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He pauses near the ruined archway.
“This is not finished,” he says.
Corin’s voice answers beside me, low and calm. “No. It is documented.”
A ripple of grim satisfaction moves through the witnesses.
Vaerith’s eyes burn toward him, then toward me. “You have no idea what you have become.”
Corin’s hand tightens around mine, but his voice stays steady. “I know who I’m standing with.”
Vaerith disappears beneath the broken archway, escorted by fewer allies than he brought into the courtyard and watched by more enemies than he seems willing to count.
Only when he is gone do people begin breathing audibly again.
The city gathers itself around us.
From the trade hall steps to the courtyard rails, from the cracked estate walls to the rain-slick street beyond, faces turn toward Corin. They see the horns. The gold eyes. The power beneath his skin that no longer thrashes or spills. They see me beside him, hand in his, alive after Vaerith’s binding failed. They see the broken summoning circle, the dead devourer, the evidence packets, the council members withdrawing allegiance, and the estate wards collapsed into ash.
Hybrid evolution stands in front of them, undeniable and breathing.
Corin shifts closer to me. “You all right?”
I look at the ruined estate, then at the crowd, then at our joined hands.
“No,” I say softly. “But I am free.”
His expression changes, and the tenderness in it nearly hurts.
“Good start,” he says.
I laugh once, shaky and real. “That is an absurd understatement.”
“Trying to be tasteful.”
“Terrible fit.”
“Yeah, felt weird.”
Sable groans from behind us. “If you two are going to flirt in the ashes of a political catastrophe, can we at least move away from the smoking death circle?”
Syrenya’s voice follows, dry as old wine. “I second the motion.”
“Recorded” Orthel snorts.
The laugh that moves through the courtyard is exhausted, broken, and badly needed.
I keep hold of Corin’s hand as we step out of the ruined circle together. The watching city does not know what to make of us yet. Perhaps it will fear us. Perhaps it will try to use us. Perhaps tomorrow will bring tribunal summons, political bargains, and a hundred new dangers wearing cleaner clothes than Vaerith did tonight.
Tonight, the rain falls on a broken estate and a bond no longer hidden.
Tonight, the city watches us stand together.
And I let it.
31
CORIN
