28. Chapter 28 #2
My chest ached with sympathy. I knew what it felt like to fight your own nature because someone had convinced you it was dangerous.
The thought came before I could second-guess it. And then, before I could talk myself out of it—
I reached through the tether. And let the feeling of pure surrender flood through it and into his body.
Eryndor's shoulders dropped. His grip on the seed loosened. I watched the tension drain from his spine, his jaw, his white-knuckled fingers—felt him startle at the sensation, felt him almost fight it out of instinct, and then—
He let it in.
His eyes closed. His breathing slowed. I’d never seen his face look so peaceful, so relaxed.
The seed in his palm cracked open.
A single pale root emerged, questing downward, seeking soil that wasn't there. Then a shoot—green and fragile, unfurling toward the light.
The Crownforged sat there cradling a seedling like it was made of glass. Looking at me like I'd handed him something he didn't know how to hold.
I grinned. Couldn't help it.
“Not bad, Crownforged."
He beamed back at me.
For one suspended moment, the garden held its breath. The tether hummed soft and warm between us, feeling dangerously close to hope—
"Well, isn't this touching."
A voice cut through the moment, rich and baritone.
Cormac.
Eryndor's expression shuttered so fast I almost heard the slam. The tether went from warm to rigid in a single heartbeat and that open, unguarded thing between us disappeared so fast it left a vacuum. And in its wake, a flash of rage he didn't want me to feel.
Cormac circled into view, arms crossed, that easy smile playing at his lips. His eyes moved from the seedling in Eryndor's palm to the space between us—reading the tether, I realized. He could see it. Or sense it. Either way, he knew exactly what he was looking at.
"Thessaly sent me," he said. "You've had your fun with seeds. Now the real work begins."
"Real work?" I asked.
"The bond." His gaze flicked to Eryndor, and his mouth curved in quiet satisfaction. "You can grow all the sprouts you want, but if that tether collapses before you stabilize it, the seeds won't matter much."
Eryndor set down the seedling with careful precision. A thick cord of muscle jumped in his forearm.
"What does stabilization require?" he said flatly. The soldier assessing a tactical situation he already knew he'd hate.
Cormac's smile widened.
"The bond is currently a parasite," Cormac said bluntly, his eyes flicking to Eryndor.
"It takes from her to feed you. To stabilize it, you must turn a drain into a loop.
A circuit. You must stop thinking of yourselves as two bodies passing energy back and forth.
You must assume the state of being one single vessel. "
Eryndor's expression tightened. "And how do we achieve this circuit?"
"Releasing the restriction you're holding at your energy wells." Cormac gestured to me. "May I?"
I nodded.
Cormac stepped into my space. He rested his palm against my sternum.
“Energy gathers in seven wells throughout the body.” His voice dropped into a teaching cadence.
“Root, gut, fire, heart, throat, sight, crown. In a bonded pair, the current must flow through all fourteen—up through one body, across the contact point, down through the other, and back again. A complete circuit.”
He closed his eyes. His other hand closed around mine, anchoring me.
I felt it immediately. Warmth blooming at my chest, rising through my throat, behind my eyes, up to the crown of my head—then spilling into him where our bodies touched. I felt it travel down through his wells and back into me where his palm rested at my chest.
A perfect, harmonious loop.
"See?" Cormac opened his eyes, smiling down at me. "Resistance creates pain and fracturing. Flow creates balance and harmony."
The tether slammed into my sternum. It wasn't a pulse; it was a kick. A spike of pure, black jealousy radiating from Eryndor so hot it nearly burned me.
"Let her go," the Crownforged snarled.
Cormac released me, raising his hands in mock surrender, though his eyes danced. "Your turn, Crownforged. Replicate the circuit. Try putting hand to heart to help the flow."
Eryndor stepped forward. He looked at Cormac like he was deciding where to bury him, then turned to me. He took my wrist. His grip was iron. Hard. Possessive.
"Gentle," Cormac chided. "You are connecting a circuit, not shackling a prisoner."
Eryndor ignored him. He placed his other hand on my chest. The contact seared. The tether woke up instantly, roaring with that starving hunger that lived in him.
I felt Eryndor push. A wave of power flooded into me—dark, heavy, protective.
It rushed into my heart, cycling through my system, and back toward him.
But when it hit his heart, it stopped. The energy slammed into a wall.
It pooled in the tether, then started pushing back against my own sternum, building pressure, hot and aching.
"You're blocking," Cormac said. "You're pushing power into her, but you aren't letting it return. You're refusing the intake."
"I don't need to take."
"Then you break the circuit! A loop requires return, Crownforged. You have to open the gate and take."
"I will not drain her."
"You are draining her now by resisting! Look at her!"
I gasped. The pressure in my body was agonizing—like a dam about to burst. The magical buildup had nowhere to go because he wouldn't let it back in.
"Crownforged," I wheezed. "Let it in."
"I can't." His eyes were squeezed shut. "If I open that door... if I start taking... I won't stop."
"Open the gate, Crownforged," Cormac warned. "Or you'll fry her nervous system."
Magic burned across my skin. "Eryndor!" I shouted. "Take it! Take it, damn you!"
He looked at me. I saw the moment his resolve shattered. He didn't gently lower the shield; he smashed it.
He inhaled and let it in.
His whole body softened—shoulders, jaw, spine—everything releasing at once. The energy poured out of me and into him, and I braced for the familiar drain.
It never came.
Instead, I lit up. The current flowed through him and back into me, and where it touched, I came alive. Charged. Vitalized. Like the bond had been starving us both this whole time, and we'd finally remembered how to eat.
For one perfect breath, we were a single circuit. His heartbeat. My heartbeat. No difference.
Then I felt him start to close.
Too much feeling. Too much connection. He was reaching for the armor again, trying to shut down before the bliss drowned him.
"You're strangling it now," Cormac observed. "You're so busy maintaining control that you're starving the connection."
"Perhaps," Eryndor said through his teeth, "I would find it easier to focus without an audience."