The moment something inside me shut down, I felt something else wake up in its place.
The silence that followed was not empty, and it was not peaceful, because the instant the bond snapped to stop me, part of my awareness went still in a way that felt forced, like a door closing from the outside.
My chest tightened as awareness returned, not fully, not in the same shape as before, but different, sharper, cleaner, as if something that had been buried beneath layers of influence had just been pushed forward by force.
The bond did not disappear. But it loosened. Kael stepped forward immediately, his presence striking against the shift, not violently, but with precision, as if he had felt the exact moment something slipped beyond his reach.
“Aria,” he said. My name landed harder this time.
