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“We’ll never know if we don’t try. C’mon!” Kato half-ran, half-fell down the steep slope of the riverbank, a reckless dance with gravity. “Skye! Now! We’re dead otherwise!”

“Fuck!” Skye set Taly down gently. Calcifer immediately stepped over her, teeth bared to the dark.

This is insane.

That was the only thought in Skye’s head as he vaulted down the riverbank, boots splattering mud.

The bridge’s core structure fused enchanted arboreal spires with ley-threaded stone. The resulting hybrid material had unmatched tensile strength.

In short, two exhausted shadow mages weren’t bringing it down.

Up to his waist, the river raged as he waded in. The current slammed against his ribs. Silt shifted beneath him, slick and unstable.

Ahead, Kato strained against a massive pillar of gray stone, muscles cording as his palms pressed flat against the rain-slick surface.

Skye exhaled sharply. His breath came too fast. His body—his limbs, his core, even his bones—feltheavy.

He had nothing left.

But empty didn’t mean done.

Right now, Taly needed him. That was the directive everything else answered to.

Skye hurled himself against the column. The impact jolted up his arms, slamming into his shoulders. Pain sparked somewhere in the joint, but he grit his teeth and shoved harder. The rough-hewn stone barely groaned beneath the force.

Cracks. He needed to see cracks. He braced himself and shoved again.

Kato’s entire body coiled with effort. Water surged around him. His boots slipped, his stance buckling for half a second before he caught himself, shoving harder. “It’s not giving,” he growled.

Shards save them all. This wasn’t going to work.

Shrieks echoed over the water, louder—closer.

Skye’s legs trembled. His fingers slipped against wet stone. His body screamed at him to stop.

And still, heshoved.

Because stopping meant losing her.

It meant failing.

It meant everything—every fight, every step to get them here—had been for nothing.

Skye roared as stone and water rained down on them, fury and helplessness crashing inside him. He’d always been told to stop channeling when it started to hurt.

This time, he didn’t.

Heat rolled inside him, searing through muscle, latching onto bone.

His breath hitched. His pulse pounded through his skull.

And then—something shifted. Something…tore.

It started deep and kept spreading. And through that rending,powercame flooding in.

It built with the pain, rising steadily and ever upward. Until it became a tidal wave, a deluge—a seal breaking over a well he hadn’t even known existed.

His fingers dug into the pillar—throughit. The stone, unyielding just moments before, crumbled beneath his grip like packed sand.