Auren's fingers tightened around her wrist.
"Found you."
The words weren't meant for Elyndra.
They carried a different weight, soft, almost disbelieving, as though he had been searching through darkness and finally stumbled onto something fragile and real.
Elyndra blinked in surprise, caught off-guard by the shift in his tone.
"Excuse me?" she scoffed, tugging slightly against his grip. "Are you losing it already?"
Auren didn't look at her.
His attention had dropped, focused on the place where the shard hovered dangerously near Seraphina's stomach, on the warmth beneath his palm that didn't belong to Elyndra at all. His breathing slowed, steadying as though he had finally tuned into the right frequency after listening to noise for far too long.
"There you are," he whispered again, quieter this time, his voice losing its edge and turning impossibly gentle. "Hold on…"
That was when it finally reached her.
Understanding flashed across Elyndra's face, vivid and ugly.
