Theron felt the shift before he could understand it, subtle… but unmistakable.
The suffocating weight in his chest eased, just a fraction, and in its place came something else. Warmth. Faint, fragile… but alive.
She was safe.
At least for now.
He closed his eyes for the briefest moment, clinging to that sensation, and in that stillness he realized what had happened. A thread of his power—his lightning—had slipped through the rune he had carved for her, by instinct and need.
He had reached for her.
And somehow… he had touched her.
A quiet disbelief stirred within him. He had not transported himself but something far more essential. A fragment of what made him him. Enough to push back the darkness closing in on her.
Enough to protect her.
And now, in return, he could feel her.
Not clearly. Not fully.
But there… like the faint echo of a heartbeat against his own. For a single, fragile moment, everything else fell away.
Then…
