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“I have it.”
“Hold it. Do not pull yet.”
“You’re bossing me through soul combat.”
“Yes.”
“This relationship has a theme.”
“Stop talking.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I tap once against his sternum with two fingers, then press flat again, sending another pulse of stabilizing energy into the channel. Corin’s power answers mine in a deep surge that makes the bond blaze. The devourer’s root tightens between them, stretched through the torn veil, the summoning circle, and the fracture it opened inside Corin’s core.
Vaerith sees the creature fragmenting.
His face changes.
“No,” he says.
The word is small against the storm, but I hear it because I am listening for him. I turn my head just enough to see him step toward the circle, one hand raised toward a remaining control mark near the dais.
Syrenya moves faster.
She flicks a slender blade from inside her sleeve and drives it through the glowing control mark at his feet. The rune spits red light and dies under the steel.
Vaerith whirls on her.
Syrenya smiles, rain dripping from her chin. “Terrible workmanship. You should complain to your ritual architect.”
Lady Othrel’s cane cracks against another exposed mark near the rail. “I have found three more fraudulent conduits.”
Kairven’s nephew shouts to the clerks, “Record every visible line! Now!”
The crowd is watching.
That matters.
Through panic, wind, and the devourer’s scream, they are watching Corin stand under the force of a creature that could hollow them all out, and they are watching him master the energy instead of scattering it through their bodies. They see the fire around him follow the path of the attack. They see my hands on his chest, his restraint, the devourer cracking from within the channel he controls.
A human clerk near the witness rail whispers, “He’s holding it.”
Someone else says, “He’s turning it back.”
The words spread.
Corin hears them.
The bond shakes once, not from hunger, but from the force of being seen differently when he expected only fear.
I press my palms harder to his chest. “Stay with me.”
His eyes lower to mine. “I’m here.”
“Yes,” I say, and my voice trembles only slightly. “You are.”
The devourer tries one final surge through the tether.
