The strain radiated through their connection. She felt him pouring massive strength into maintaining everything at once.
But she couldn't think about that. Her hands flew across the components, making adjustments she barely registered consciously. Training and instinct taking over where thought was too slow. Realigning energy flows. Redirecting the surge. Sealing the cracks with pure force of will and whatever she could channel into the crystal.
The fragment she was holding cracked further. A shard broke off, slicing across her palm. Blood welled, hot and bright.
She hissed but didn't let go. Couldn't let go.
Then his power flowed more firmly through their connection, supporting her grip, sharing the burden.
That helped more than it should.
Together, they forced the energy required into the mechanism, channeling it back into alignment. Her hands and his power, her instinct and his control, working in perfect synchronization.
The repair took minutes that felt like hours. Every second a battle against the destabilizing forces trying to tear everything apart. Her hand burned where the crystal had cut her. But gradually, painfully, the chaos began to settle.
The sickly yellow light shifted to pure, clean blue. Reality settled. The floating stones touched land, and the water flow straightened into its usual pattern. The crystal fragments lockedinto place with a resonant chime that echoed across the entire sector.
And the dead, no longer drawn by the destabilizing magic, began to drift back toward their assigned zones. Their forms faded from distinct figures into peripheral shadows, then into nothing more than weight on the air.
Still there. Still suffering. Just contained again.
Her chest ached with more than exhaustion.
When it locked into place, her legs went weak. His shadows caught her before she could stumble, supporting her weight.
"Is it holding?" she managed, the words slurring slightly.
"For now." His shadows carefully wrapped her injured hand, applying pressure through the cloth strips he'd torn from his own sleeve. His hands didn’t shake, but his jaw was clenched. "That was reckless."
She tried for a smile. It probably looked terrible. "But it worked."
His dark eyes flared with silver at the edges for an instant before he looked away. "This was the fourth failure this week. They're accelerating."
Fourth. In one week.
She looked at the now-stable spire, then at the landscape around them. The doorways had stopped flickering. The memorial stones no longer pulsed. The willow branches hung motionless.
But she could still feel them—the Forsaken. Watching from just beyond perception, waiting in their eternal torment, their need a constant weight on the air.
"How much time do we have before they overwhelm our ability to repair them?" she asked, though part of her didn't want to know the answer.
His shadows shifted restlessly at his shoulders. Agitated. Worried in a way she'd rarely seen.
"Not long enough."
XXV.
BRYNN
The transport circle deposited them back in the castle's east wing with the same disorienting lurch that had carried them to the failure site. Brynn's boots hit stone, and her knees nearly buckled.
She caught herself against the wall, willing her legs to hold. The magical work had drained more than physical strength. Left her feeling hollowed out, scraped clean.
Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"Steady." Dante's voice came from too close, and she looked up to find him watching her with an intensity that made her pulse jump.
His shadows were already coiling around her elbow, supporting without quite touching. Cool and solid, sending a shiver through her.
