Page 25 of Bonded By Stone & Blood

"I know." And I do. I know it in my head with perfect clarity. The distance isn't in my love for him. It's in me—in the architecture of whoever I'm becoming. "I know, Leif."

Neither of us says anything after that.

I leave with Father Corren's half-answer about Velka's hunting camp still in my ears, heading northeast through the pine-dark woods above the settlement. The cold is sharp enough to cut. I focus on that—the bite of it against my cheeks, the crunch of crusted snow beneath my boots.

The woods go silent before I hear her.

"You walk like you're already grieving." Flora steps out from between two snow-laden pines as if she materialized there, tall and elegant, her dark stone skin catching the winter light in fractured blue. Her wings are tucked tight. Her expression ispleasant, clean, and without warmth. "I almost feel sorry for you."

I stop. My hand doesn't go for Vorgrym's blade because I know that's exactly what she wants.

"Flora."

"I only want a conversation." She angles her head back. "Ask me what happens when a bonded Alpha loses his mate."

The air feels thinner suddenly.

"I don't need your lessons."

"You do, actually." She steps closer, unhurried. "When a gargoyle male bonds, his mate becomes part of how his power regulates itself. His corrupted earth magic anchors to her presence. Her heartbeat. Her heat." Her voice is almost kind.

"If she dies, that anchor severs. Violently. The magic doesn't mourn quietly, little human. It erupts."

I say nothing.

"Tovian's territory sits on the mountain directly above your valley," Flora continues. "His grief, uncontrolled, does not weep. It fractures stone. It pulls faults apart." She watches my face.

"I wonder if the people below have any idea that their lives are entirely dependent on you staying breathing."

She leaves without another word, her wings spreading once in the silent trees, and then she's gone.

I stay in the snow for too long. Then I turn back up the mountain.

I don't speak when I return to the caverns. I move through the great cavern with my eyes down, past Vorgrym's watchful stare, past the newly awakened warriors reorganizing equipment near the far columns. I find our private chamber and I sit on the far side of it, as far from his sleeping space as the walls allow, and I stare at my own hands.

The silver markings along my wrists look like cracks in porcelain.

He finds me within minutes.

Tovian fills the doorway the way weather fills a valley—completely, inevitably. He reads the room in one breath and his wings shift. A slow, almost involuntary adjustment, like a sail catching a wrong wind.

"You've been gone longer than necessary," he says.

"Supply runs take time."

He moves into the chamber. I stand and move to the stone table on the opposite side and begin sorting supplies I don't actually need to sort.

"Look at me."

"I'm busy."

A beat of silence. His claws drag once across the stone table.

"Sabine."

"Just—” The words get stuck in my throat. I keep my eyes on my hands. “Give me space, Tovian. Please."

The vibration in his chest deepens.