I stare in shock as electricity dances across the surface of my water barrier, not destroying it, not shorting it out, but being absorbed. Conducted. Amplified. The water glows with contained energy, crackling with power that belongs to neither of us and both of us.
The bond pulses with shocked recognition.
Time seems to slow. I see Kellan charging, water blade raised for a killing strike. See two other hunters moving to flank Zara. See her on her knees, lightning still sparking weakly from her exhausted hands.
And I understand.
Her electricity didn’t hurt me. My water didn’t short her out. Together, we created something neither could make alone.
I let the lightning charge build in my water shield until the pressure is almost unbearable. Then I release it.
The electrified water explodes outward in a shockwave that’s half liquid, half lightning. It hits every hunter simultaneously—a wall of crackling energy that lifts them off their feet and slams them into reed stalks. They hit hard, twitching from the electrical charge, and don’t get up.
Unconscious. Not dead. But thoroughly defeated.
I stand at the center of the blast radius, water and lightning still crackling along my scales in golden patterns, completely unharmed.
The reeds burn in a perfect circle around us, leaving blackened stalks and smoking earth. The water in the pools steams. And Zara kneels in the mud, staring at me with wide amber eyes.
“How did we—” Her voice cracks.
“I don’t know.” I look down at my hands, at the fading golden glow on my scales, at the impossible evidence of what just happened. Fear rises in my throat—not of death, not of hunters, but of what this means. What we’re becoming. “I don’t know.”
The bond hums between us, satisfied and terrified in equal measure. Satisfied because we survived. Terrified because we changed something fundamental in the process.
She struggles to her feet, and I’m there without deciding to be—catching her elbow, steadying her, unable to make myself let go. Her skin is feverish against my palm, electricity still sparking weakly at her fingertips.
“Are you hurt?”
“Exhausted.” She leans into me, just for a moment, and the bond settles into something almost peaceful. “That was... I’ve never channeled that much raw power before. I thought I was going to kill you.”
“You should have.” I can hear the wonder in my own voice. “That strike should have fried every nerve in my body. But the water—it caught the electricity. Held it. Made it stronger.”
“Like a circuit.” She looks up at me, and I see the same fear-laced wonder reflected in her eyes. “Your water conducted my lightning. We didn’t cancel each other out. We amplified each other.”
The implications hang between us, too enormous to fully grasp. Deep Runners and Sky-dwellers—water and air, two elements that should never combine. But lightning is different. Lightning is the bridge between earth and heaven, between liquid and vapor, between what is and what could be.
And the bond tied us together in a way that makes those bridges real.
“We need to move.” I force myself to focus on the practical. On survival. “More will come. Caspian won’t stop sending hunters just because we defeated one team.”
She nods, pulling away from me, and I hate how much I miss her warmth. “Can you—” She stops, looking at her wrists. At the raw marks where the kelp-rope chafed. At the freedom she’s been granted.
I know what she’s asking. Should I bind her again? Restore the pretense that she’s my prisoner, that I’m in control, that none of what just happened changed the fundamental dynamic between us?
I can’t do it.
The rope is still in my pack. All I’d have to do is reach for it, secure her wrists, restore the illusion of authority. But my hands won’t move. Won’t close that distance. Won’t undo what cutting those bonds acknowledged.
She’s not my prisoner anymore. Maybe she never was. Maybe the moment I pulled her from the river and felt the bond ignite, maybe the moment I chose to take her to the Citadel instead of drowning her, maybe the moment I touched her broken wing with something approaching tenderness—maybe all of those were the real decision, and this is just me finally admitting it.
“No,” I hear myself say. “No more bindings.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “Torin?—”
“You just saved my life.” The words come out rougher than intended. “That lightning net—half those hunters were behind me. I couldn’t see them. You did. You protected me even though you didn’t have to. Even though letting them kill me would have been your best chance at freedom.”
She doesn’t deny it. Just holds my gaze, waiting.
