Ronan did not sleep.
Neither did I.
We sat in the half-lit chamber carved into the stone, the air thick with power that refused to settle. Every time Ronan’s breathing slowed, the mark beneath his skin pulsed—once, twice—as if something beneath it was counting.
I kept my hand over his heart.
Not to restrain him.
To remind myself he was still him.
“You should rest,” Kaelith said quietly from the doorway.
“If I close my eyes, I won’t open them,” Ronan replied.
Not fear.
Certainty.
Ashael hovered near the far wall, form fractured, edges flickering like a flame in bad air. “The seeding is stabilizing,” it said. “Which is… alarming.”
“Define alarming,” I said.
“It means the entity recognizes him as compatible.”
My stomach twisted. “Compatible with what?”
Ashael didn’t answer immed
