The binding was halfway complete when the ashes began to rise.
Selena felt the disturbance before she saw it a ripple in reality itself, a wrongness that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up even as she poured her essence into Dante, anchoring him, becoming his foundation. Through their deepening connection, she felt his alarm too, his instinctive awareness that something ancient and terrible was manifesting around them.
"Don't stop," Dante gasped, his hands gripping her arms. "Whatever's happening—don't stop the binding. If you stop now, before it's complete, we'll both be trapped in between. Vulnerable."
Selena nodded, maintaining her focus on the flow of essence between them, but her eyes tracked the disturbance spreading through the air around their stone ledge. The space was filling with dust—not ordinary dust, but something that glittered with an opalescent sheen, particles that seemed to catch light that didn't exist and refract it in colors that had no names.
