Chapter 63
The world did not settle after they touched. It broke harder. The moment Ariana's hand locked with Kael's, the space around them lost what little balance it had left. The ground beneath their feet split wider, long cracks racing in every direction as if the place itself could no longer decide what it was supposed to be. The darkness that had once pressed in on Ariana pulled back in uneven waves, but it did not retreat in peace. It twisted, shattered, and reformed again and again, unstable and furious. For one strange second, the only thing that felt real was the contact between them. His hand was warm. Her fingers were shaking. The bond was gone, but something else moved between them now, rough and dangerous and alive in a way neither of them understood, like two storms colliding in the same sky and somehow holding.
