After exhausting all magical options to alleviate the symptoms, Auryn decided to return to her quarters. She couldn’t let anyone see her like this. Not so weak and vulnerable. Besides, she needed to prepare for the Grand Festival of Growth in the morning. There was too much to do. She couldn’t afford these kinds of delays.
I need to remind Kailorien not to be late. Not this time.
Stars help me—I can hardly think.
Somehow, between deciding to go to her room and stumbling around like a dizzy voidmoth in the corridors, she’d ambled into the Companions’ Hall. The crystal had turned from emerald to rose, gold and silver threads tracing ancient etchings that mirrored the Doctrine on the walls. Citrines and garnet crystals lined the floor and ceilings. The Polis light pulsed with a different kind of mana than the rest of the Jade Lattices.
A surge ran through her.
Fast. Heavy. Agonizing.
Like touching lightning with her bare hands. She nearly toppled sideways. Her thoughts swam. The world narrowed to breath.
Not hers.
His.
Kailorien’s.
It seared through her veins, a force tearing through skin, hot and thundering, soaked in hunger.
A pounding.
Not in herbody.
Drums.
Beating.
Beating.
Beating.
Not like the Reckoning.
Not like war.
Ritual. Ceremony.
Another surge paralyzed her. She stumbled forward, catching the edge of a marble column to keep from collapsing. Her thighs clenched of their own accord. Her pulse was a scream in her ears.
It washim.
Somewhere ahead.
Kailorien.
But this wasn’t like anything she’d felt before. Not a tide of desire. Not the steady yearning she’d grown used to. This was feral.Ravaging.The weight of his body pressed into hers. Hislust. Not for her. Not justwanting—
Consuming.
And then a voice.
“You look unwell, Sokâr.”
She turned, staring up into orbs of ice and apathy.
So like Kailorien’s.
