The severance ran a full day and it had one hour left in it when Soren turned back toward home with the perimeter logged and an old man's voice still sitting in his chest.
He'd marked the reach. He had the data the Council wanted. The job was done.
What he carried back wasn't in the report.
Garrow had a beast that forgot his name and a half-fused arm with bark run up past the elbow,
He'd said the romance doesn't kill you, it thins you, and he'd said nobody dodges it.
Soren walked the region back with that loaded in him and felt the first thread find itself before the academy was even in sight.
◆◆◆◆
It was Yara.
The flat thread that had hummed his shape all day pulled taut at once, the hungriest bond shrugging off the cut first because it had already survived a cap and came back worse.
He felt her catch on the far end.
The recognition going all the way to the bottom, and through the bond came one pressure with no word in it.
'There you are.'
