Aether's Obsession
And then something shifted.
It happened without decision, without understanding, some mechanism deeper than thought, responding to proximity the way a lock responds to its key. The Aether in my blood answered the warmth. It surged upward, bright and wild and entirely outside my control, and a glow erupted from my hands where they had pressed against his chest, a pulse, strong and sudden, a current that didn't ask permission.
Vaelor stumbled back two steps.
Two steps. This man, this centuries-old warlord whose body had been built to withstand things that ended other things — two steps back, chest heaving, eyes wide in a face that had probably not worn genuine shock in a very long time.