Page 121 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

Martar smirked. “You consummated the Claiming.”

Zarek tossed back his drink and said nothing. He could blame the Claiming, which could be partially true. But he’d wanted it just as much, and he wasn’t a man who lied to himself. Not when being with that someone felt too damned good to be a curse.

Martar laughed loud enough that two men at the far end of the bar glanced over, then thought better of it. “About time.” He clapped a hand on Zarek’s shoulder. “Didn’t burn her?”

“No.”

“Didn’t send her mad?”

“No.” The corner of his mouth moved despite himself. “Although Angela drives me a little crazy, so perhaps we’re even.”

“Then you understand it now, what the Claiming actually is.”

Zarek turned his glass on the countertop. The Claiming wasn’t madness. It was magick recognizing magick while dragging their hearts behind them until they caught up. Standing here now, in a quiet bar in the human realm, he understood it the way you only understood something after it had already happened to you.

He just had to wait for her to catch up now. Which wasn’t going to be easy considering… He picked up his glass.

“You know what this means,” Martar said quietly, after the barman was out of earshot. “The Accords—”

“I know.”

“Gellar will—”

“I know.”

“Zarek—”

“I know.” He set his glass down hard on the counter. “And I’d do it again.” Without hesitation. Even though he’d tried to push her away with his speech on the Claiming this morning, she was right; that was between him and her. As for the rest of them, the Council, the Accords, they could burn.

Martar studied him for a long moment in the way he rarely did—without the grin that was all part of his act. “Three centuries, and it took a mortal woman from another realm to help you break them.”

“Apparently so.”

“She must be terrifying.”

“Completely.”

Together, they leaned forward, resting their forearms on the bar, shoulders close, keeping their voices low.

“The dreamscape,” Zarek said, “if it gives us answers, if we can establish what she has, it’ll change everything with the Continuum Council.”

“Because if they come for her—”

“We know they’re coming.”

“—and if she faces their test—”

“She’ll fail them all.” Zarek dragged a gloved hand through his hair. “She’s immune to all our magics. And with no detectable lineage of who she inherited her magickal traits from, the Council will see Angela as a mortal. And if they rule her as mortal—”

He didn’t finish.

They both knew what came next; even though they had the Variance from the ancestors, what he’d done last night made it worse.

“If the dreamscape shows us what she carries,” Martar said carefully, “we can use it.”

“Against Katara to end the war.” Zarek understood the plan. But now, knowing her…

“It’s what we all want, brother.”