The knife went in and the world turned white.
Pain was too small a word. It was an ocean, a universe, an entire existence compressed into a single, shattering moment. The bond became a single, screaming nerve stretched between us, a thread of silver and fire that connected every wound, every heartbeat, every desperate breath. I felt the steel slide between Darius's ribs as if it had entered my own body. The sensation was so acute, so absolute, that for a moment I couldn't tell where his pain ended and mine began. We were one thing, shared and broken.
His knees buckled. Blood poured over his hand and down his side in a thick, dark sheet, soaking through his torn shirt and spreading across the stone floor. The silver thread that tied us pulled so tight I thought it would snap, a bowstring
