Alistair POV
The wards weren't breaking.
I was.
My hands were already bleeding, knuckles torn open from striking the invisible barrier again and again, but I didn't feel the pain.
Only the absence.
Only the jagged, hollow panic tearing through my ribs with every second she was on the other side of this cursed wall.
"Sarafina!"
Her name tore from my throat. Raw. Uncontrolled.
The echo hit the ward and vanished like smoke.
Cassian was beside me, eyes narrowed, breath steady but shaking at the edges.
He wasn't shouting like I was.
But he was breaking too.
"Stop hitting it," Cassian said through clenched teeth. "The ward feeds off hostile force. You're making it stronger."
"Then help me collapse it," I seethed.
"I am helping….just not like a lunatic."
I shot him a glare sharp enough to cut stone.
He didn't flinch.
He never did.
