He smiled, just slightly. “It will come with practice— the awareness — soon it will be second nature for you.”
Maris inhaled, closing her eyes and focusing on the power coursing through her.
Her magic surged again but this time, when it hit his body, it didn’t push him back. It wrapped around him like light made tangible, silver threads glowing across his chest, his throat — it slithered up his hands that rested on her shoulders. She gasped.
As she looked unto Alarik, his composer shattered. His eyes were wide, caught in the glow from her summons. His lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to speak and had forgotten how. Completely awestruck.
The room pulsed. For a suspended moment, it was like she was him, feeling his awe, his hesitation, his —
Desire.
Not lust. Not hunger.
But longing.
The gravity of the feeling caused her focus on the magic to dissipate, her threads of magic blinked out. Her cheeks burned.
The weight of her magic still lingered in the air, clinging to the corners of the chamber in aftershocks. Maris didn't speak — she didn't know where to begin. Even as her pulse slowed. She could still feel it,him,wrapped within her.
As she glanced up into his gaze, she found him already watching her.
"There's something I need to tell you," Alarik said softly.
"The first night," he whispered, "when I entered your dreams … it wasn't only your mind I touched." He hesitated, then continued, his voice hushed. "You were never meant to see my true form, it was too risky— with Kael knowing me, he could have easily found out about my meddling — had you told him what you saw. But as I tried to project a facade, you saw straight through it— you saw me. It caught me off guard and I ending up giving a part of myself to you."
Her breath caught but she didn't interrupt.
"You carry a sliver of my soul now. That's why you can sense me — and I can feel you, although distantly." He exhaled slowly, like confessing it cost him something.
"You shouldn't have been able to keep more than the spells price — a drop of ones soul to enter another —but I suspect with your goddess blessed magic it altered the spell."
He stepped forward then, just enough for the light reflecting from the sea below to catch the edge of sadness in his expression.
"You're the keeper of it, Maris. A piece of me lives in you now, and whether you want it or not… I'm bound to you."
His voice was edged with fragility. "I'm sorry it was more of an invasion that I ever meant, I never —"
"Can I give it back to you?" She asked raw and uncertain.
"No," he shook his head. "once given, it can't be returned without breaking us both."
She didn't speak. Just nodded once, because she didn't know how to unpack the bare truth he'd laid before her.
-Alarik-
Alarik could still feel the press of her power on his chest, the echo of it wrapped around his soul like a phantom heartbeat. His own magic had recoiled and embraced in the same breath. It didn’t fight her.
It recognized her.
Maris had stood at the center of the circle like she belonged to the very gods that had damned them. Her dark hair tumbled down her back in waves, slightly mussed from the exertion of magic. Her eyes, those green-silver eyes still burned with remnants of the power she’d unleashed.
She was beautiful.
Not in the same way as Elenwe, she—had been warm and golden.
Maris was made of starlight and steel. A porcelain blade.
Not only powerful. Not only rare.
