“You don’t have tolikelogistics,” I say. “But you do have to take part. You can’t just drift off and pretend this is my responsibility.”
He doesn’t answer.
But his silence isn’t a refusal.
It’s distance.
And it’s something I can’t let stand.
There’s a tightening in my chest — something low and stubborn and uncomfortably familiar.
Something that clutches at the back of my throat like a name I’m afraid to speak.
It doesn’t make sense.
Not logically.
Not strategically.
And yet — beneath every nerve ending — I canfeelit.
A pull.
A strain.
An invisible cord wrapped around our shadows and tugging hard.
I know enough to recognize this:
It’s the bond.
Thejalshagar.
And it’s immense now — insistent, intrusive, hard like an echo beneath skin.
I glance at Vrok — standing there, stone-faced and distant — and flinch at how clearly I can feel something stirring between us.
A bond strengthening, pushing, tightening…
And I still have no idea why.
No explanation.
No context.
Just a sensation — persistent and strange — like the pull of gravity on a body already in freefall.
I close my eyes for a brief second — breathing shallow, heart caught somewhere between fear and fascination.
And when I open them again, Vrok is watching me.
Not looking away.
Just watching.
And that’s when I know:
This burden I’m carrying?
