(Alash Vortex POV)
The feeling of falling went on.
Moments ago I had bonded one person, plainly, with her consent, knowing exactly what I was choosing. Nobody had chosen this. I had opened a door to let one person through, and whatever was on the other side was coming through it toward all five of us.
Then the platform went away.
I was on my knees on a stone floor, in a hall I had never seen, high and plain, with old beams crossing the ceiling. Both my palms were pressed flat to the cold stone, and they were burning.
Walls were coming up out of the floor around me. They came in layers, folding over one another, with pillars locking into the gaps between them.
I could feel every one of them in my hands. Each wall was a weight I was holding up by the wrists.
The weight grew too much, and I let it go.
The walls stopped. My channels burned from palm to shoulder. Whatever had been holding me up went out of me all at once, and I fell backward, and there was no fear in it at all.
