Arvella felt them the moment they entered the ward line.
The bond erupted — not the quiet pulse she'd been nursing for days, but a blaze, a conflagration, a supernova of warmth and need and recognition that flooded her body and made the suppression runes on her chains scream with resistance.
He's here, Astraea said, and the wolf's voice was fire. HE'S HERE.
The power surged. Not gradually, not gently — it erupted from the deep place where Arvella had been nurturing it for four days, fed by desperation and love and a fury so righteous it bordered on divine. The earth responded. The stone beneath her didn't just c***k — it split, a jagged fissure running from the altar to the eastern wall like a lightning bolt frozen in rock.
The chains snapped.
Not the links — the links were forged wit
