“We’re coming.” His voice was steel. “Tonight. We leave Silverpine tonight. The rebels have found tunnels under the Heartspire, old Root-pathways that—”
“No.” I grabbed his face, making him look at me. “Not yet. Auradelle’s expecting you. He told me you’d arrive ‘just in time for the Convergence.’ Hewantsyou to come. It’s a trap.”
“I don’t care if it’s a trap—”
“I care.” My voice cracked. “I care because if you walk into whatever he’s planned, he’ll use you against me. He’ll hurt you to make me cooperate, or he’ll hurt me to make you cooperate, and either way we both end up exactly where he wants us.”
“Then what do we do?” His hands tightened in my hair. “You want me to just leave you there while he tortures you? I can’t—Elle, I physically cannot do that. The corruption is eating me alive without you. Every hour we’re apart, it gets worse. I’ve destroyed three groves just by walking through them. I’m becoming the monster everyone always said I was.”
“You’re not a monster.”
“I will be if he hurts you again.” It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. “I will burn down both worlds if that’s what it takes to get you back.”
I believed him. That was the terrifying part—I believed him completely.
“How much time do we have?” I asked. “Before you get here?”
“Five days if we push hard. Maybe six if the tunnels are worse than Sarnyx thinks.” His forehead pressed against mine. “But Elle, I don’t think you have that long. I can feel your marks through the bond right now, and they’re spreading faster than—”
“I know.” I cut him off before he could finish that thought. “I can feel it too. But if you come early, he wins. We need—we need a plan. A real one. Not just charging in and hoping for the best.”
“Then help me make one.” His hands slid down to my shoulders, my arms, like he was mapping every inch of me he could reach. “Tell me everything. The layout, the guards, the restraints, everything. We’ll find a way through this that doesn’t end with both of us as his puppets.”
So I told him. Everything I could remember through the haze of pain and fear. And he held me while I talked, his hands never stopping their gentle movement, grounding me in this impossible space where we could finally touch without suppressions or barriers or the weight of two dying worlds between us.
“I’m going to get you out,” he said when I finished, and the certainty in his voice almost made me believe it. “I promise you, Elle. I’m going to getyou out, and then I’m going to make him pay for every second of pain he’s caused you.”
“Just don’t die doing it,” I said. “Because I’ve gotten really attached to you, and I’d hate to have to burn everything myself to bring you back.”
He laughed—short and sharp and almost surprised, like he’d forgotten how. Then he kissed me again, softer this time, like he was trying to memorize the taste of me.
“Hold on a little longer,” he whispered against my lips. “Just a little longer. I’m coming.”
“I know,” I said. “I can feel it.”
And I could, I could feel his determination, his rage, his absolute refusal to let Auradelle win. It wrapped around me like armor, and for the first time since the guards had dragged me to that ritual chamber, I felt something other than fear.
I felt hope.
Kaelren
She was trying to protect me. Even here, even after everything Auradelle had done to her, she was trying to protect me.
The realization hit me like a physical blow, and the garden around us responded shuddering, almost seeming to collapse in on itself. My corruption spread further across my dream-form, turning my hands nearly black.
“Elle,” I said, and her name tasted like prayer and damnation combined. “How much time do we have?”
“Seven days until convergence,” she said immediately. “Auradelle was very specific about that. He wants me ‘properly conditioned’ before it happens.”
Seven days. Five of those would be spent traveling from Silverpine Hollowto the Heartspire, pushing hard through hostile territory. That left us one day here to plan, and one night to rest in the tunnels beneath the fortress before the convergence. One night between me and her, with an entire realm in between.
“Tell me what happened,” I said, pulling her closer, needing her solid against me despite knowing she was so impossibly far away. “I need to understand what I’m walking into.”
She hesitated, and I felt her exhaustion through the bond—bone-deep, soul-deep, the kind that came from being systematically broken down. But she nodded.
“He tortured me,” she said bluntly. “Called it calibration, testing, tuning. Strapped me to this living wood platform and pushed Bloom-energy through my marks until I screamed. Made me experience every sensation I’ve ever felt all at once. Hours of it, while he took notes like I was a fucking science experiment.”
The garden around us darkened. My corruption flared.
