Chapter 9
Alina
The Rooted Marches, Nightfall
The Marches breathe.
They flex and hum and shift beneath my boots like a living thing, and the scientist in me is screaming—in a good way.
“This fault line,” I say, crouching to press my palm against the ground. “It’s shallow, but wide. Like a stress fracture. How long has it been active?”
Dagan stands a few feet away, big and still as the cliff face at his back. His wings are tucked tight, just a hint of obsidian and storm feathers visible at his shoulders.
“It woke three cycles ago,” he rumbles. “When the first quakes began on your side. It is one of many.”
I close my eyes.
The rock under my hand hums. Not just with seismic activity, but with… feeling.
Like the earth has a pulse. A voice. A personality.
I’ve always “read” ground better than most—could look at a cross-section on a monitor and feel where a crack would propagate.
But this is different.
Nightfall is different.
Here, the ground reads back.
“There’s another weak node to the northeast,” I murmur. “Not big yet. But it will be.”
“How do you know?” he asks.
I open my eyes and look up at him.
“Because the stress vectors are all pointing that way. And because your land is basically yelling at me about it.”
One corner of his mouth twitches, which is Dagan-speak for impressed.
“You’re amazing, Oona. My powers are becoming yours much more rapidly than the other mates.”
I nod my head, but I don’t respond. What does one say to that anyway?
Gee, thanks for the power boost?
“I thought I was supposed to give you a magical boon? The others talked about one,” I mention, but Dagan merely grumbles his response.
We’re walking a stretch of the Marches he called the Stepped Vale—terraced fields cut into green-brown hills, bordered by low stone walls. Farmers in earth-toned clothes move like ants in the distance, sowing seeds in neat rows.
Beyond them, quarries bite into the earth in silver-gray crescents, scaffolds clinging to cliff faces.
Above it all, The Barrow looms behind us, carved into the cliff like some gothic mountain palace, its windows glowing faintly gold in the afternoon light.
It’s ridiculously beautiful.
So is the guy glowering at me like I personally offended gravity.
“Stay within the inner ward,” he says for the third time as I stand and dust my hands off. “The ground is unpredictable near the bleed points. If one opens beneath you—”
“Then you’ll catch me,” I cut in. “Like you did back home.”
His jaw tightens. “Yes. If I am close enough. If I am not distracted by fighting or reinforcing wards or giving my blessings to the farmers we pass.”
He’s not wrong. Doesn’t mean I’m going to roll over and play helpless, though.
“Dagan,” I say, stepping over the faint shimmer that marks the boundary of some protective ward he carved into the soil.
My boot hits bare earth. It thrums under my foot.
“I am a licensed environmental geologist. I have worked active landslides. I’ve had clients threaten to sue me, swear they never saw any cracks while standing in front of a sinkhole. I know risk.”
He stares at the spot where my boot landed like it personally insulted him.
“You are also my viyella,” he says quietly. “The bond changes everything.”
Mate.
Viyella.
That word is new. The first time I heard it, it made my stomach knot.
It still does that. But it does something else.
Something hot and terrifying and wanting.
“Look, I get that you’re used to people doing what you say because you’re”—I gesture at all of him—“Lord of Earth, King of Rocks, Big Boss of the Dirt or whatever the title is—”
He snorts. “Close enough.”
“—but I didn’t come here to sit in a tower and embroider dirt maps. I can help, Dagan. Or do you not want the woman who can literally feel your fault lines helping you map the problem?”
His eyes flash green-gold, like sunlight through deep forest.
The earth around us shivers.
Not a quake—just a reaction.
To him.
To me.
To the bond pulling taut between us as we square off.
“I want you,” he says, voice low. “That is the problem.”
Oh.
Okay, well.
That’s direct.
Heat rushes up my neck. I cross my arms so I don’t do something embarrassing like throw myself at him.
“Professionally,” I say, because apparently I enjoy suffering.
His gaze drops to my mouth for a second. “No.”
The ground chooses that exact moment to give a little lurch under my boots, like it’s laughing.
I blow out a breath.
“One, we don’t have time to unpack that. Two, we already made a bargain. You said I’d be your partner. I can’t do that from behind a ward line. So let me work.”
He looks like he wants to argue.
Instead, he steps over the ward line himself and comes to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, facing the valley.
“Stay by my side,” he growls.
“See? Compromise,” I say lightly.
My heart is hammering away like it’s trying to punch through my ribs, but I pretend it’s all normal. Just another casual stroll with my very large, very grumpy, very magical demon mate.
“Now,” I add, forcing a smile, “show me the next bleed point, Lord of Earth.”
His mouth twitches like he wants to smile but refuses on principle.
“Insolent,” he mutters.
Then he offers his arm. “Come.”
We spend the next few hours walking the Marches.
And I think this might be the best day of my life.