Page 34 of Starlit Bargains

“There is,” Eliar agreed, his voice strangely calm now. “Rejection. Complete rejection of what I was. But that path leadsto the same destination—a tear in the veil, a gateway for things that should never enter this realm.”

“That can't be right,” Kai insisted, the merchant's words echoing in his memory.The choice mentioned in the prophecy? It may not be the guardian's alone to make.“The prophecy said if you embrace what was denied, balance is restored.”

“Or 'should he reject the offered hand, the veil shall tear asunder,'” Eliar countered. “But what is the 'offered hand'? What am I supposed to embrace or reject? The prophecy is unclear, and in that ambiguity lies our danger.”

The dome of light was flickering now, the dark threads spreading more rapidly as Eliar's concentration wavered. The shadow creatures pressed closer, sensing imminent victory.

"We need to retreat," Eliar said, his voice tight with pain. "I can't maintain even this small connection much longer."

"No," Kai cut him off. "No retreating. We both get out, or neither of us does."

Before Eliar could protest, Kai did something reckless—even by his own admittedly low standards of caution. He knelt beside Eliar and placed both hands directly atop the fallen guardian's where they pressed against the temple floor.

"Take more," Kai insisted. "As much as you need."

The effect was immediate and overwhelming. Kai's golden magic surged through the connection, pouring into Eliar in a torrent rather than the careful trickle they'd managed before. Eliar's body shuddered under the influx of raw power, his own dormant energy responding to Kai's like dry tinder to a spark. Where the two energies met, something new formed—not gold, not silver-blue, but a pure, radiant white that pushed back the encroaching darkness.

Eliar gasped, his eyes widening in shock. "What are you doing?"

"Helping," Kai replied through gritted teeth, already pale and sweating from the effort of channeling so much magic. "My magic connects with yours. Always has. Maybe that's the point."

For a breathless moment, it seemed to be working. The white light spread along the patterns, healing the dark cracks, strengthening the circle that held the shadow creatures at bay. But then something shifted—a tremor that ran through the temple floor, a dissonance in the harmony of their combined magic.

Kai felt the change first—a sudden resistance, as if his magic was no longer flowing freely but fighting against some invisible barrier. Then he saw it—the silver-blue shimmer around Eliar intensifying, fragments of light breaking through like shattered chains falling away.

"The bindings," Eliar gasped, his voice strained and fearful. "They're breaking. Kai, you need to stop?—"

But it was too late. With a sound like ice cracking across a frozen lake, the invisible constraints that had held Eliar's power in check for centuries shattered. Kai was thrown backward by the sudden release of energy, his connection to Eliar broken.

The severed flow of magic left Kai dizzy and weak, his vision blurring as he struggled to remain conscious. Through the haze, he watched as Eliar rose several inches off the ground, suspended by the sudden release of long-suppressed power.

It wasn't Eliar's full celestial might—not even close—but it was more than he had accessed in centuries. The borrowed power from Kai had acted as a key, unlocking what remained of his own bound energy. The silver-blue light around him deepened to an almost violet hue, shot through with starlight and darkness in equal measure.

What Kai saw made his breath catch in his throat. Eliar was transformed—not fully restored to his celestial glory, but far beyond the reserved exile who had walked beside him. His hairwhipped around his face though there was no wind, each strand trailing faint traces of stardust. His clothes rippled as if they might dissolve at any moment.

But it was his eyes that truly frightened Kai. They burned with inner light—not portals to the cosmos as they might once have been, but windows to something beyond human, glimpses of what Eliar had once been. And in them, Kai saw pure, undiluted fear.

Not triumph at accessing more of his power. Not anger at the creatures attacking them. Just fear—bone-deep and ancient, the fear of someone who knew exactly what might follow this broken constraint.

"Eliar!" Kai shouted, his voice thin with exhaustion. "You can control it! Focus!"

If Eliar heard him, he gave no sign. The power continued to build, though Kai could see him struggling to contain it, to direct it rather than let it expand unchecked. The shadow creatures sensed the change, their formless bodies rippling with what might have been uncertainty as they assessed this new threat.

With visible effort, Eliar thrust both hands forward. Not a wave of celestial fire—he wasn't capable of that anymore—but a focused beam of silver-blue energy that cut through the nearest shadow creatures. Where it touched them, they dissipated, their essence returning to the void from which they'd emerged.

But the power was clearly unstable, fluctuating wildly as Eliar struggled to control what had been released. Sparks of energy shot in random directions, scorching the temple stones and igniting small fires at the forest edge. The air itself seemed to warp around him, reality bending slightly under the strain of containing even this fraction of celestial power.

"Eliar, stop!" Kai called, pushing himself to his knees despite the bone-deep exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him. "You can't control it yet!"

Something in his voice seemed to penetrate Eliar's consciousness. The burning eyes blinked, awareness returning to them in fragments. Horror dawned as Eliar saw what was happening around them, what his partially unleashed power was doing to the surrounding world.

With visible effort, he tried to pull the energy back, to contain what had broken free. For a moment, it seemed he might succeed—the light dimming, the distortions in the air smoothing out, the remaining shadow creatures retreating further into the darkness.

Then, suddenly, the energy collapsed in on itself. The light winked out, not gradually but all at once, like a candle being snuffed. Eliar dropped to the temple floor, his body crumpling as if every ounce of strength had been drained from him.

Kai crawled forward on hands and knees, his own magic depleted to dangerous levels. He reached Eliar just as the fallen guardian's eyes fluttered shut, his breath coming in shallow, rapid gasps.

"Eliar?" Kai's voice was barely a whisper, his own consciousness threatening to slip away. "Eliar, can you hear me?"

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