Page 100 of Zenith Tower

His wrist turned until the two open ends rested together.

“So do I.”

Heat struck through my hand and caught beneath my ribs.

His fingers convulsed around mine. For an instant they began to loosen, the old reflex pulling him back toward concealment. I held his gaze and kept my hand where it was.

Suppression left him in jolts. Copper light pushed through one channel of his Mark, then another. Each release carried the pain in his arm, the sickening drop of fear, and underneath both, relief so sharp it hurt to feel.

His forehead came down against mine.

“Astra.”

My name shook in his mouth. I turned my wrist more firmly against his.

The copper light crossed the final gap.

It swept over our joined hands and climbed both our arms, hot enough to draw a gasp from me. Hale’s knees bent. I caught his shoulder, and his arm closed hard around my waist as we steadied each other beside the bed.

The bond opened through me in a rush of heat, bruised muscle, and the fierce attention that was unmistakably his. Fear came with it. So did the conscious release of the discipline he had used to contain it. He had not stripped anything away before letting me in.

The third bond settled beside the other two.

Caspian remained a cool marble steadiness at my wrist. Kieran’s green-gold line carried exhaustion, pain, and the relief of being back among us. Hale’s copper burned brighter than either, newly released and trembling with the effort of remaining open.

He buried his face against my neck.

For several breaths, neither of us spoke. His weight rested against me. I held the back of his head and felt the tremors move through him, weaker each time.

When he finally lifted his face, the strain had not vanished. He looked exhausted and startled, his mouthreddened from mine. His eyes stayed on mine without the guarded distance I had learned to expect.

I touched the line at his wrist.

It answered without retreating.

Before the third line closed, the power at my wrist had ended with Caspian and Kieran. Now the light continued past Hale’s line and warmed my fingertips, with no corresponding presence at its other end.

I could not feel the stewards beyond the door or the healer in the corridor. To understand what had changed, I would have to touch a Mark belonging to someone outside the bonds.

I closed my fingers before it could go farther.

Hale’s hand tightened at my waist. “Astra?”

Copper still filled every channel of Hale’s Mark. His muscles trembled, but the light no longer battered against the suppression he had released.

“What did you feel?” he asked.

Outside the room, the healer ordered the stewards away from Kieran’s door. The administrator answered someone at the junction.

“The power doesn’t stop with the three of you anymore,” I said.

Hale looked down at our joined wrists.

Three completed lines burned against my pulse.

Jonah

The new bond carried Astra back to me before her footsteps reached my door.