The moment the bond tried to silence him, I understood that the truth he carried was never meant to survive exposure.
The force within it surged with a violence that no longer resembled control or balance, but something far more desperate, as though the very structure that had governed us until now was reacting to a breach it could not allow.
Kael did not step back, and that decision alone shifted the balance in a way that could not be undone. His posture sharpened, his presence tightening not in dominance, but in resistance, as though for the first time he was no longer standing within the authority of the bond, but against it.
The reaction was immediate. The bond surged harder. The pressure intensified, pressing through both of us with a force that demanded silence, that demanded obed
