We don’t own tomorrow. Yet its stars beckon, waiting to be answered—a future asks now to be born by resilient resolve.
CHAPTER 28
TARKEN
The heat isn't in the air. It’s in my blood. It’s a second heartbeat, a thunder under my skin that matches the crimson pulse of the chamber walls. My armor feels like a cage. Every breath I take is fire.
She’s here. Solid. Real. The only anchor in this maelstrom.
I don’t ask. My hands find her waist, the reinforced fabric of her gear rough under my palms. I pull her back against the warm, glowing surface of the altar stone. It thrums against my knuckles.
“Tell me to stop.” The words are gravel, scraped from a place of raw need. It’s not a request. It’s a plea for a line I know she won’t draw.
Her eyes are wide, but not with fear. With recognition. Her breath hitches, a sharp, sweet sound in the thick air. “Would you listen?”
“No.”
A faint, breathless laugh escapes her. “Then don’t ask pointless questions.”
Her hands come up, not to push me away, but to grip the straining leather straps across my shoulders. Her fingers are strong. Sure. The contact is a circuit closing. The Jalshagar roarin my veins quiets, not to a silence, but to a directed hum. A purpose.
I lean in, my forehead touching hers. The glow from my eyes casts a gold light over her features. “This binds you. Here. To me. To Paragon. There is no walking away after this, Alana.”
“I turned my shuttle around. I walked into a collapsing city.” Her voice is low, steady, a bedrock beneath the ritual’s storm. “I think we’re past the warning labels, Tarken.”
A sound tears from my chest, half-growl, half-sigh. My control is a thread, and she holds the shears. I bury my face in the curve of her neck, breathing in her scent—sterile soap, ozone, and something uniquely, fundamentally her. It cuts through the ceremonial incense.
“My people call this a surrender,” I murmur against her skin, my lips brushing the rapid pulse there.
Her fingers thread into my hair, pulling just enough to bring my gaze back to hers. “What do you call it?”
The truth, stark and unavoidable, leaves me. “A choice.”
I seal the word by closing the distance, capturing her mouth with mine. It’s not gentle. It’s a claiming, an affirmation, a transfer of all the chaos inside me into a single, shared point of focus. She meets it, matches it, her own hunger a stunning echo. The altar stone glows brighter beneath us, the chamber walls pulsing in a slow, deep rhythm.
When we break apart, both gasping, she frames my face with her hands. Her thumbs trace the ridges of my ceremonial scars. “The city’s rhythm changed. Can you feel it?”
I can. The erratic, dying flutter is smoothing into a stronger, steadier beat. It’s syncing with ours.
The clearing’sancient stones vibrate under my boots as I step forward. Alana’s shoulder brushes mine—a silent counterpointto the riot in my veins. Her scent cuts through the metallic tang of hostile stares.
Council Elder Vekar’s voice rasps from the shadowed dais. “You spit on centuries of?—”
I unsheathe the resonance blade at my hip, its edge singing with the same amber light fracturing across my chest. The crowd stills. “Finished?”
Alana’s knuckles graze the small of my back. Not a plea. A reminder.
I pivot toward the southern clan’s contingent instead, their scaled armor rattling as I approach. “Three days ago, your irrigation grid failed.” My free hand drags across the holo-tablet on a nearby pillar, pulling up damage reports. The projection glitches, warping under the Jalshagar’s energy. “Her recalibrations saved your grain stores. Your children.”
A wiry hunter with clan markings etched in poison-green steps forward. “Human tricks don’t make her Baktu.”
Alana snorts. “Thank the stars for that. Your ceremonial leathers chafe like hell.”
Laughter explodes from the younger laborers near the rear. My lips twitch despite the tension.
I seize the moment, closing the distance between us. Her chin tilts up, unflinching, as my palm settles against the pulse racing under her jaw. “You want proof of her place here?” The words boom, raw and unchained. “She breathes life into stone your rituals starved. She argues with elders. She mocks my armor?—”
“It does chafe,” she mutters.
