Page 253 of Scarlet Wars
They fought, swirling, snapping, testing each other like two storms meeting.
Then, slowly, impossibly, beautifully, they twisted.
Red and blue spiraled together, tendrils weaving into one another, curling upward in thick, luminous streams. The colors wrapped around us, circling our bodies in widening loops until they formed a perfect, glowing horizontal eight—an infinite loop of scarlet and cerulean—shimmering and alive and pulsing with heat and power.
The snow melted where the haze touched it.
The air warmed. Magic filled my lungs like breath.
The symbol of a True Bond surrounded us, cocooned us, sealed us inside a world of blinding color and humming power.
Through the Nexus, the High Chief leaned in.
Nino’s eyes widened.
Even Saoirse’s executioner froze.
James’s haze brushed against mine—gentle, grounding, impossibly steady—and in the swirling light, I felt the truth of his intent, felt it pulse straight into my chest:
You’re not trapped.
We’re in this together. And you’ll get us out of it.
And then—exactly like Julian’s voice once had—James’s actual voice rang clear and quiet in my mind, slipping seamlessly through the magic tether between us.
“Don’t panic. We have a few minutes. They’ll test us, we’ll pass with flying colors, and then you’ll undo the bond with your healing haze.”
That was it.
The True Bond had settled.
It was done.
“Well, well,” the High Chief drawled, sounding far too pleased for a man who’d orchestrated murder. “I am glad rational thinking prevailed tonight. Now, Mister Walker, if you’d be so kind. We sent you something through your Nexus. Don’t say it out loud; shoot it through the bond, and we’ll hear from Ms. Thompson what it is.”
James’s cerulean haze tightened around him like a coil. “After which you’ll let Nino go.”
The High Chief nodded, self-satisfied to the point of nausea. “Ms. Ramos has nothing to fear from us again, if you prove the existence of the bond.”
James didn’t move.
Not a twitch. Not a single sign to the Chiefs that anything was happening at all.
But I felt it.
A subtle shift in the air between us, like the magic surrounding my ribs drew in a breath of its own, and then something warm pressed against the inside of my mind: his presence, his intention focused.
“Coming to you,”he murmured through the bond, the words brushing along the edges of my consciousness like fingertips on glass.
I braced myself.
Then a pulse hit.
Not physical. Not magical in the way haze was. But a thought—wrapped in his magic, shaped by his will—shot straightthrough the bond and struck the center of my mind with a soft, ringing clarity.
It wasn’t words so much as an image.
A single, crystal clear impression.
