Zara’s eyes meet mine underwater, wide with wonder and recognition. She feels it too. The transformation. The completion. The moment when two becomes something greater than the sum of parts.
The bond locks into place with finality that steals my breath—what little breath remains.
We are claimed. Completely. Irrevocably. Changed.
And the power that flows through us now—gods, the power. It’s massive. Overwhelming. Enough to shatter enchantments and break stone and maybe, just maybe, blast through a sealed door.
Zara’s hands find mine underwater. Through the bond, I hear her thought as clearly as if she spoke: Now. Together. Everything we have.
I gather every ounce of hydrokinesis I possess. Feel her lightning responding, building, spiraling around my water magic like threads of gold through silver. The magics merge, amplify, transform.
We aim at the door. At the stone seal that’s kept us trapped—enchanted against individual magic, designed by Deep Runners who knew every trick of hydrokinesis and warded against it. No single water-wielder could break it. No lone lightning-striker could shatter it.
But we’re not individuals anymore. We’re not just water or lightning. We’re the storm that happens when sky meets sea. We’re the impossible made real.
Together, we unleash everything we’ve become.
The world goes white.
14
ZARA
In the dark, in the water, in what should be my death—I find life.
The world exploded white when we unleashed our combined power. Now I’m floating in darkness, disoriented, lungs screaming for air that isn’t there. Water surrounds me completely. Cold. Heavy. Pressing in from every direction.
I should be panicking. Should be clawing for the surface, for air, for anything but this drowning darkness.
Instead, I feel Torin’s presence through the bond—steady, certain, reaching for me. His hands find my waist in the black water, pulling me close. And then his lips are on mine, and he’s breathing for me.
Not air. Water. Oxygenated water flowing from his mouth to mine, processed through gills I don’t have, given freely from someone whose element I can’t survive without help.
I should resist. Should fight the instinct that says water in my lungs equals death.
But I trust him. Completely. Absolutely. With my life and my death and everything in between.
So I open my mouth and let him breathe for me.
The water fills my lungs. Not drowning—sustaining. It’s strange, wrong, impossible. But it works. My body accepts what Torin gives, processes it in ways I don’t understand, keeps me alive when I should be dead.
This is intimacy beyond anything I’ve known. Every breath I take is his gift. Every moment I survive is because he’s sharing his very existence with me. I am wholly dependent on him, wholly vulnerable, wholly trusting.
And somehow, that doesn’t feel like weakness. It feels like strength.
The bond pulses between us—not just connection anymore, but transformation. I feel it working through my body, changing things at a cellular level. My lungs expanding. My blood learning to carry oxygen differently. My magic reaching for his and finding not resistance but welcome.
We’re completing what we started in the dry grotto. Finishing what we were too afraid to fully embrace before.
Torin breaks the kiss to let me process the breath, then returns for another. And another. Sustaining me. Keeping me alive. Loving me in the most literal way possible.
Through the bond, I feel his determination. His wonder. His absolute refusal to let me go.
And I feel something else. The same thing I sensed when we unleashed our power—potential. Power waiting to be claimed. But not through violence this time. Through union.
His hands move from my waist to my face, cradling me like I’m precious. Breakable. The most important thing in his world.
I reach for him in turn, finding the contours of his body in the darkness. The scales that shimmer even without light. The webbing between his fingers. The gills at his neck that process the water we’re drowning in.
