Chapter 45
Morvane screamed as he ran, glowing red at the seams, the metal whining from an overload of mana. His runes thundered with barely restrained power. Pain gnawed at the edge of his awareness, but he could see nothing aside from the corridors ahead.
Could think of nothing but closing the distance between them.
The moment he saw her, Kailorien froze. Her hair was mussed, her braid loose against her back. Her eyes glowed golden, brighter than the sun. With a gasp, he surged forward, grabbing her shoulders, cupping her face, searching for wounds.
His lips moved.
He called her name, steadied her as she swayed.
Her mouth shaped words.
“Silari...How long will you wear the shape of a man? How long will you deny what you are?”
That voice again. Identical to the one from the field in the Moores, and then again at Stonewake. That strange, eerie cadence that was not his Auryn. But this time—this time—it rumbled with anger and accusation. With pain. With fear.
“How could you? You let me go to him. Unprotected. Unshielded. Ill and weak.”
A familiar scent teased at his awareness. He hugged Auryn against him, breathed in, and nearly recoiled. It was his scent.
Seravael.
Shu’Khan.
His Voids-damned brother.
“What did he do?” he rasped. “He touched you. I can smell him on you.”
“Touch would have been mercy,” the voice said. “You felt it. Surely. How he violated my lungs, my mana, my essence.”
Kailorien tried to steady the quaking of his anger, but it bled through his defenses. Vargrún pulsed at the back of his neck. Growling. Howling. Furious.
Kailorien flinched as a throb of agony stabbed into his skull.
HE DARES.
The creature's voice was dark. Twisted. Bestial.
WITH HIS HANDS, HE DARES.
The corridor trembled as though an earthquake shook the Lattice.
Cracks splintered in the nearby crystal fixtures.
The walls around Kailorien bowed with pressure.
Just imagining Shu’Khan’s hands on her. Him imitating Kailorien’s voice like he had the day of the Estar.
The way he’d held her. Called her ilphara.
RIP HIM APART!
The image of Shu’Khan near her was enough to bleed his vision with splashes of raw crimson.
And then—as suddenly as it caught fire—his fury stilled when a single small hand touched his cheek.
Auryn.
He looked down.
“Save your fury, my Bonded. There is more at stake than violation.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?” Kailorien choked out, the agony of the voice roaring in his ears. “What if he’d killed her? What if he’d—"
Auryn shook her head.
“I will not last this way,” the voice whispered. “You have neglected your Bonded. This heat is my call to my Silari. For Breathweaving. For you. Only my Silari may breathe into me. For we were never separate. Never apart. We are one in soul, in origin.”
His head was pounding, but the longer her hand remained on his face, the more the pain from Vargrún receded back into the shadows. Guilt swelled at her tone.
Neglected.
The word echoed in the chambers of his inner doubt.
“I tried,” he bit out. “Again and again. I couldn’t help her. I breathed, but—.”
“Because you held back. Because you fear what you are.” She forced him to meet her gaze. “How can you let the current carry you, if you do not surrender to it?”
A pause.
“You can be Resh’Agar…and you can be Silari. So be, my Bonded…Be.”
The golden glow flickered.
Auryn’s body tilted. The fevered haze returned as the entity faded, leaving Auryn weak and shaking and utterly spent.
“Kail…” Her voice broke, hands scrambling to catch at the large buckles of his armor, small fingers slipping into the grooves of his chest plate and anchoring herself to him.
“It hurts…help me…”
He caught her, held her, pulled her to his chest, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other pressed flat against her back. “I have you. I swear to the Void, Auryn—I’ll fix this. Let me try.”
Her arms wound around his neck. She flinched in pain. Nodded.
“Hurry…it hurts to breathe…”
“Let me in,” he whispered, kissing her temple. “Please. Let me in.”
She shuddered in his arms. His thumb grazed her cheekbone, her jaw. She tilted her face up to his, eyes glazed with suffering—but her lips parted all the same.
That was all the permission he needed.
He kissed her.
Not a breathless whisper of affection, but a desperate soul-carving.
Groaning into her mouth, tasting her sigh, knowing, feeling the relief in it.
As though he’d applied a poultice to a burn.
He begged—not with words, but with his tongue, with his hands, with the way he braced her against the length of his body.
Begged without shame for her to let him give her what she needed.
And she responded.
Shy at first. Then with a rising hunger.
Her hands—those delicate hands—tightened at his neck.
She leaned into the heat of him. Her fingers slipped into his hair like bristles into ink, nails drawing paintings of her desire into his skin with primal friction.
His mouth left hers to trail lower—to her cheek, the edge of her jaw, the pulse in her throat. He kissed there too, and she whimpered.
“Kail…” she breathed, barely audible.
“I’m here,” he vowed into her skin. “I’m yours.”
She trembled—head falling back so his lips found her neck, the hollow beneath her ear.
“I’m going to fix this,” he swore, voice ragged. “No more pain. No more holding back.”
He surrendered.
He let the memory of Stonewake rise in him: her body cradled against his, the vision of the Sight between them, the Bond surging bright and blinding for the first time.
The way he’d felt her every heartbeat, the way he couldn’t recall if he was touching her or if she was touching him.
That ecstasy; that euphoria of oneness was what he now poured into her.
He hadn’t known what he was doing then.
But he knew now.
Another breath left his lungs—not as a sigh, but as deliberate, divine sacrament. A pulse of azure light. Luminous. It curled between them like a newborn thing, reaching out with misty tendrils as though afraid to vanish in rejection once again. But in that moment, it only found acceptance.
Auryn gasped as it entered her through parted lips, through the hollow of her throat, through her nose.
Her chest rose with his, their breaths pausing. Stopping. Merging. Syncing.
A jolt.
Their hearts lurched in unison.
Her heartbeat mirrored his, stumbling at first, then steady.
As he inhaled, so did she.
Her skin cooled. Her complexion warmed. The lines of pain on her face eased.
“It’s better…” she whispered, breath warm against his throat. “Kail…the pain…it’s better…”
He trembled, forehead still pressed to hers.
“You let me in,” he whispered. “My starlight. You let me help you.”
She nodded. Her skin still radiated heat, but it wasn’t the searing fire from before. It was something softer now. Warmer. Her hands curled into his tunic, her grip weak but insistent. Her eyes opened. Glazed, heavy-lidded, but she was looking at him.
He kissed her again. Not out of desperation this time, but out of sheer need.
His lips sought hers, tenderly at first—then deeper, more drawn out, until she was gasping against his mouth, her fingers fisting at the fabric near his collarbone.
He exhaled once again, sending blue mist spiraling between them.
She made a sound—half sigh, half whimper—and it set blazing embers afire inside of him. His hands found her hips. Her body melted to his.
“Let me take you back,” he murmured, voice rough as stone grinding against its twin. “You’re still burning up.”
Her fingers slid up his chest. “Just…stay here. A little longer.”
He didn’t argue.
He kissed her again—languid, reverent. His hands roamed, seeking to anchor her. Their lips moved together, over and over again, azure mana threading them together like a tapestry. With utmost regret, he broke the kiss.
“We can’t do this here,” he whispered, brushing her hair from her brow. “Not in the hallway. Not like this.”
Without another word, he swept her into his arms, one hand beneath her thighs, the other against her back.
He turned and saw Lu’ma sitting some distance away. He cursed inwardly. Had she seen everything? Auryn speaking in that strange voice? The way he’d nearly lost his mind with rage? And, of course, the way he’d breathed for Auryn? The miracle that should have been theirs alone.
When their eyes met, she looked down at the floor, her expression unreadable.
“Lu’ma,” Auryn called. “Are you alright?”
The Attendant straightened and quickly padded over to them. She gave Kailorien a wide berth, but reached for Auryn’s hands when she was near.
'This Nameless will take the scroll to the Resh’Agar’s chambers. Your Radiance, please go with the Arm of the Void. His Quintessence protected you. From the voice. From the glow.'
“The voice?” Auryn’s eyes met his. “Kail…it must have taken over me again. Just like the Moores.”
He nodded. “That’s what it was. The same voice.”
The questions in her eyes unsettled him. He would have spared her from the words, but after sharing his breath, his heart, his mana with her, keeping this a secret seemed like more negligence.
“Sweetfire,” he breathed, holding her close. “Will you…wait? Will you let me think on what happened before we discuss it?”
She hesitated, but nodded. Her grip tightened on him. “You never ask me for a single thing. How could I deny you this?”
As he carried her into the warmth of his chambers, the door sliding shut behind them—
—the Bond between them pulsed once.
A prelude.
A promise.