The Ember Vein, The Broken Plains
The tunnels release me reluctantly.
Heat still clings to my skin as I ascend, The Ember Vein’s glow fading behind me, replaced by cooler stone and the distant hush of the surface wards.
Dagan remains below—his presence anchoring the earth, his power folded into the rock like a living seal.
He is steady.
He is patient.
I am neither.
Every step upward tightens something in my chest.
The farther I move from the Vein, the stronger the pull becomes—hot, insistent, alive.
Not duty. Not the realm.
Her.
My Shula.
Something happened while I was below.
I feel it now with frightening clarity.
The bond hums where it once whispered, stretching through me like molten thread wrapped around bone.
It is not fading with distance. It is growing.
That should not be possible.
This was meant to be strategy.
A necessary deception.
A means to an end.
We spoke the vows, sealed the Rite, took the Fates at their own crooked game.
The zareth should be contained—functional. Controlled.
And yet—no.
This is different.
This is hunger layered with awe. Need braided with fear.
I want to see her. To smell her.
To put my hands on her just to reassure myself she is real and not something the fire has conjured to torment me.
I want to hold her.
To revel in her most sacred embrace.
The thought hits me so hard I stumble.
