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At least Brand was safe beside her when she burst into angry tears this time. His Imperial Sovereign parents were nowhere to be seen, thank the Sisters. And she resisted the urge to release her power and sweep everyone across the room in a wailing fit of hurt and rage.

Progress is good.

It was something, anyway.

Until everything came rushing back and Lunara realized where she was.

On a cry, she scrambled across the bed to Brand, her hands moving frantically, clumsily, over his supine body as she checked for any and every thing. His coloring, breathing, warmth. Whatever she could find to help dislodge the panicked knot behind her ribcage.

Prismatic threads of power flowed from her fingertips, dancing across him and⁠—

Shitting stars and arses. What…the…?

Instead of gently sinking, her magic was yanked inside. The light pulsed and jerked as it disappeared into his skin, like he was greedy for the life she had to offer.

Lunara pushed deeper, searching for whatever injury caused that reaction, and was met with a monolith of churning pitch within him. It stretched up and out, as far as she could perceive. Loomed ever closer. Roared ever louder.

Not quite like the wall in Fern’s mind.

Not quite like the chasms’ black, roiling ooze.

Not quite like the starving shadows that eventually consumed his aunt, Meliora—Thad’s mother and Caius’s blessed mate, and the only reason Lunara had even ended up in Brand’s orbit at all.

And yet, it was exactly all of them, thrown together as one, staggering, hideous thing.

Claws sank into Lunara’s shoulders, muffled screams accompanying their pull. She fought them with fang and fist as they dragged her away from Brand. From the infinitesimal dot of golden light in the black—the one that f-felt like…

Oh Sisters, no.

A snap and fall, the connection dissipating, and Lunara found herself staring up at the wretched glass dome of their tower chamber.

Turned out, the screams were her own.

She wanted to claw every one of them back into her lungs when they died on the dregs of her breath, the ragged, final note stealing something vital from her—a robbery of hope that left her raw. Broken.

No. No breaking. He needs you.

“Sisters’ fucking tits, Sorcerit,” a low, familiar voice groaned. “Try at least sitting upright before you get yourself into trouble next time.”

Lunara ignored Hedda’s scolding and tore herself from the mattress, kneeling over Brand again.

No power. That was a mistake.

She was well aware.

“Please, please, please…” She planted her ear on his chest, needing to hear the beat of his heart as she tried again and again to locate that fated, starlit path between them. The one that tethered her moonlight prisms to his golden sunbeams. The one that should’ve led straight from her soul to his.

The one that felt like nothing.

That panicked knot behind her ribcage wasn’t a knot at all. It was a yawning void.

There were no words that could describe the sound that left her as she gathered Brand up, cradling his head. She didn’t feel the sharp stab of his horns as she rocked him. Didn’t taste the salt of her tears as they flowed freely into his auburn waves. Didn’t hear anything but the steady thump of life in his veins.

He’s safe. He’s alive. And so are you.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, as much to convince herself as to let him know. “It’s going to be okay, Brand. I’m still here. I’m right here.”

Fuck the bond. Lunara was stronger. She’d hold onto him her own damned self.