True Bond -ch.1 Part 5- -cloudlet- -

When the vision faded, Kael found that his face was wet. Not with rain.

Kael leaned back against the wall, letting the silence stretch. Outside, a wagon clattered over wet cobblestones. Somewhere distant, a dog barked. Normal sounds. Human sounds. They felt obscene against the fragile strangeness sitting cross-legged on a pile of sacks in front of him.

“Are you?”

“I didn’t run,” he said finally.

Lian was crying too, silently, her fingers still intertwined with his. The cloudlet between their palms had grown brighter, steadier—no longer a stray wisp, but a small, steady flame.

The chase had been brutal. Two blocks through the flooded undercity, then a frantic climb up a rusted fire escape as the Enforcers’ mag-lamps swept the alleys below. Lian had moved like water—silent, swift—but Kael had stumbled on a loose grate, his bad leg giving way. He had braced for the impact of cold stone, but instead, her hand had caught his wrist.

She nodded. “I didn’t mean to. It just… happens. When I really need to move fast, or when someone’s—when someone’s there .” She said the last two words carefully, as if they were fragile. “Most people, when they feel it, they scream. They think I’m putting things inside their heads.” True Bond -Ch.1 Part 5- -Cloudlet-

Kael stared at her open palm. At the soft, luminous thing hovering just above her skin. Every instinct he had—every lesson from the Academy, every scar from the field—screamed at him to refuse. To keep his distance. To treat her as a source, an asset, a problem to be solved.

“You felt that,” she whispered. It wasn’t a question.

“You glow in your sleep,” Kael replied, keeping his voice low. “It’s not exactly subtle.” When the vision faded, Kael found that his face was wet

Spectral residue , he realized. From the moment she had touched him last night.

A true bond, fragile and fierce.