Chapter 128: The Echo Bond
Elder Iris POV
The white light hit me like a slap, but I was ready for it.
While everyone else stood there frozen in shock, I grabbed my walking stick and slammed it into the ground. Ancient wolf magic poured out of me, forming a bubble of protection around our group just as the dimensional tears exploded.
"Stay close!" I yelled, feeling my old bones creak from the effort. "Don’t let the light touch you!"
The fake Lily thing laughed as reality cracked around us. Through the chaos, I could see the real Lily stuck somewhere between worlds, flickering like a dying star. Caleb was reaching for her, his face twisted with pain and despair.
That’s when I saw it. The thing that made my heart skip with hope.
A silver thread, so thin most people would miss it, stretched from Caleb’s chest to where Lily was disappearing. Even though the dimensional magic was tearing everything apart, that thread stayed unbroken.
"Impossible," I whispered, then louder: "Caleb! Can you feel her?"
"She’s gone!" he cried, still reaching into empty air. "I can’t touch her!"
"Not with your hands," I called back. "With your heart! Feel for the echo!"
The boy looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but I’d seen this once before. Seventy years ago, when my own mate was pulled into a magical storm that should have erased him completely. Everyone said he was dead, but I could still feel the echo of our link.