulling everything chaotic into alignment.
Downstairs, something slams.
Corin’s voice carries up faintly, strained. “If you two bring the ceiling down, I am not catching it!”
“Deal with it,” I mutter.
Rhazek exhales something that might be a laugh, though it turns into a low sound that vibrates through me instead. His forehead presses against mine, breath syncing with mine without effort, like the bond has finally decided to stop fighting itself.
“I was wrong,” he says quietly.
“Yes,” I reply, because I am not letting him off that easily.
His thumb brushes my jaw, slower now, steadier. “I thought separation would protect you.”
“And I told you it wouldn’t.”
“I understand that now.”
“Good.”
The heat between us steadies further, no longer spiking, no longer tearing. The flickering strands I saw outside—those broken, unraveling pieces of him—shift in the edge of my awareness.
They’re retreating.
Not violently. Not forced.
They fold back into him like something recognizing where it belongs.
I feel it happen.
Every inch of it.
The bond tightens, not painfully this time, but with a deep, grounded weight. The kind that settles instead of snaps.
Rhazek exhales slowly. “The strands… they’re stabilizing.”
“I know.”
“You’re doing that.”
“We’re doing that,” I correct.
His gaze sharpens on mine.
The last of the tension breaks.
Not outward. Inward.
The room stills.
The cracked walls stop creeping. The air loses that brittle, overcharged edge. Even the faint hum of the wards settles into something quieter, steadier.
For the first time since the circle, nothing feels like it’s about to tear itself apart.
Rhazek leans back slightly, pulling me with him until I end up half in his lap, neither of us pretending this is accidental.
His voice is softer now. “You should not have entered the circle.”
“And you should not have tried to rip your soul apart,” I shoot back.
“That was a calculated—”
I glare.
He stops.
“Fine,” he mutters. “A poorly calculated decision.”
“Better.”
His hand moves along my back, slower now, grounding instead of grasping. “You could have been hurt.”
“I was already hurt,” I say. “Watching you do that.”
Something shifts in his expression. Not pride. Not deflection.
Understanding.
Slow. Hard-earned. Real.
Downstairs, footsteps approach.
Corin reappears in the doorway a moment later, looking like he just wrestled the foundation of the house into submission and is not happy about it.
“Well,” he says, scanning the room. “We are still standing. That is encouraging.”
“Everything stable?” I ask.
“For now.” His gaze flicks to Rhazek, then back to me. “No structural collapse. No rogue magic trying to peel the walls apart. I would call that a victory.”
Rhazek exhales, tension finally draining from his shoulders. “The severance thread has restored.”
Corin nods once. “I can feel it. Whatever insanity you attempted out there has been… undone.”
“Corrected,” I say.
“Temporarily corrected,” Corin replies. “Let us not tempt fate by calling anything permanent tonight.”
I lean back slightly, still close enough to feel Rhazek’s steady warmth against me. The bond hums quietly now, no longer screaming, no longer tearing.
Just… there.
Alive. Balanced.
For now.
I look at Rhazek.
“You don’t get to make that choice without me,” I say again, quieter this time, but no less firm.
His hand closes over mine. “I understand.”
“Good.”
Corin sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “If we are done nearly destroying ourselves for the evening, I would like to sit down and pretend I am not reconsidering all my life decisions.”
“You chose to be here,” I remind him.
“Yes,” he mutters. “A mistake I am now deeply committed to.”
Despite everything, a small, exhausted laugh escapes me.