The cold iron made the bond feel like it was being pulled through broken glass.
I sat with my back against the stone and breathed through the constant tear in my chest. Every hour that passed stretched the connection thinner, the silver thread fraying at the edges like a rope under too much weight. Somewhere on the northern side of the palace Darius was enduring the same. We had stopped trying to send full thoughts. Short pulses were all the distance and the iron allowed.
Alive.
Still breathing.
Midnight.
The torch beyond the bars burned lower. I had no way to track time except the slow change in the quality of the dark and the steady worsening of the pull. When the strain reached a point that made my vision blur at the edges, I knew the hour was close. The bond was screaming now, a c
