Chapter 40

The old building held its breath. Dust floated like ash in the last light, curling through the shattered window and catching gold as the sun slipped beneath the horizon. I sat cross-legged on the floor, the stone disk in my hands, cradled like something fragile. It vibrated faintly against my palms—too soft to hear, but deep enough to feel, like a second heartbeat buried beneath my own.

Across the room, Kael hadn’t moved. He stood near the window, half in shadow, watching the world beyond like it was about to change—and maybe it was. His expression was carved from stone, but I knew better than to be fooled by stillness. He didn’t need to speak for me to know he felt it too.

Something had shifted. The sigil on the disk pulsed again, brighter this time. Not just a shimmer—but a glow. Gold light bled from the ancient carving like fire pressed behind thin glass.

Kael turned then, eyes catching the light. “How long’s it been doing that?” His voice was quiet but carried across the room like a ripple over still water.

I swallowed. “A minute. Maybe more. It started when you closed the window.”

He crossed the room, kneeling beside me without hesitation. The floor creaked beneath his weight, the air between us charged with something more than tension—anticipation, maybe. Or dread. I wasn’t sure I could tell the difference anymore. He reached out—not for the disk, but for my wrist. His touch was light but grounding, his thumb brushing against the mark and curling just above the bone. The tether between us hummed in response, stronger now. Present. Alive.

“It’s connected to you,” he said, gaze flicking from the mark to the disk. “Or you’re connected to it.”

“I’ve drawn this sigil before,” I said quietly. “Before the alley. Before we met the stranger.”

Kael didn’t look surprised. Just thoughtful. “And now it’s glowing in your hand.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Convenient.”

His lips twitched, almost a smile—but it faded before it reached his eyes. “We need to figure out what it means. Before something else does.”

I turned the disk over, half-expecting the glow to fade. It didn’t. The gold light crawled across the etching like it had found its way home.

“What if it’s not just showing us where to go?” I asked. “What if it’s unlocking something?”

Kael’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. The tether. The magic. Us.”

He didn’t flinch at the last word, but something behind his eyes shifted. He looked at me, really looked, and for a long breath, neither of us spoke.

The bond between us throbbed gently, steadily, and unyieldingly. Finally, Kael spoke again, his voice low. “Let it go for a second.”

I hesitated.

“Just to test it,” he added, nodding toward the disk. “I want to see something.”

Reluctantly, I placed the disk down on the floor. The moment my skin left it, the light flickered—then dimmed. Still there, but less. Distant. I reached for it again, and the moment my fingers brushed the surface, it flared—steady, gold, and certain.

Kael exhaled slowly. “You’re the key,” he said.

I shook my head. “No. We are.”

He reached for the disk, and then his hand covered mine. The moment his skin touched it, the light surged again—not brighter, but deeper like it had recognized us both. And in that heartbeat, something inside me snapped into place. The tether pulled, not painfully, but with purpose. Like a door opening. Like the first crack of dawn on a night that had gone on too long.

Kael’s grip tightened slightly. “Did you feel that?”

I nodded. “Like… something’s waking up.”

The disk’s glow faded just a little, settling into a soft gold. Not gone. Waiting. We stayed like that for a while, our hands over the stone, the silence pressing close. The room was dim now, the last light long gone, but I didn’t need to see to feel the change curling at the edge of everything.

Eventually, Kael sat back, pulling the disk gently from my hands and wrapping it in the scrap of cloth we’d been using to carry it. He tucked it into his bag without comment, and the air eased when it left our skin. Not completely, but enough to breathe again.

He glanced at me once, then moved to the wall beside me and sat down, legs stretched before him. I followed without thinking, drawn to his warmth, the quiet steadiness that always came when he stopped pretending he wasn’t afraid. I leaned into his shoulder, and he didn’t pull away. For a moment, we just sat like that. Side by side. Close enough to feel each other breathe.

“You think it’s true?” I asked after a while. “What the stranger said, that we’re the last ones?”

Kael didn’t answer immediately. His gaze was on the dark window, the world outside that hadn’t changed and would never be the same again.

“I think,” he said finally, “that whatever this is, it picked you for a reason.”

I turned to him. “Not just me.”

His jaw shifted, something unreadable in his expression. “Maybe not. But if I had to follow anyone into the unknown…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. The words hung between us anyway, unspoken and heavier than anything the tether could carry. I reached for his hand. He let me. His fingers closed around mine, warm and steady. The city outside was quiet, but not silent. A car backfired in the distance. A siren cried faintly from blocks away. Somewhere below us, a dog barked once, then fell still. And beneath all that, I swore I heard a faint chime, far beneath the city, like something old and buried, ringing for the first time in centuries.

Kael stiffened beside me. “You heard that too.”

I nodded, heart stuttering. Neither of us moved for a long time. Then Kael leaned back against the wall, his grip still wrapped gently around my fingers. When I finally looked down again, the disk glowed gold from inside his bag. This time, I didn’t reach for it. I just watched it pulse like a heartbeat, and waited for the world to change again.