Chapter 107

POV: Isla

The forest didn’t sleep that night. It breathed. It shifted. It listened.

And every inhale it took felt threaded through my ribs, as though the roots beneath us had found a way to echo my heartbeat back into my own chest. Tristan sat a few feet away, sharpening the blade he wouldn’t use, jaw tight, shoulders tense, pretending the air wasn’t carrying every pulse between us like a shared secret.

Kieran stood closer to the shard, hands hovering above it the same way someone might reach toward warm water curious, cautious, unable to resist the pull. The gold glow washed over his palms, painting faint lines across his skin, lighting the soft shadows that deepened the quiet around us.

The bridge had changed our nights. A steady, waiting attention.

The kind that made you feel as though something ancient was leaning in just enough to ask, And what will you do next?

I exhaled slowly, brushing my fingers over the edge of the shard. Heat curled beneath my skin, soft and patient, threading up my arm and settling behind my sternum like a warm hand pressed to my heart.

The shard responded to emotion and  connection.

Which meant the forest was listening to us in ways we still didn’t understand.

“Isla,” Kieran murmured suddenly. “Look.” I turned. The ground beneath the shard shimmered, light pulsing in slow waves outward like ripples in a pond. Not bright. Not alarming. Just steady.

“Is it stronger?” I asked. He shook his head. “No. It’s calmer.”

And it was. The hum beneath the soil felt different tonight less like a warning, more like a heartbeat that had settled, waiting to see what rhythm we would offer next.

I glanced toward Tristan. He met my eyes, and something in his expression shifted. Less guarded. Less withdrawn. Awareness flickered through the space between us, soft at first, then undeniable.

The bridge wasn’t only learning through us.

It was shaping us. And that truth carried its own weight.

POV: Tristan

The night was too quiet. Not empty just full of a silence that felt intentional.

A silence that watched. Measured. I could feel the shard from where I sat, the low pulse of it tapping against my senses like a finger drumming lightly against my sternum. Not a threat. A request.

Isla’s hand moved over the surface, her fingers brushing light into motion. Every time she exhaled, the hum beneath us matched her breath, like the ground itself was syncing to her, learning her, absorbing her rhythm. My grip tightening around the blade had nothing to do with fear.

Even I wasn’t arrogant enough to pretend the forest cared whether I held a weapon.

No the tension came from something deeper. Because the way the shard responded to her wasn’t passive.

It was engaged. Present. Intentional.

And the way the forest reacted how the branches leaned slightly inward, how the roots vibrated beneath us, how the air warmed every time her emotions flickered it all pointed to the same truth:

She was its anchor the one it listened to most.

Not because she wanted control or reached for power.

But because she offered something neither Kieran nor I could match

a steady, open willingness to feel without resistance.

Kieran worked beside her like a second pulse careful, attentive, measuring each shift of light. And I hated how well he read her.

But the bridge didn’t treat them as separate pieces.

It treated them as one flow and it treated me like the part that completed the pattern.

A balance I wasn’t sure I wanted and yet couldn’t step away from.

The hum deepened, resonating hard enough that my breath stilled. Isla glanced over her shoulder at me. The light hit her face, highlighting the curve of her jaw, the line of her cheek, the quiet determination in her expression. “It wants you closer,” she said. I frowned. “You’re guessing.”

“No,” she murmured. “I’m feeling it.” The shard warmed under her palm, pulses stretching outward.

Kieran’s brow knit. “It responds better when all three of us are near.” My jaw tightened because I already knew that. Every time I stepped back, the hum weakened.

The forest wasn’t just reacting to emotion. It was reacting to unity.

Reluctantly slowly I stood and walked closer, the air warming with each step until the hum was no longer beneath my feet but inside my ribs.

Isla watched me with calm focus, not pushing, not forcing just waiting.

When I reached them, the shard glowed brighter.

Not blinding Just certain.

A soft pulse spread through the soil, through the clearing, through the trees, turning the night air into something alive and attentive. Kieran exhaled.

“It feels relieved.”

I swallowed hard. “Like it expected us to figure this out sooner.”

Isla’s lips curved faintly. “Maybe it just wanted honesty.”

And there it was again the quiet thing inside me that responded every time she spoke like that, every time she looked at me like she already knew the places inside my chest I refused to name.

I didn’t want the bridge to see that. But it felt everything. And it answered.

The shard brightened one more time, soft light spilling into the dark.

And then the hum settled into a rhythm that felt suspiciously like us breathing in unison.

POV: Isla

The clearing shifted just after Tristan stepped in Not dramatically not with wind or shaking ground or sparks but in this soft, undeniable way that made the forest feel reassured.

Like three pieces had finally aligned in the shape it needed. I didn’t touch Tristan’s arm.

His presence settled into the space beside me the way a long awaited answer slots into place after too many questions.

Kieran kept his hand close to the shard, tracking the slow ripples of gold drifting outward. “It’s stabilizing,” he murmured. “Whatever you two are doing”

“We’re breathing,” Tristan muttered. Kieran shot him a look. “Then breathe evenly.”

Tristan glared at him. The shard warmed. The forest pulsed with faint amusement.

I laughed under my breath. “It likes when we’re not tense.”