The morning rose without warmth.
Light slanted through the branches above, painting pale gold across the blackened soil. The fire had burned low in the night, nothing left now but a thin line of smoke curling up from the embers. I stirred before the others, not because I lacked sleep, but because the Core inside me thrummed with steady insistence, a presence that no longer slept at all.
My body felt sharp.
I felt stronger than I was the day before. My body was more responsive. Power no longer surged in me, it coiled. Tamed only by the edge of my will. My fingers flexed in the chill, and the flame obeyed without resistance. A flicker over my knuckles, a suggestion of what still lay dormant under my skin. I was in control.
Riven moved behind me.
She was keeping her distance. But she was just near enough that her breath stirred the air I was already breathing. I didn't turn toward her. I didn't ask how she had slept. That kind of softness no longer suited me. Instead, I watched her through the edge of my vision, her cloak drawn tight across her frame, her movements as quiet as her silence.
She hadn't spoken to me since the clearing. Not truly. She only spoke when she was obliged to.
The tether between us still existed, but it moved differently now. Her presence used to hum with closeness, with pressure and heat. Now it only brushed against the edges of mine, like a hand held out but no longer reaching.
I rose and stretched slowly, letting the weight of my body settle into the earth beneath me. I didn't bother hiding the satisfaction that curved across my face. Power like this deserved recognition, even if only from myself.
Behind me, Riven adjusted her pack.
She didn't ask where we were going. Sylri was already a few paces ahead, her posture rigid, her blade slung over her back with effortless authority. She hadn't waited. She had only said we would move north, and then she had begun walking.
I didn't follow her immediately.
Instead, I turned toward Riven.
"You ready to move?" I asked.
Her gaze met mine for only a second. Then she looked away. Her answer came without emotion. "I am always ready."
I almost told her that wasn't what I had asked. But I didn't. I just studied her for a breath longer, then turned and walked after Sylri, knowing she would come.
Knowing she always had.
But when I heard her footsteps behind me, slower than usual, I realized the gap between us was no longer about distance.
It was something else.
Sylri didn't say a word as we followed the slope of the hill, her boots crunching over brittle leaves and charred roots. She walked like a soldier, sharp and steady, her path unshaken by terrain or silence. She never looked back to see if we followed. She already knew we were.
I didn't mind that. Her confidence didn't threaten me. If anything, it made me walk taller.
The Core pulsed faintly in my chest. It wasn't urgent, it was just aware. It tracked the two women beside me in separate rhythms. Sylri's presence came like the edge of a blade—cool, unyielding, predictable in its precision. Riven's was different, withdrawn. But I still felt her.
Even when she tried to dull the bond, she couldn't sever it.
We hiked through the thinning trees for hours. The trail narrowed until it twisted between boulders and ancient roots, the forest giving way to harder terrain. Wind pressed through the pass, cold and sharp, and the elevation shifted just enough that our breath grew heavier with the climb.
At the next ridge, Sylri finally slowed. She turned her head just slightly, her voice low.
"We make camp at the cliff's edge. It's high ground. Watchpoints in every direction.''
Then she kept on walking.
Riven said nothing. Neither did I.
But when the forest opened up to the overlook, it took even my breath for a moment.
The world spread wide below us. Valleys coiled in shadow, distant rivers gleaming in fractured light, and far to the east, the shimmer of something unfamiliar rising beyond the horizon. It looked like power.
It looked like a promise.
Sylri knelt and began setting her gear without delay. She didn't glance at either of us. Her decisions were not open to debate.
I watched her work and walked a few steps toward the cliff's edge.
The wind hit me full in the chest, cold and commanding, like the sky itself was testing me. I stood there a moment, letting it carry across my face, and I felt something harden inside me again. It wasn't regret more like clarity.
Footsteps approached behind me. They were light and controlled. It hard to be Riven.
She stopped beside me but didn't speak. Her cloak flapped around her legs. Her face remained turned to the wind.
I didn't look at her either.
"You can't ignore the Core," I said quietly. "It lives in both of us now."
"I'm not ignoring it."
"Then what are you doing?"
Her silence lingered long enough that I thought she wouldn't answer. But then she did.
"I'm remembering what it felt like before it was shared, before you wanted more power."
I turned toward her.
And for the first time since Sylri, she looked at me without flinching.
There was pain in her eyes. But it was buried deep, locked behind a wall of something older. Something stronger. Her jaw didn't shake. Her breath didn't falter.
But her tether… it tugged.
Then she stepped forward, almost without thinking, and placed her hand against my chest. The mark burned beneath her touch.
I covered her hand with mine.
Neither of us spoke.
And then she leaned in and kissed me.
Not because the Core demanded it. Not because we needed to feed the bond. But because something in her still wanted me.
Her mouth moved against mine slowly, almost reverently, like she had already decided it would be the last time. Her fingers curled in the front of my shirt. My other hand slid up her waist. I pulled her in deepening the kiss.
For a moment, there was no second bond. No fracture. No hunger. Just the echo of what we had first built, raw and uncertain, in the dark of the cave.
But then she pulled away.
Her lips left mine. Her hand dropped from my chest. And when I opened my eyes, hers were already turning back toward the camp.
"I should sharpen my blade," she said.
I didn't stop her.
And I didn't apologize.
Because whatever softness remained between us, I had chosen something else.
And the Core had already decided the path we would walk and I let her go.
Her steps were steady, her back unbent, but I saw the way her fingers fidgeted as she walked, tugging once at the strap of her cloak like she needed something to ground her. That kiss had unsettled her. Maybe even more than it had unsettled me.
But I didn't follow her.
I turned back toward the overlook, the valley stretching endlessly beneath me. Somewhere out there, more threads waited. More power. More bonds. The Core pulsed with that same silent promise, ever eager, ever forward.
I let my eyes drift back to Sylri.
She had already finished setting her space. She sat now beside the low fire she'd built without asking for help. Her hands moved with ritualistic efficiency, sharpening her blade with slow, clean strokes. She didn't look up as I approached.
"You watch people like you're measuring where to cut," I said.
Sylri answered without looking up. "And you act like you already know what the blade will find."
"Maybe I do."
She glanced up then. Her expression didn't shift much, but her gaze held something different this time. Not softness. Never that. But a kind of acknowledgment.
"You're getting cocky."
"I've earned it."
"Arrogance isn't the same as strength."
I dropped to a crouch beside her and let the firelight catch my face. "No. But it feels a hell of a lot better."
Sylri smirked faintly, then went back to her blade.
"The Core favors drive. It doesn't care how you soothe your conscience."
"I'm not soothing anything."
"Not yet," she said. "But you will. Eventually."
Her tone made it sound like a certainty.
I watched the edge of her dagger glint in the firelight. Her fingers never faltered. Her movements never slowed. Everything about her was deliberate, just like her bond. Cold, capable, unflinching.
"You've done this before," I said. "Bonded. Fought. Watched things fall apart."
Sylri paused for the first time.
"Yes."
"How many?"
She looked up.
"I don't keep count."
I narrowed my eyes slightly. "But you remember them."
"I remember what they gave me."
"And what did you give them?"
She didn't answer right away. The silence stretched. Then she spoke, quiet and sure.
"Clarity."
I didn't press her. The Core pulsed again between us, steadier now. It was hungry for more, but not aching. Thread Two was solid. My body felt it. The added strength in my limbs, the way fire clung to my thoughts without needing to be summoned.
And yet, Thread One pulsed differently. It was faint.
The ache from Riven's tether had softened, but not healed. It hovered like something waiting to break further.
I stood and looked back toward the tree line where she had gone.
Sylri's voice drifted up behind me.
"She will either keep walking or she won't. The Core doesn't care about emotion. It only rewards purpose."
I didn't respond. I wasn't ready to hear that again.
Because something inside me , the part that hadn't yet been drowned in fire, still did care about Riven.
We left at first light.
Sylri took the lead, silent and precise. Her steps cut clean through the underbrush, and the path behind her always seemed just a little clearer than it had before. Her blade rested across her back again, but she never reached for it. Her presence alone was its own kind of weapon.
I followed a few paces behind her, my body humming with the Core's energy. It moved through me like a second pulse, threading fire into my limbs with every step. I felt strong. Capable and untouchable.
And still, behind that strength, the weight of Riven's absence pressed into me like a shadow that refused to fall away.
She didn't catch up right away. The forest closed around us for a stretch.
Then I heard her boots behind mine. Light as always. She didn't speak as she approached. She didn't meet my eyes when she passed into view again. But she came.
Riven walked a step behind me, quiet and watchful. Her cloak drawn tightly around her, her posture unreadable. The curve of her mouth was still. Her gaze stayed ahead.
But I felt her.
The tether between us hadn't broken. It might have been strained, thinned, retreated but it was still there. Faint. Beating like a second rhythm behind my own. I didn't reach for it. I didn't speak her name. I just let it be what it was.
We climbed toward the ridgeline as the day lengthened. The cliffs grew sharper. The trees thinned. The wind began to cut harder across the path. Sylri didn't glance back at all. Riven didn't fall behind again.
When we finally reached the overlook, the valley spilled out beneath us wide and vast, dotted with the remnants of ancient battlements and forgotten ruins. Somewhere out there, the northern outpost waited.
I stood at the edge of the ridge and looked out, the wind pressing against my back, the Core steady in my chest.
Behind me, two women walked the same path, one bound to me in silence, the other by strength. Each one pulsed through my body in a different rhythm. Each one had given me something I hadn't earned.
And all I could think about now was what it would cost to keep it.
Because the Core didn't promise peace. It promised power.
And I was starting to understand the difference.