"I want to witness dark magic directly."
Liam did not answer.
Thion's voice lowered slightly, not in secrecy, but in intensity. "When you are fully recovered. Under conditions you choose. With limits you decide beforehand. I want to observe how your darkness moves when you call it deliberately, how it forms, how it holds shape, how it responds to your will, how it behaves when merged with fire. I want to see whether it resists, obeys, flows, condenses, anchors, or devours Myst differently from other affinities. I want to watch it breathe, Liam, instead of reading another dead report written by someone who feared it too much to understand what they were seeing."
There it was.
For the first time, the calmness almost fully cracked.
Not loudly.
Not violently.
But enough.
His eyes were too bright. His fingers had gone still. His voice, though quiet, had gained the rough edge of a hunger that had been denied for decades.
