Page 79 of Zenith Tower

I knew that discipline. I knew what his father had built it to survive. Watching the Tower use it against him stripped the last of my caution away.

I reached for the unfinished line.

It did not open as Kieran’s had. No completed bond carried me into Hale’s Mark. I found only the connection already present between us, stretched thin beneath the reader’s hands.

I held it.

The cold stopped advancing.

Hale lifted his head sharply.

“What changed?” the reader asked.

Marrow looked at my hand closed over my wrist. “Separate them.”

The steward in front of me caught my shoulders and dragged me back from the table. The line thinned at once. Pain tore across Hale’s face before he forced it blank again.

Caspian moved. His steward drove him into the wall.

Kieran caught the man’s arm before he could pin Caspian there. A second steward seized Kieran from behind.

Both completed bonds struck through me, carrying their anger and the shock of bodies hitting stone. I kept my attention on Hale’s line.

“Astra.” Hale’s voice was rough. “Don’t pull.”

“I’m not.”

“Hold where you are.”

I did.

The line remained open between us, wounded by the distance but intact. I felt Hale find it from his side. He did not cross the threshold we had reached in his room. He braced himself against the connection and refused to let the reader strip it away.

Copper light surged backward through the leads.

The silver contacts flashed white. The reader snatched her hands from the plate with a cry. One lead sprang loose and struck the table, leaving a black mark on the stone.

Hale twisted his left hand, folding the thumb tight against his palm. The reader had left the strap looser than she intended. He had made certain of that when she fastened it.

His hand came free.

The steward holding me reached for my wrist.

Hale caught him across the table and pulled him forward. The man struck the stone hard enough to lose his grip. I tore away as Hale rose, the other strap still fastened around his right arm and the chair scraping behind him.

Another steward drew a baton.

Hale kicked the chair sideways. Still fastened to his right wrist, it swung low and struck the steward across the shins. The man’s knees folded, and the baton hit the floor. Kieran kicked it beneath the table before the steward restraining him could recover it.

Caspian turned into the man holding him, trapped thesteward’s wrist against his chest, and used the wall for leverage. The grip broke.

The room filled with boots scraping stone and bodies moving too close to the open water channel.

The reader backed against the wall, cradling one reddened hand. Marrow had not moved. His attention stayed on the line still burning between Hale and me.

The door opened.

“Enough.”