Three days pass before I understand what Cael meant about cost.Not pain exactly—the wound itself settles faster than expected, Dara's herbs working steadily against whatever silver poison Kael carried for four days untreated. By the second day, the discoloration on my arm has already begun fading.The actual cost arrives differently.I notice it first in small things. Ash, usually present in the steady way I've grown accustomed to, feels distant—not gone, just muted, like sound through thick walls."Something's wrong," I tell Cael on the second morning.She examines me with the same focused attention she brought to Kael's original wound."The transfer took more than the silver itself," she says carefully. "It pulled something from your connection to Ash. Temporary, I believe, based on the historical fragments I remember. But real.""How temporary.""I don't know precisely. Days, probably. Possibly longer."I think about four years of Ash's presence being the one constant I could alwa
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