That—that—was the man she loved.
The Chamber felt it, too.
Pressure constricted around her ribs, thick and cold.Light rippled across her skin, playing like fingers of static.Shadow and glow intertwined above her, circling like predators trying to decide if she was still prey.It was watching.Calculating.
Cassie lifted her face into the oppressive dark.“You’re not the only one who decides what happens next,” she murmured, part to the Chamber, part to herself, part to him.
Through the bond, she caught his recoil, the instinctive urge to shield, to destroy.She answered it before he acted.
“You don’t get to burn everything for me.”Her thoughts rang with quiet ferocity.“Not this time.”
Silence.Then ...understanding.It poured through the bond like a slow exhale, heavy, resigned, and full of faith.
“No,” Trik agreed at last, his voice deepening into calm steel.“We don’t win like that.”
The storm of his power steadied, folding around her instead of raging outward, protective, and possessive.The overwhelming magic became a heartbeat under hers, synchronized, whole.
Beside her, Elora released a dramatic sigh.“Okay, I’m definitely feeling a drop in homicidal energy.Thank the Forest Lords that backup has arrived before I peed on myself, because like you said, our men would never let us live it down.Hell, I’d never let myself live it down.”
Cassie laughed, soft, shaky, almost disbelieving.Tears tracked down her dirt-smudged face, tasting of iron and relief.
“I make no promises that Iwon’tpee on myself,” she halfway laughed.“But I’m pregnant, I get a pass.”
“Fair,” Elora agreed.“But for real, you okay?Cush’s power is making me feel like a damn lit fuse.”
Cassie looked at her best friend as the power of her Chosen flowed inside of her.“I’m better than okay.I’m done being a pawn, I’m done fearing that my child will be used to open some freaking Chamber holding pissed off shadow elves, and my legs are exhausted.We just need to keep Trik from destroying the entire forest in his rage.”
The forest responded with a low tremor, roots and branches sighing in agreement.
And for the first time since the Chamber had taken her, Cassie felt something loosen, a coil unwinding inside her chest.Not freedom.Not yet.But the beginning ofchoice.For days they’d had none, being forced in a direction they didn’t want to go and then held to listen to the delusions of something that should never have been “alive” to begin with.
Then the airshuddered.Not violently, but deliberately.
Through the bond, Trik’s focus sharpened, no fury this time, no wild surge.Just intent.
Enough,he sent, not to her, but past her.
The pressure around Cassie and Elora snapped, not outward, butaway.Light fractured.Shadow peeled back like skin torn from bone.The glamour holding them dissolved in ribbons of ash and heat, ripping free under Trik’s command.
The worldsaw them.
Cassie felt the sudden weight of eyes, Lisa’s gasp, Syndra’s sharp inhale, Oakley’s startled curse, the man that had to be Rezer looking a bit stunned.She felt Cush’s presence slam into Elora like a living shield.
The clearing rearranged itself around their revealed forms, magic recoiling as if struck.
Cassie swayed once, then steadied.
Through the bond, Trik’s voice came again, low and absolute.
“No more hiding.”
The Chamber’s light flickered, its control broken, just enough.
And for the first time in a while, Cassie stood looking at her Chosen and felt fully seen, fully claimed, and very much not alone.
“Bloody hell it’s good to see your handsome face,” Cassie said as she stared at Trik.She didn’t move, not because she couldn’t but because for some reason all she wanted to do was stare at him.To take him in.It felt like months since she’d seen him, not just days.
“Elora,” Cush’s deep voice rumbled, drawing Cassie’s attention.The raw need in his eyes as he looked at her best friend was intense.
