The real boon in all this.
The bond flares, suddenly enormous.
Earth surges up through our joined hands, through Alina’s body and back into mine, a circuit that makes my vision go white at the edges.
The zareth sears between us, not painful, but right.
Her back arches. She gasps.
I shift closer, half kneeling, half bracing her against my chest so the force doesn’t snap her fragile mortal spine.
“Dagan—” she chokes.
“I have you,” I rasp into her ear. “Let it move. We’ll shape it.”
Together, we shove.
The ground bucks like a living thing, furious at being denied its easy collapse.
Stone groans.
Layers grind.
The fissure stops widening.
Then, much to my shock, it closes—not entirely, but enough that the worst of the gap knits, the raw edges sealing in a rough, jagged seam.
Around the village, the earth heaves upward in a ring, forming a low wall of rock—a barrier to catch any falling debris.
The tremors taper off.
Slowly.
Reluctantly.
As if the evil driving them knows it is bested, yet doesn’t want to quit.
Then the Marches fall quiet.
My power gutters, leaving me breathless.
Alina sags back against me, trembling, sweat beading at her temples.
We stay like that for a long moment—hands pressed to the newly risen stone, hearts hammering in sync.
“My Lord, you did it,” Varen wheezes from somewhere behind us, awe thick in his voice. “You stopped it.”
“No,” I reply. “I didn’t do it.”
Alina whispers, staring at our joined hands, “We did.”
I can feel the zareth thrumming between us, stronger than it was before. Not a tentative tie, but a root driven deep into the bedrock of who we are.
I turn her gently in my arms.
She looks wrecked.
Beautiful.
