The room obeyed.
Liam barely had time to understand what he had said before Arik's ether broke loose.
Gold flooded the chamber.
Not the controlled sovereign glow Liam had watched spread across Nuria's hours earlier. This was denser, hotter, and stripped of every restraint Arik normally imposed on himself. It poured from him in waves and struck Liam's ether hard enough that the platform beneath them shuddered.
Violet answered.
The color spilled from Liam almost violently, threading through the gold instead of resisting it.
The black-glass walls cracked with light.
Arik went still above him.
His forehead pressed against Liam's shoulder, breath rough against overheated skin, while the ether surrounding them twisted tighter.
Liam felt it everywhere.
The sensation reached somewhere beneath flesh and bone, catching on something that had existed between them since Arik first marked him and had never quite settled correctly afterward.
The incomplete place.
Liam inhaled sharply.
