I release her, stepping between them. "The Rite requires three days in the fissure tombs. Designed to kill unbonded intruders."
"Designed to test," the leader counters.
Alana emerges from my shadow, salvaged blade in hand. She tests its balance with a surgeon's precision. "You realize I survive hostile environments for a living?"
"Not like this," I growl.
Her smirk cuts deeper than any blade. "Bets, Tarken? I'll take twenty-to-one odds on lasting four days."
The crowd erupts—coins clattering, voices overlapping. She's turned a death sentence into a gambling ring.
I cage her against the vibrating pillar. "This isn't a field triage."
Her palm splays over my chest, directly above the Jalshagar's burn. "And you're not just a chieftain. So lead with me, not around me."
The ground's hum shifts—deeper, resonant. Approval.
Elder Vekar slams his staff. "Enough! The human dies at dawn, or the southern clans withdraw protection."
Alana stills. "How many civilians in the southern sectors?"
"Twelve thousand," I grit out.
She nods, stepping into the open. "Schedule the Rite."
My hand whips out, catching her belt. "Alana?—"
"Trust your equal." Her voice drops, layered steel. "Or was that just pretty propaganda?"
The chamber holds its breath.
I yank her close, my forehead pressed to hers. Our shared light flares. "You come back."
"Or you'll storm the tombs shirtless and brooding?"
"With charts."
Her laughter ignites the resonance stones. The council recoils from the cascade of light.
I release her. "Bloodrite begins at dusk."
She saunters toward the exit, tossing Kevra's blade at his feet. "Sterilized. Wouldn't want foreign contaminants."
The city thrums with anticipation. Or maybe that's my own traitorous heart.
My hands are on her hips, the reinforced fabric of her gear digging into my palms. The city… it’s not just stabilizing. It’s responding.
The flickering panels overhead don’t just steady. They brighten, a warm, amber pulse that washes the sterile chamber in the color of a sunrise I haven’t seen in cycles. It’s the exact hue of the glow now burning under my own skin. The light doesn’t just illuminate; it seeks, flowing over the curves of Alana’s shoulders, catching the sheen of sweat on her temple.
A deep, resonant hum vibrates up through the floor plates. It travels through the soles of my boots, up my spine, and settles in my teeth. The network of pipes lining the wall begins to sing, a low, throbbing chorus that resonates in the hollow of my chest. It’s not machinery. It’s a heartbeat. Timberline’s heartbeat.
And it’s syncing with mine.
“Do you feel that?” My voice is rough, scraped raw by the energy coursing through me.
Alana’s breath hitches. Her hands, which had been fisted in my leathers, loosen. Her fingers spread wide over my chest, as if reading a new topography. “Vascular resonance. Neurological feedback loops. It’s… mapping us.”
Above us, the frantic holographic streams of crimson fault reports and gold energy flows don’t just organize. They dance. Red and gold ribbons weave together in complex, beautiful patterns, chasing each other in arcs that look less like system diagnostics and more like… entanglement.
