[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This Chapter 50: In Which I Close My First Rift (And Accidentally

The rift looked like soone had taken a knife to reality and left the wound to fester.

We’d driven out before dawn, , Azryth, Mara, and Henrik, in a beat-up SUV that handled the backroads like it had a personal grudge against suspension systems. The rift was in a clearing about thirty miles from the safehouse, hidden enough that civilians wouldn’t stumble across it but not so remote that we couldn’t evacuate if things went catastrophically wrong.

Which, given my track record, felt like a real possibility.

"There," Mara said, pointing.

I saw it imdiately. A tear in the air, maybe six feet tall and two feet wide, hovering about three feet off the ground. It pulsed with a sickly purple-black light, and the air around it looked wrong and distorted, like looking through warped glass.

"That’s a minor rift?" I asked.

"Relatively speaking," Henrik said, pulling equipnt from the back of the SUV. "It’s stable, not actively growing, no major entities attempting to cross. Perfect for practice."

"It looks like an infected wound."

"Accurate description." Azryth said. He’d rolled up his sleeves at so point, forearms on display, and I had the deeply unhelpful thought that nobody had any business looking that good before sunrise while standing next to a dinsional horror. "Rifts are essentially dinsional injuries, the barrier between realms has been torn, and it’s not healing properly."

"Wow, so we’re now supernatural doctors."

"More like surgeons." He glanced at , and sothing in his expression shifted, amusent, maybe, or awareness that I’d been staring. "Ready?"

"Absolutely not."

"Good. Honest self-assessnt." He moved closer, and the binding sparked to life between us, anticipating. "Rember what Henrik taught you, we’re not fighting it, we’re convincing it to close."

"Right. Convince the dinsional wound to heal, with my brain, while channeling catastrophic amounts of energy. No pressure."

"All the pressure," Mara said cheerfully, setting up what looked like monitoring equipnt about twenty feet back. "But you’ll be fine. Probably."

"Your confidence is inspiring."

"I’m a realist." She gestured to the rift. "Whenever you’re ready, we’ll be monitoring your output, watching for destabilization, and ready to pull you back if the feedback gets dangerous."

"What counts as dangerous feedback?"

"If you start bleeding from your eyes, that’s bad," Henrik offered helpfully.

"GREAT! Good to know. That’s definitely the kind of information I needed right now."

Azryth stepped directly in front of , close enough that I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "Ignore them, focus on the binding, on synchronization. We move together or not at all."

I swallowed. "Okay. How do we start?"

"Feel the rift first, not with your eyes, but with your power." He extended one hand toward the tear, not touching it but hovering near. "Tell what you sense."

I closed my eyes and reached out with that sixth sense that had been developing since the binding ford. The rift felt wrong imdiately, hungry, desperate, like an open mouth that wanted to keep consuming. But underneath the wrongness was sothing else, pain, maybe, or exhaustion. Like it was tired of existing but didn’t know how to stop.

"It’s hungry," I said. "But also... tired? Like it wants to close but doesn’t know how."

"Good." His voice had gone quiet, focused. "That’s exactly right. Now feel , feel the binding."

That was easy. The binding was always there, but when I focused on it directly it flared brighter, a current of energy flowing between us, warm and steady and increasingly insistent. I could feel his power coiled beneath the surface, vast and patient, I could feel his absolute certainty that this would work.

"Now reach for the rift," he said. "But channel through the binding, through us. Let your power rge with mine before you touch it."

I extended my awareness toward the rift, but this ti I pulled on the binding deliberately, letting Azryth’s power rise to et mine. The sensation was strange, intimate in a way I hadn’t expected. Not physical, exactly, but not not physical either. Like our energies were braiding together, winding around each other until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.

The binding flared hot between us.

I pushed that rged energy toward the rift.

It resisted imdiately. Not violently, but stubbornly, like trying to close a door that had been propped open too long. The rift wanted to stay open, that was its nature, its entire existence.

"Don’t force it," Azryth said. "Offer it sothing better, stability, peace, an end to the constant hunger."

I adjusted my approach, softening the push, making it more of an invitation. Don’t you want to stop? Don’t you want to heal?

The rift pulsed, considering.

Then it rejected .

The backlash hit like a slap, energy snapping back through the binding. I gasped, stumbling, but Azryth caught my elbow, steadying .

"Again," he said. "You’re holding back, commit fully and trust the binding to stabilize you."

"What if I lose control—"

"Then I pull you back." Simple and absolute. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Again, Riven."

I gritted my teeth and reached out again, this ti letting more of myself flow through the connection. The binding flared brighter, hot enough that I could feel it like a physical thing between us, twining, rging, synchronizing.

The rift resisted again, but this ti I didn’t pull back. I leaned into it, offering not just power but structure, frawork, the promise of closure and healing and rest.

Close, you want to close. Let help you close.

The rift wavered.

My concentration slipped, just for a second, and the rift snapped back open, rejecting .

"Damn it."

"You’re overthinking." Azryth’s voice was calm, patient. "Stop trying to maintain control, let the binding do the work. Surrender to it."

"I am—"

"No, you’re not." He moved around to face fully, blocking my view of the rift entirely. "You’re still fighting the rge, still trying to keep your power separate from mine. Look at ."

I did. Mistake. This close, with the binding flaring between us and dawn light turning his eyes molten, looking at him was a terrible idea for my focus.

"We are synchronized in combat," he said quietly. "We move as one unit without thinking about it. This is the sa,stop thinking and just feel."

"That’s a terrible instruction for soone about to channel catastrophic energy.."

"Riven." He waited until I t his eyes again. "Trust us, trust what we are together."

The binding pulsed warm agreent.

I took a breath. Nodded.

"Okay, together, no holding back."

I turned back to the rift, and this ti when I reached for it, I didn’t try to maintain any separation at all. I just... opened myself to the binding, let Azryth’s power flood through unrestricted, let our energies rge so completely I couldn’t distinguish between us anymore.

The sensation was overwhelming. Intimate. Like every nerve ending had suddenly beco shared, like I could feel his power moving through my channels and mine through his, two currents becoming one river.

The energy that rose wasn’t mine or his. It was ours.

I pushed it toward the rift, not as force, not as attack, but as inevitability. As a promise, closing is better than staying open, healing is possible, peace is real. Let show you.

The rift shuddered.

Then, slowly, reluctantly, it began to close.

I felt it happening through the binding, edges pulling together, dinsional fabric knitting shut, the hungry void collapsing in on itself. It hurt, not physically but energetically, like forcing a wound to heal before it was ready.

"Stay with it," Azryth said, and I felt his power surge, compensating where mine faltered, stabilizing where I wavered. Perfect synchronization. "Stay with ."

I held on, watching through my second sight as the rift shrank, six feet to five, five to four, four to three. The resistance increased as it got smaller, but we pushed back together, unified, relentless.

Two feet. One foot. Six inches.

Then, with a sound like reality sighing in relief, the rift sealed completely.

The backlash hit both of us at once.

I staggered, legs going weak, and would have collapsed if Azryth hadn’t caught . He wasn’t much better off, I felt his exhaustion and how much power he’d just channeled through himself to keep stable.

We ended up on the ground, half-sprawled against him, both of us breathing hard.

"Holy shit," I managed. "We did it."

"We did." His voice was rough, strained in a way I’d never heard before, vulnerable. "Are you all right?"

"I think so. You?"

"I’ll recover." But he didn’t move, didn’t let go of , he just sat there in the dirt with leaning against his chest, both of us shaking from energy drain and adrenaline.

Through the binding, I felt everything, his exhaustion mirroring mine, his satisfaction at our success, his concern for overriding his own discomfort. And underneath, that ever-present current of awareness, stronger now after what we’d just done. After rging that completely.

Intimate wasn’t a strong enough word for what we’d just experienced.

"That was," I started, then stopped, not sure how to finish.

"Intense," Azryth supplied.

"Yeah. That."

Mara and Henrik approached, both staring at their monitoring equipnt like it had personally offended them.

"Energy readings peaked at twelve hundred units sustained over ninety seconds," Henrik said slowly. "That’s.."

"Unprecedented," Mara finished. She looked at us, still sitting in the dirt, and sothing like approval crossed her face. "You two just created the first confird permanent rift seal in over a century."

"Congratulations," Henrik added. "Also, you might want to see this."

He turned his tablet to show us. The readings spiked exactly where we’d sealed the rift, but at the very end, right as it closed completely, there was a second spike. Smaller, but distinct.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Feedback pulse from the other side," Azryth said, his voice going cold. "Soone felt us close it, soone powerful enough to send energy back through a collapsing rift."

"Soone on the infernal side," Henrik confird. "Which ans whoever’s coordinating these rifts now knows there’s a warden-demon pair capable of permanent closures."

I looked up at Azryth. "So we just announced our presence to whoever’s orchestrating the apocalypse."

"Yes."

"Oh, how sweet! Perfect, love that for us."

"On the bright side," Mara said, "you succeeded in your first permanent seal. That’s worth celebrating."

"Thanks. I feel super accomplished and not at all like we just painted a giant target on ourselves."

Azryth’s arms were still around , one hand pressed against my back, the other resting on my knee. Through the binding I felt his concern warring with pride, felt the way his focus had shifted from the rift to , protective and possessive in equal asure.

"We knew this was coming," he said quietly. "Whoever’s behind the rift crisis was always going to notice us eventually."

"And now they know we can stop them."

"Yes." His hand moved, just slightly, fingers flexing against my back. "Which ans they’ll escalate."

"So business as usual."

He almost smiled. "Business as usual." Then, quieter: "Can you stand?"

"Probably, give a minute, everything feels like jelly."

"Energy drain, that’s normal after your first major channeling." But he didn’t rush , just sat there holding while I recovered, solid and warm and patient.

Eventually I managed to get vertical, though my legs protested the entire way. Azryth rose with , one hand hovering near my elbow like he expected to collapse again.

"I’m fine," I said.

"You’re exhausted."

"So are you."

"I’ve had five centuries to build stamina for this kind of work." His eyes were shadowed with fatigue, but his voice was steady. "You just channeled enough power to permanently seal a dinsional tear. You’re allowed to be tired."

I smiled.

We made our way back to the SUV, moving slower than the trip out. My whole body ached in ways I couldn’t quite na, not pain, exactly, but deep exhaustion that went past physical into sothing more fundantal.

"Is it always like that?" I asked once we were in the back seat, Mara driving us back toward the safehouse. "The rging thing, the—" I gestured vaguely. "All of it."

"I don’t know." Azryth’s voice was quiet enough that only I could hear over the engine. "I’ve never done this before, never rged power with anyone like that."

"Oh."

"But yes," he continued. "I imagine it will be like that every ti. Perhaps more so as we get better at it."

I wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or terrifying. The level of intimacy required to rge that completely, to let go of all separation, it wasn’t sothing I could do casually, it wasn’t sothing that could stay purely professional.

Through the binding, I felt his agreent, I felt him processing the sa realization.

"One down," Mara said from the front seat. "Forty-six to go."

"And whoever felt us close that rift now knows we exist," Henrik added. "They’ll be preparing a response."

I leaned back against the seat, exhaustion pulling at . Azryth’s shoulder was right there, solid and available, and after what we’d just done, after rging that completely, it felt completely natural to lean into him.

He shifted to accommodate , one arm coming up to steady as the SUV hit a rough patch.

I felt his contentnt at the simple contact, I felt his satisfaction at our success, the ever-present undercurrent of protectiveness that had been there since the beginning but had intensified since...

Since we’d rged completely.

Since we’d proven we could work as one unit not just in combat, but in this too.

I closed my eyes and let exhaustion take , safe in the knowledge that Azryth would wake when we got back.