“I am sorry for leaving,” he whispered, gently pulling away from me.
I looked up at him, trying to restrain the tears that threatened to fall.
“We will talk later,” he said, releasing me.
“I’m not leaving,” I said firmly, glancing at Ash.
He was watching us intently with a mixture of surprise and concern. He nodded, indicating for me to stay. I breathed in relief, staying near Blake.
I nodded, and he turned to Roslyn and Ash, who were still seated but watching Blake with a grim alertness in their stoic expressions.
“How are you?” Roslyn asked quietly.
Blake sat down opposite them. I slowly backed up and sat in the armchair, but on the edge, watching him carefully.
“I have not awakened the blood affinity,” he said.
There was a noticeable decline in tension after that. It was like there was oxygen in the air again.
“But I can feel it calling to me,” he said softly.
Pain knotted in my chest. Calling to him? What did that mean?
Ash and Blake were locked in an intense moment, a weight bearing down on them with Blake’s admission.
“I’m more aware of its existence now, when I was not before,” he said. “Of the potential there is in taking someone’s life essence.”
Everything was tearing at whatever hope I still had that everything would be okay. What was life essence? A euphemism for blood? And aware? What did that mean? How could you suddenly become aware of that? I didn’t ask, not sure I wanted to know the answer, and Roslyn and Ash shared a nervous glance.
They knew.
Roslyn shifted and took a deep breath.
“Did you see Grandmother?” she asked.
Blake nodded. “There is a tear in the sky—near the Void.”
“What?” Ash exclaimed.
Blake sat still; stiller than I’d ever seen anyone.
“It is small, but it is pulling the Realm into it, slowly,” he said. “It is ‘irreparable’.”
“But how?” Ash asked. “What has been done to patch it?”
“Everything.”
An ominous cloud of disbelief settled over us.
“I saw it myself,” Blake said. “Everyone is involved. It absorbed the everi used to attempt to mend the split in the protective layer around the Realm. It will only spread. For now, special teams from all the relevant guilds are assigned there to contain it.”
Roslyn was crestfallen, and Blake looked at her like he had caused it. His eyes were misted over, his brows furrowed.
“I will help you, Roslyn,” he said. “I did not take you seriously before, but I will now.”
Her features lifted, her shock evident. Ash surveyed her with interest, watching her reaction. A tear slipped down her cheek that she quickly wiped away, and she gave Blake a quick nod.
“Good,” she said, a small, but genuine smile crossing her lips.
