Flirting with the dark, p.17
Flirting With the Dark, page 17
Light flared around Rowan.
Darkness swirled around Elias.
The fissure tried to tear them apart—
trying to separate light from shadow—
Rowan screamed.
“Elias—don’t leave me—”
“I won’t!” Elias roared, gripping harder.
“I won’t—Rowan—listen to me—just keep your light steady—”
But her light surged without warning—
violent
wild
uncontrolled.
Elias choked as fissure-light seared across his shadow—
even fused, the energy was too much too fast.
Rowan sobbed.
“No—no—Elias—I’m hurting you—”
“Rowan—stop—listen—”
His voice cracked.
“DON’T PULL BACK—If you cut the bond now it will KILL us both—”
Kael stood across the threshold, hands lifted, eyes gleaming with fascination.
“Beautiful,” he murmured.
“They’re already tearing.”
Rowan forced herself to steady, forcing the light inward, pulling back her flare reflex—
But the fissure wouldn’t let her.
It answered her panic.
It fed her fear.
Her power erupted again—
Elias collapsed to one knee, clutching her arm as shadows bled off him in painful coils.
“Rowan—ROWAN—breathe—damn it—look at me—”
“I can’t—I can’t control it—”
Kael stepped closer, voice soft.
“You can’t control it because you’re trying to fight the fissure. Accept it. And you’ll master it.”
Rowan shook her head furiously.
“No—I’m not giving in to you—”
“Not to me,” Kael murmured.
“To yourself.”
The fissure pulsed—
and Rowan felt something inside her snap
open—
A flood of power.
A clarity.
A terrifying awareness that she was more than flare or fissure-born.
She was convergence incarnate.
And the fissure wanted her to CLAIM it.
Rowan stiffened.
Elias saw the change instantly.
His grip tightened in fear.
“Rowan,” he whispered,
“don’t you dare—don’t let it take you—”
Rowan turned toward him slowly—
and for the first time,
she wasn’t just glowing.
She was radiating.
White-gold veins pulsed beneath her skin.
Her eyes burned with fissure-light.
Her aura hummed with raw magic.
“Elias...” she whispered,
voice trembling with terror and awe,
“I can feel everything.”
Kael’s voice was a whisper of triumph.
“Yes. Finally.”
But Rowan didn’t look at Kael.
She looked at Elias—
the man she’d saved,
the one she’d nearly killed,
the one whose shadow she’d fused with.
Her breath shook.
“I have to choose,” she whispered.
“Right now. Before this power chooses for me.”
Elias’s voice broke.
“Rowan—choose US. Choose balance. Choose the realm—choose—please—”
Kael extended his hand.
“Choose evolution. Choose truth.”
The fissure screamed—
Rowan closed her eyes—
And whispered:
“I choose... neither of you.”
Light detonated.
Elias shouted her name.
Kael stepped back, stunned.
The fissure buckled.
And Rowan reached into the seam with her bare hands
and pushed the fissure’s magic into a new shape—
one neither realm had ever seen.
Everything changed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Rowan didn’t choose Elias.
She didn’t choose Kael.
She chose herself.
But the fissure didn’t like that.
And neither did the men standing on either side of her.
The moment her light detonated, the threshold split.
The fissure’s glow bent—
folded—
twisted like liquid glass in her hands.
Elias staggered backward as the shockwave threw him off balance, shadows buckling around him.
“ROWAN—STOP—” he shouted, reaching for her.
Kael didn’t shout.
He whispered:
“Impossible.”
Rowan hovered in the center of the chaos—
weightless, glowing, trembling violently.
Her veins pulsed white-gold.
Her skin cracked with fissure-light.
Her breath came in sharp, uneven gasps.
But her hands—
Her hands were reshaping the fissure.
She wasn’t sealing it.
She wasn’t breaking it open.
She was splitting it.
Dividing the rift into two pathways—
one of shadow
one of light—
A third space forming between them.
A place that belonged to neither realm.
Rowan’s realm.
The threshold screamed—
a shrill, reality-tearing sound—
as the fissure twisted under her will.
Elias forced himself upright, shadows dragging his body toward her.
“Rowan—let go—your body can’t survive this—”
His voice cracked with terror.
Kael stepped forward too, but with awe instead of fear.
“You’re creating a third path,” he murmured.
“An independent realm. A convergence realm.”
Rowan’s voice tore from her throat—raw, pained.
“I—I can’t hold it—”
Elias surged toward her, fighting against the pull of fissure-light.
“ROWAN!”
“Stay back!” Rowan gasped.
But Elias didn’t listen.
He never listened where she was concerned.
He grabbed her arm—
And screamed.
Shadow and fissure-light clashed between them—
tearing through his body—
shredding through hers.
“ELIAS! LET GO!”
“No—” Elias forced through clenched teeth,
eyes burning with pain and devotion,
“—not letting you do this alone—”
Kael watched them, expression unreadable.
Then he moved.
In a blur of shadow, he reached Rowan’s other side—
grabbing her wrist.
Rowan felt the collision instantly.
Fissure-light.
Shadow.
Ancient convergence.
Too much.
Too fast.
Her body convulsed.
“STOP—” she cried, voice breaking,
“I can’t—there’s too much—”
Kael’s grip tightened.
“Let me guide it.”
“No!” Elias snarled, ripping Rowan toward him,
“Don’t touch her—”
Kael’s gaze snapped toward Elias.
His voice dropped into something lethal.
“You are the reason she’s dying.”
Elias recoiled like struck.
Rowan was barely conscious—
her vision flickering
her power spiraling
her heart pounding hard enough to hurt.
She could feel both men—
their energy
their desperation
their conflicting pulls—
And she realized:
They weren’t fighting the fissure.
They were fighting each other.
And it was killing her.
Rowan used what little breath she had left.
“STOP!”
Her scream shattered the threshold.
Elias and Kael were thrown outward—
smashed into opposite sides of the fissure’s shimmering walls.
Rowan fell forward—
—and the fissure caught her.
The Vision of the Convergence
Rowan’s body stopped in midair.
The fissure cradled her
wrapped her
pulled her inward.
Her eyes rolled back.
And then she saw them.
Not illusions.
Not memories.
Not history.
Her ancestors stood before her—
the original convergence pair.
The flare woman glowed with the same veins of white-gold that now seared beneath Rowan’s own skin.
The shadow-born man bore the same dark, protective aura Elias carried.
They weren’t kissing.
They weren’t touching.
They were dying.
Rowan watched them fall to their knees—
hands reaching for each other—
power spiraling uncontrolled between them.
Their bond blazing too bright.
Their bodies failing.
Their hearts breaking.
Rowan sobbed.
“No—no—no—”
The flare woman looked up—
right at Rowan—
her eyes shimmering with the same impossible light.
“Do not repeat our ending.”
Rowan froze.
The shadow-born man—
the echo of Elias’s lineage—
lifted his head too.
“Balance is not given,” he said.
“It is chosen.”
Rowan shook her head violently.
“I don’t know how—”
The flare woman smiled softly.
“You do.”
The fissure cracked—
the vision shattered—
and Rowan’s body plunged downward.
Rowan Falls
Elias broke free of the fissure’s wall with a roar.
“ROWAN!”
Kael lunged at the same moment.
But Rowan hit the threshold floor first—
hard—
body seizing with unstable magic.
Light burst from her skin in violent pulses.
Her breaths came shallow.
Frantic.
Unstable.
“Elias—Elias—” she whispered, barely conscious.
Elias skidded to her side, gathering her into his arms.
“I’m here—I’m right here—Rowan, look at me—”
Her eyes fluttered.
Her voice broke.
“I’m splitting the fissure—I can’t hold it—my body—”
“I’ve got you,” Elias whispered desperately.
“I’ve got you—just breathe—just—”
Kael’s presence loomed above them, calm as death.
“She cannot survive this,” Kael said softly.
“Her mortal form is too limited.”
Elias glared up, shadows spiraling wildly.
“Stay away from her.”
Kael crouched, expression strangely gentle.
“I don’t want her to die.”
Rowan wheezed, pain ripping through her.
Kael’s voice softened further.
“She must choose a realm, Elias. Or her body will break.”
Elias shook his head fiercely.
“No—no, she stays with me—”
Kael’s lips twitched.
“She can’t remain mortal and convergence.”
Rowan trembled violently.
“Elias...” she whispered,
“I’m scared.”
Elias’s throat tightened with grief.
“I know,” he choked.
“I know, Rowan—I’m with you—”
The fissure boomed—
cracking wider behind them—
as Rowan’s light flashed unstable.
Kael leaned in.
“You must choose, little convergence,” he whispered.
“Shadow. Light. Or transcendence.”
Rowan’s heartbeat stuttered.
“Transcendence?” she whispered.
Kael nodded slowly.
“Become more than mortal. Become the bridge. Become convergence itself.”
Elias’s grip on her tightened in terror.
“Rowan—no—no—this will kill you—”
Kael’s eyes gleamed.
“It will free her.”
Rowan’s vision blurred.
Her choice hurt.
All three options hurt.
Shadow.
Light.
Or something beyond both.
Her chest seized.
Her body cracked with light.
Her whisper barely survived the air:
“Elias... what do I do?”
Elias held her face in shaking hands.
His answer was the most honest he’d ever been.
“Choose the path where you live.”
Rowan sobbed.
Kael whispered behind her:
“Choose the path where you become.”
The fissure howled.
Her power surged.
And Rowan—breaking, burning, trembling—
opened her eyes.
Her choice came with a whisper.
A terrifying, world-shifting whisper:
“I... choose...”
The fissure roared.
And everything changed.
CHAPTER FORTY
The fissure roared—
the sound of a realm being rewritten.
Rowan’s whisper trembled through the threshold.
“I... choose...”
Her body arched in Elias’s arms, light ripping through her veins in fissures of white-gold.
Elias held her tighter, shadows coiling desperately around her trembling form.
“Rowan—stay with me—stay—”
Kael stepped closer, eyes gleaming with anticipation.
“Say it, little convergence. Say what you already know.”
Rowan’s breath caught, her voice cracking as the fissure pulled at her spirit.
“...transcendence.”
The word left her mouth like a knife splitting reality.
The fissure reacted instantly.
A violent pulse of ancient magic tore through the threshold—
sending Elias and Kael crashing backward, shadows and light exploding off their bodies.
Rowan floated upward, suspended in the column of shimmering fissure-light.
Her eyes fluttered open—
glowing bright gold.
Elias stared up in horror.
“No. No—Rowan—NO—”
Rowan tried to look at him.
Tried to speak.
But her voice came out as a whisper of light:
“I have to survive, Elias.”
His heart shattered—
she felt it through the bond.
Her body contorted with the force of the power entering her—
her spine arching, limbs trembling, breath catching.
The fissure was remaking her.
Kael watched, enraptured.
“She’s shedding mortal limits,” he murmured.
“This is what she was meant to be. A being of both realms. A walking seam.”
Elias staggered to his feet, every muscle shaking.
“She’s dying!” he snarled.
Kael tilted his head.
“She’s evolving.”
Rowan’s light flared violently, the glow turning almost painful to look at—
white-gold streaks running across her skin like burning constellations.
Her body was coming apart.
Reforming.
Her voice twisted with pain.
“El... Elias—”
He reached for her.
The fissure threw him backward again.
“STAY AWAY!” it boomed.
Elias hit the threshold floor so hard he nearly passed out—
but he crawled back toward her, dragging himself through the radiant storm.
“I won’t leave you,” he whispered, voice raw.
“Rowan—please—fight it!”
Rowan’s fingers curled in agony.
“I—I’m trying—”
Kael stepped closer to her suspended form, ignoring Elias entirely.
“She’s crossing realms,” Kael breathed, awe in his voice.
“She’s becoming convergence incarnate. She’ll be beyond mortality. Beyond decay. Beyond shadow and light.”
Elias roared:
“GET AWAY FROM HER!”
Kael turned toward him, smile thin.
“Why? You’re losing her either way.”
Elias’s shadows lashed forward—
violently, uncontrollably—
but the fissure’s light repelled them before they even reached Kael.
Kael walked calmly toward Elias.
“You begged her to choose survival.”
He gestured to Rowan.
“She listened.”
“That’s NOT what I meant!” Elias shouted, voice cracking.
“I meant with me—alive—with me—”
Kael’s expression softened cruelly.
“She can’t stay bound to you as she is. Convergence breaks mortal vows. Including yours.”
Elias froze.
No.
No—no—no—
Rowan’s shadow-vow.
Their bond.
It was unraveling.
He felt it—
an ache
a tearing
an echo of loss
the severing of a thread woven into his soul.
Rowan choked on a sob, still suspended in the light.
“I’m—sorry—Elias—”
Her voice broke.
Elias’s shattered completely.
“NO! Don’t apologize—don’t—Rowan—you don’t have to do this—choose ME—choose us—”
Rowan’s light glowed brighter in response to his pain.
Elias reached for her again—
And this time, the fissure allowed it.
His hand brushed hers.
Their fingers barely touched.
The bond stuttered—
flickered—
a painful ghost of what it had been.
Rowan whispered,
voice trembling with love and grief:
“I’m choosing life.
And I want you in it.”
