The air was still when we left.
The ruin behind us fell away with every step, its broken walls swallowed by trees that leaned like old witnesses watching us pass.
Ash still lined the forest floor, but it no longer clung to our boots like it had before. The canopy above stretched wide, arching in burnt symmetry, branches stripped of leaves but reaching high like fingers raised in prayer.
Light spilled through in quiet beams, soft and golden, like the forest hadn't yet decided whether to be morning or memory.
Riven walked ahead in silence.
Her shoulders were set, steady but distant, as if she had already crossed into whatever place she was leading me toward. Her hand hovered near her sword, a form of habit she might had formed. Each step she took felt deliberate, like the path itself mattered less than the threshold it would bring us to.
She didn't glance back.
But I followed, pulled by something that lived beneath her skin and inside mine.
When the trees gave way to a clearing of blackened oaks, scorched but standing, she stopped.
"This is far enough," she said finally. Her voice was steady, but beneath it, I could feel the tight coil of tension, like she was bracing for something neither of us could name.
She turned to face me. Her eyes didn't waver. Without a word, she shrugged off her outer cloak and tossed it over a nearby stump. The leather gauntlets followed, each one unstrapped with practiced ease and set down with care. Her movements weren't for display. They were calculated, deliberate. This wasn't performance. This was preparation.
"You're unstable," she said. "Your flame comes too easily. That should scare you."
"It doesn't mean I can't control it," I said, maybe a little too quickly.
Her brows lifted just slightly.
"You don't understand what it's doing to you yet. That alone is dangerous."
"I've handled worse," I muttered, though even I could hear the defensiveness in my tone. "I've used it more than once. I didn't burn anything down."
"That wasn't control," she said flatly. "That was luck."
I stepped closer, jaw tight. "You think I can't handle power?"
She didn't blink.
"I think power that obeys without boundaries is as much a curse as a gift."
For a breath, I almost argued again. I wanted to. Part of me wanted to prove her wrong, to show her that I wasn't just some reckless conduit for the Core's fire. That I was in control. That I had some say in what it was turning me into.
But the memory of the fire, how it leapt from my hands without thought, without effort, silenced whatever pride had risen in my throat.
I let out a slow breath and dropped my gaze to her outstretched hand.
"Fine," I said. "Then teach me."
She stepped closer.
The mark on her back still glowed faintly beneath her shirt. Her fingers curled gently, inviting.
"I'm not doing this to tame you," she said. "Only to keep you from burning yourself alive."
I took her hand.
And the fire inside me stirred.
The first hour of the training demanded everything from me.
Riven's voice was calm but precise, guiding me through every movement like fire itself had laws I had yet to understand. She made me stand still, eyes closed, palms open, and listen. Not with my ears, but with the Core. She taught me to feel the flame without summoning it. To trace its presence along the edges of my nerves like a current just beneath the surface. To recognize the difference between hunger and need.
I failed. Repeatedly.
The fire leapt before I called it. It surged at the smallest distraction. My thoughts, my breath, even the flicker of her movement nearby triggered it. And each time I lost control, she stepped in.
She never raised her voice. Never scolded.
Instead, she moved with quiet purpose. Adjusted my stance. Shifted my shoulders. Pressed her fingers along the inside of my elbow to correct the angle. When my breath hitched, she noticed, but said nothing. When the heat flared, she waited it out.
Her hands were firm but steady. Not gentle, but not unkind.
And every time she touched me, the Core responded.
It stirred beneath my ribs, not violently or with hunger, but like a memory returning to the surface. Her touch woke something in me, something that blurred the line between discipline and desire.
Riven felt it too. I saw it in the way her posture changed. She began to keep more distance, hesitating before adjusting me again. Her hands hovered longer before finding my skin. She used her voice more than her body to guide me.
But that distance only made the air between us hotter.
It wasn't entirely lust. It was the pressure of restraint. The kind that builds not from holding back, but from knowing what would happen if we didn't.
I stood in the center of the clearing, my boots planted in soft dirt, sweat dampening the collar of my shirt and clinging to the small of my back. My hands were raised in front of me, fingers splayed, as I tried again to shape the flame without letting it loose.
My jaw clenched. My breath slowed.
Heat rolled across my shoulders like sunlight through glass. It danced over my skin, alive but unruly, wanting to break free. It pushed against my grip like water pressing against a dam, testing every crack, every weakness.
I could feel Riven watching me.
Not just observing. Feeling.
The Core pulsed faintly, drawn to her even in stillness. The tether between us hummed just beneath my focus, taut and glowing, like a flame waiting for oxygen.
And when her voice came again, low and close behind me, the control I had left felt dangerously thin.
"You're holding too much," she said behind me. Her voice was low, edged with patience but not softness. "Let it pulse. Not pour."
I tried. I did everything she had told me. I narrowed my focus, slowed my breath, and reached for the edge of that power without pushing past it.
But then she stepped closer. Her voice curved through the air again, closer now, warmer.
And something inside me cracked.
The fire burst from my hands before I could contain it. It roared forward in a sudden surge, splitting through the air and slamming into the dirt. The ground hissed. Heat exploded outward, scorching a wide ring into the forest floor around me.
I dropped to one knee.
My chest heaved, lungs burning, the world flickering at the edges of my vision. I felt the Core pulsing hard under my sternum like a war drum, pounding with each heartbeat. My hands shook.
I didn't speak.
"Lucien," Riven said sharply, her voice now tight with concern.
Then she was beside me, her movements swift and sure. One hand gripped my shoulder, grounding me, her fingers strong and steady. The other hand reached for my face, turning it gently toward her.
Her palm touched my cheek.
And everything changed.
The Core surged to life in sensation. Heat rolled up my spine and spun out from my chest, curling around the tether that bound us. It wasn't just reacting. It was calling. Crying out like it had been waiting for this contact and now refused to be ignored.
My mark seared, the glyph glowing with a deep, pulsing light. Riven gasped, her hand pulling slightly away as if shocked, but she didn't break contact. The mark on her back lit at the same time, faint but unmistakable, and in her eyes I saw what I already felt.
The tether had awakened.
Her heartbeat stumbled. My breath stopped.
"It's feeding," I whispered, barely able to speak through the weight of it.
Riven's throat bobbed as she swallowed. Her voice, when it came, was ragged.
"It's more than that. It's starving."
The words echoed inside me, not just metaphor, not just theory. The Core wasn't satisfied. It wasn't dormant. It was ravenous. And I could feel it draining me with each second that passed with need.
The ache in my muscles wasn't exhaustion. It was hunger. A pull deep beneath the skin. A desire rooted in magic and instinct that had nothing to do with thought and everything to do with her.
Then her fingers brushed my neck again. This time slower. And her breath stilled as if she had just realized something she hadn't wanted to believe.
She felt it too.
I saw it in her eyes. The same realization blooming inside her as it had in me. The flame between us wasn't just power. It wasn't just magic. It was alive. It was shared. And it was asking, aching, begging to be fed.
"I thought it would fade after the first time," she said. Her voice was hoarse, brittle. "I thought the bond would ease."
I met her eyes. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.
"But it's stronger now," she finished, quieter.
I nodded slowly. My voice barely a whisper.
"It needs more."
Her hands fisted the front of my shirt and pulled me into her. I barely had time to breathe before her mouth crashed into mine.
There was no grace in it. No patience. It was hunger sharpened into teeth, desperation turned into movement. She kissed me like the air had run out, like the only way she could survive was to drink me in. And I kissed her back with the same kind of need, gripping her waist with both hands and dragging her against my chest.
The world dissolved.
My back hit the scorched grass, and she came with me, straddling my hips. Her hands tore at my clothes. Mine found her shirt and yanked it up, baring the curve of her back. The second my fingers touched her skin, her spiral mark pulsed with blinding heat. A jolt of sensation shot through the tether. She gasped, and her breath trembled against my lips.
Her hands were everywhere. In my hair. At my belt. Against my chest. She pushed me back and climbed over me, not gently but like she had no more time left to wait. The Core howled beneath my skin, feeding on the closeness, the urgency, the shared fire curling in every breath we took.
When her shirt slipped off, I stopped breathing altogether.
She was beautiful, but it wasn't just that. Her skin glowed like live flame. Her chest heaved with barely controlled breath. Her thighs gripped my waist like she didn't trust her legs to hold her anymore.
And her eyes. Those molten gold eyes burned into me like judgment and surrender at once.
I sat up and pulled her against me. Our bare skin met, hot and damp. Her nipples grazed my chest. Her fingers slid down my abdomen, slow at first, then quicker as they found the fastenings of my pants.
She freed me with one hand and reached between us with the other. Her fingers wrapped around me, warm and slick. I choked on my breath.
"I need you," she whispered, and the way she said it made my whole body lock.
Not want. Need.
I grabbed her hips and guided her down, the tip of me sliding against her folds. She was soaked, pulsing with heat, already open and ready. I pushed into her inch by slow inch, and her lips parted on a gasp so raw it made my vision blur.
Her hands braced on my shoulders as she sank down completely, her body taking me in with aching tightness.
We stayed like that for a moment, connected in every possible way. Her forehead touched mine. Her breath hitched. Her walls clenched around me, and the Core pulsed so violently inside me I thought I might pass out from the pleasure.
Then she started to move.
Slowly. Deep. Her hips rolled with measured rhythm, not fast but hard, as if she was carving each motion into memory. I slid my hands up her back, fingers splayed across the mark still glowing beneath her skin.
"Riven…" I groaned, voice cracking.
She didn't answer. Her teeth grazed my jaw. Her thighs flexed around me. She moved with purpose, like she was claiming me, not just feeding the Core but feeding something older, something that had always been waiting beneath the surface of her restraint.
I couldn't stay still.
I thrust up into her, gripping her hips harder, driving deeper. Her head fell back, her mouth opened on a cry that broke apart halfway through. I felt every tremble, every pulse, every desperate clench of her body around mine.
And she felt me too.
I knew it because the tether was screaming in overwhelming, shared release.
She grabbed my face and kissed me again, this time with her whole body, her rhythm shattering as the pressure inside her broke. Her moan tore free, unrestrained, and I felt her clench tight around me as she came, her whole body jerking in my arms.
Her orgasm hit me through the bond like a storm.
I lost control.
I thrust one last time, hard and deep, and let go with a sound I didn't recognize, something between a growl and a plea. I filled her completely, my vision white at the edges, my body shaking as the Core erupted between us in raw, liquid heat.
We collapsed into each other, panting, clinging, trembling.
The marks on our bodies still glowed faintly. Her hands fisted in my hair. My arms locked around her waist. Her breath stuttered against my neck. And I could feel the Core humming with satisfaction inside both of us.
Lustbound core: Bond strength increased
Current sync: 59%
Skill unlocked: Flame thread
Warning: Emotional feedback loop detected
Riven didn't speak. Her cheek rested against my shoulder. One of her hands slid over my heart just to feel me.
She wasn't letting go.
And neither was I.
But before either of us could speak, the Core stirred again. Only this time, it wasn't hunger.
It was a warning.
The air shifted. The wind grew still. The silence bent inward.
Then came the message.
Bond Thread Detected
Candidate Approaching
Name: Sylri of the Blade
Distance: 190 meters
Status: Resonant
Riven lifted her head.
She looked at me.
And I saw it, just for a moment.
It wasn't fear or jealousy. It was pain.
"We're not alone," she said.
I sat up, heart still pounding.
And through the trees ahead, I saw the first glint of silver steel.