Caelan stared at correspondence he couldn't read. The words blurred together.
His chest felt tight.
Wrong. Something felt desperately wrong.
He pushed back from his desk too hard. Chair scraping against stone.
Hands shaking. When had they started shaking?
Window to door, door to window. His heart hammered for no reason he could name. Rain tapped against glass.
Couldn't breathe right.
The air tasted sharp.
Sweat beaded along his hairline despite the cool chamber.
The wrongness pressed against him. Urgent. Demanding. Screaming that somewhere, something terrible was happening and he was sitting here useless while...
While what?
He couldn't finish the thought. The unease wouldn't let him settle.
The horses moved down the rocky slope. Stones were slick from morning mist. Seraphina gripped the reins too tight, wanting to ride faster despite the danger.
Two hours to reach the trial location. The vision had shown her the exact route. But every delay made her feel like time was running out.
"My lady." Liora's voice carried careful neutrality. "Perhaps we should rest the horses."
"No." Magic sparked along Seraphina's fingertips, leaving scorch marks on leather. "We can't stop."
They'd been riding since dawn, following deer paths and smuggler tracks through territory no noble carriage could navigate. The abandoned campfire they'd passed an hour back still smoldered... recent enough to be concerning.
Liora's hand drifted toward her sword hilt. "I should have brought more guards."
"You brought enough." A lie. They both knew it.
The valley ahead looked wrong. Air wavered despite the cool morning. Miasma. Deadly if breathed directly.
"Cover your face," Liora commanded, wrapping cloth around her nose and mouth. "Hold your breath through the worst of it."
Seraphina obeyed, but the toxic air seemed to amplify her power instability. Magic crackled under her skin, seeking release she couldn't afford to give. Each spark made the horses more skittish.
They left the toxic area and found ancient oaks marked by claw scratches. Deep cuts. Recent.
Liora studied the damage with professional calculation. "Demon sign. Recent."
"How recent?"
"Days. Maybe hours."
The horses knew predators were nearby. Their ears kept moving, nervous. Demons had claimed this territory through violence.
What was I thinking? The realization hit Liora clearly as they moved between marked trees. Two women. Alone. Through terrain where armies fear to travel.
She cataloged their vulnerabilities with growing horror. One duchess whose magic sparked unpredictably. One bodyguard with a blade adequate for bandits but useless against demons. No backup if something went wrong. No one who knew their exact destination.
I let urgency override every protocol designed to keep her alive.
"There." Seraphina pointed ahead where familiar rock formations jutted from the hillside. "Crystalline Hollow."
The ancestral seat of House Celestine, before they'd been absorbed into D'Lorien holdings. Her mother's bloodline sanctuary, abandoned for two decades.
Steam rose from cracks in volcanic stone. The air smelled of sulfur and old magic.
Liora's tactical assessment reached devastating conclusion: If anything happens, I've failed in my most basic duty.
But they'd come too far to turn back.
The chamber entrance was carved from black stone embedded with crystalline formations that caught firelight. Heat rose from the floor while crystals pulsed with inner light. Channels cut through walls lined with gems that made looking at them difficult.
"Wait here," she told Liora. "The trial must be undertaken alone."
"My lady... "
"That's not negotiation." Authority hardened her voice. "Whatever happens, don't interfere."
The volcanic stone felt warm under her palms as she approached the center. Crystals hummed around her, responding to her fire-scars. The entire hollow hummed with magical energy that made her teeth ache.
She placed her hands on the carved focal point and opened herself to the trial.
Fire shot through the channels, amplified by crystal formations lining the walls. But not controlled flames... wild energy that fought her attempts to direct it. Her magic reached for the power and pulled back, creating feedback that made her teeth clench against pain.
The crystals around her flared brighter, responding to her instability. Their light became harsh, painful.
Focus. She pushed harder, trying to force the energies to harmonize.
The backlash knocked her backward. Fire moved wildly around her, no longer contained by the stone channels. Her soulfire responded by burning hotter.
Something was wrong. The trial wasn't accepting her efforts.
She tried again. The patterns carved in stone seemed simple enough... channel energy through specific pathways, maintain flow without disruption. Basic magical theory.
But her soulfire fought every attempt at control. Instead of flowing through the channels, it burst out in dangerous flares. The chamber amplified the chaos until flames hit the walls randomly.
Circuit incomplete.
The voice came from everywhere at once. Clinical. A figure materialized from the fire itself... humanoid but composed entirely of controlled flame.
"What circuit?" Seraphina gasped, struggling to contain her runaway magic.
Soulfire bonding incomplete. Both components required.
She understood immediately. The barriers she'd built against Caelan... they weren't just blocking emotional connection. They created spiritual problems the trial read as dishonesty.
"I can complete it alone." She pushed more power into the patterns, forcing her will against...
The backlash nearly killed her.
Fire burst from her skin, completely out of control. Her soulfire was seeking connection it couldn't find.
Barriers block bond. Trial rejects dishonesty.
"No." She tried to reinforce her barriers, to prove the entity wrong.
Her magic turned predator, consuming her life force. The crystals made it worse.
Wind pushed through the flames.
Caelan broke through barriers that should have been solid, arriving exactly as her control failed completely. The chaotic fire immediately began stabilizing around his presence.
"Seraphina!"
He reached her as she collapsed. The moment he touched her, the magical overload found its grounding point.
Guardian arrived. Protective, not controlling. Bond intact.
"What circuit?" Caelan demanded, wind magic wrapping protectively around them both.
Seraphina tried to protest, but she was too weak to maintain any pretense.
Deep contact required. Kiss completes circuit.
The fire-scars on her arms flared brighter, responding to the truth she'd fought so hard to deny. Through their compromised connection, she felt Caelan's overwhelming relief that she was alive, his terror at nearly losing her.
Caelan looked down at her with eyes that held everything she'd been too afraid to acknowledge. "Only if you're certain."
She was dying. Her magic was tearing itself apart. But more than that... she was tired of fighting what she felt.
"I'm certain."
He kissed her. The moment they connected, her soulfire found what it needed. Fire flowed through the stone channels properly, controlled and stable.
Heat returned to her body as their bond completed. The fire-scars that had spread across her skin during the crisis faded back to their normal patterns. The exhaustion from magical overload lifted. Her depleted strength came back through their connection. Most importantly, the power instability that had been worsening for days finally settled. Her magic felt controlled again.
The trial's patterns blazed with satisfied light.
First trial complete. Circuit stable.
When the fire died, Seraphina found herself in Caelan's arms in a chamber now marked with her success. She was alive. The trial was complete.
Her barriers were gone.
"You came," she whispered.
"I felt you… calling. Through everything you built to keep me out, I still... " His voice caught. "I still felt you."
She buried her face against his chest, too overwhelmed to maintain dignity. "It read my feelings like a book. A magical entity just announced my personal business to the universe."
A sound escaped him. Rough. Broken somewhere in the middle. "Apparently magical beings from the dawn of time... " His voice caught. "... have strong opinions about our emotional lives."
Despite everything, she found herself laughing. Shaky. Cracked at the edges. "I'm never living this down."
"Never," he agreed, the word ragged. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then found her lips again. Deeper this time. Urgent with everything they'd just discovered.
She responded without hesitation. Barriers finally gone.
When they broke apart, both breathless, the reminder of where they were crashed back. Liora waiting outside. An army positioned around the volcanic outcrop.
They helped each other stand. Magic was finally stable, barriers finally gone. Walking toward the chamber entrance, she felt better than she had in weeks.
Until they emerged to find armed men waiting in formation.
"Really?" Seraphina stared at the small army positioned around the volcanic outcrop. "A small army?"
Caelan had the grace to look slightly sheepish. "I felt something was wrong. I wasn't taking chances with your safety."
Liora appeared at her shoulder, practically sagging with relief. "Thank the gods. My lady, you have no idea how grateful I am to see proper security. The route back through bandit territory, the miasma zones, the demon sign... I've been terrified something would happen on the return journey."
"You were right to worry," Caelan said seriously. "This territory isn't safe for unescorted travel."
As they prepared to depart with their protective escort, Seraphina caught Caelan's arm. "How did you know to bring them?"
"The same instinct that told me you were in danger." He met her eyes with that new honesty between them. "I couldn't explain it, but I knew you'd need protection for more than just the trial itself."
She'd learned something important. Sometimes accepting help was better than insisting on dangerous independence. And some truths were worth the embarrassment of having them announced by ancient magical entities with no sense of privacy.
The first trial was complete. Her barriers were gone. For the first time since the regression, she had someone she could trust completely.
A sharp whistle echoed from the rocky outcrop above them. Coded signal from Caelan's advance scouts.
One of his men appeared at the chamber entrance. Face grim. "My lord. Fresh demon sign. Close."
The silence stretched too deep. Wrong.
Caelan's expression shifted. "How close?"
"The blood hasn't dried." The scout's voice carried the kind of fear that came from experience. "Something's been feeding. Recently."
Outside, the air had grown heavy. Oppressive. The miasma seemed thicker now, clinging.
Seraphina felt her newly stabilized magic respond to something lurking just beyond perception. Their magical resonance had drawn attention.
Something was out there.
Watching.
Waiting.
A howl would have been easier. This silence was worse.