The world narrows.
For a heartbeat, I feel the fracture too—like a hairline crack in a tooth waiting for the right pressure to split it.
He murmurs words in his language, low and rough.
His power pours out, seeping into the rock, bracing it, weaving through whatever warding structure he’s crafted there over the years.
The fissure quiets.
But there’s an echo of pain.
“Only for a while,” I say quietly.
“Yes,” he agrees. “Only for a while. The SoulTakers press from below. Idris twists what should be simple seepage into something jagged and mean. We buy time. We do not yet win.”
We cross narrow bridges that span glowing ravines, the walls lined with roots pulsing faintly like capillaries.
Sometimes the light intensifies when we walk past, as if the land is blinking awake to look at us.
At one point, a group of younger farmers—teenagers, really—rush up with handfuls of mixed seeds cupped in their palms.
“Lord Dagan! Bless ours too!” one pants, sweating and grinning. “We’re planting the far terrace this season—first time on our own.”
The boldest of the girls looks at me.
“Milady,” she says shyly. “Will you touch them as well? They say you walked the fault in Stonebend and the earth sat quiet like a tamed dog.”
“I–” I blink. “Uh. Sure. I make no promises, but… yeah. Give ’em here.”
They giggle and huddle close as Dagan and I both place our hands over theirs.
He mutters something under his breath that sounds an awful lot like, “Tamed dog, indeed,” but his power rises and the ground thrums again, and for just a second, I swear I feel the seeds.
Tiny, dormant possibilities.
Waiting.
I let my thumb brush one, thinking please grow, please hold, please don’t fail them, and a warmth flares in my palm that’s not entirely his.
“All right,” I say, voice a little rough. “Go plant before your Lord changes his mind and demands a blood sacrifice.”
They squeal and scatter, and Dagan side-eyes me. “Blood sacrifice?”
“Relax, it’s a joke,” I say. “Mostly.”
He huffs out something that might be a laugh.
By the time we circle back toward the main road, my legs ache, my boots are dusty, and my brain is buzzing with everything I’ve seen and felt.
The Marches aren’t just land.
They’re a living system.
A whole body depending on this one very stubborn, very tired man to keep its bones from shattering.
And everywhere we go, people look at him like a mix of king, storm, and older brother.
Everywhere we go, people look at me like a question that might finally have an answer.
