Page 93 of Zayrik
Gone.
Her scent was still in the air. Spice and metal and something else that had burrowed into my skin before I ever knew what she meant to me.
I bowed my head.
Let the silence stretch.
Let it press in around me.
The rage was still there, coiled under my skin. Twitching in my fingers, ready to break.
Ready to destroy.
But this moment?
This was for her.
For us.
For everything we’d barely begun.
I reached into my pocket and drew out the crystal.
The last thing she gave me.
Her final act of faith.
Still impossibly light for something that carried the heaviness of her goodbye.
She’d handed it to me like it was nothing.
Like she was already preparing not to survive.
Like she’d known this moment was coming.
I closed my fingers around it.
Tight.
So tight it might crack if I weren’t careful.
But it didn’t break.
Just like she wouldn’t break.
Just like we wouldn’t break.
“No more running,” I murmured to the empty room.
Not a promise.
A vow.
Written in blood and bone and the bond that bound us together.
Through our bond, I pushed everything I felt, my determination, my rage, my love... hoping she could feel it. Hoping she knew I’d come for her.
That I wouldn’t abandon her.
