Chapter 65
The moment their hands met again, the world did not shake. It split cleanly, as if something deeper had been forced open instead of broken. A tear stretched between them, rising upward and dropping downward at the same time, and light burst through it, sharp and unfamiliar.
Ariana felt it first, a cold shock cutting through her chest and silencing everything inside her in an instant. The gold and the deeper current both stopped at once, not suppressed, but overridden by something that did not recognize them. Her breath caught as she tightened her grip on Kael's hand. "Kael…"
He felt it too, but differently. The storm inside him dropped instead of rising, leaving behind a hollow tension that made his chest feel tight and wrong. His lightning flickered unevenly along his arm as he stared at the tear. "What is this?"
