The morning came gray and drowned in rain, each droplet tracing a trembling path down the glass walls of the observation chamber.
The city beyond was only a silhouette now blurred, ghostly, unreachable.
Eryndor sat still in the sterile white room, the hum of invisible machines vibrating faintly through the floor.
A band of silver circled his wrist, pulsing with faint blue light. The Containment Regulator.
It synchronized with his heartbeat an artificial rhythm dictating how much of himself he was allowed to exist.
Across the partition of reinforced glass, Luca mirrored his position.
Same band, same rhythm, same silence.
When Eryndor finally lifted his gaze, Luca managed a crooked grin.
"At least they didn't chain us to the wall," he said. "That's progress, right?"
Eryndor didn't answer. His eyes followed the shimmer in the air between them the faint static pulse that used to connect them freely.
Now, each attempt to reach across that invisible distance made the regulators tighten, the blue glow pulsing harder, like punishment.
Luca exhaled, his grin fading. "They tuned it to hurt when we connect."
Eryndor's voice was soft. "They're afraid of what we might become."
At the other end of the room, behind an invisible barrier of soundproof glass, Dr. Soren watched in silence.
His fingers danced across the holographic screen, data streams unfolding in perfect synchrony.
The resonance readings rose and fell like twin stars orbiting one another unstable, yet drawn by gravity they couldn't defy.
Councilor Ardent's voice crackled through the comm system.
"Their synchronization rate remains high, even under suppression. How is that possible?"
"It's not resistance," Soren replied quietly. "It's adaptation."
"Then push them harder," Ardent ordered. "We need to know the threshold."
Soren hesitated. "If I increase the regulator pressure, their vitals could"
"Do it."
The call ended, leaving only the hum of the machines and the weight of obedience.
The lights flickered once before the surge came.
The regulators blazed white-hot, arcs of energy crawling beneath their skin.
Eryndor gasped and fell forward, clutching his wrist.
Across the glass, Luca cursed under his breath, pressing his hand against the transparent wall between them.
The resonance screamed to life raw, defiant struggling against the enforced distance.
"Eryndor!" Luca shouted, his voice cracking through the static.
"I'm here don't fight it!"
"I'm not," Luca rasped, golden light flickering in his eyes. "I'm trying to hold on!"
The glass quivered, trembling with unseen force. The hum deepened, the lights dimmed.
And then.
A blinding pulse of energy exploded outward.
Both were thrown backward as the room plunged into darkness.
The only sound was their ragged breathing.
When power flickered back, Soren's screen displayed an anomaly:
The two regulators had merged frequency signatures two lights beating as one.
He froze.
"They've fused"
The words barely left his mouth when Ardent's cold voice returned through the comm.
"Interesting. Keep them contained. We can't risk this spreading."
Hours later, the rain still fell, heavy and relentless.
Eryndor sat in the corner of his dimly lit cell, breathing slowly, the band around his wrist still glowing faintly.
The door hissed open.
Luca stepped in disheveled, pale, but alive.
"They moved me here," he said quietly. "Guess we're under joint observation now."
Eryndor looked up, exhausted. "Together again, then."
Luca chuckled softly, sitting beside him. "Yeah. Lucky us."
They sat in silence, the storm echoing faintly through the metal walls.
The resonance between them thrummed like a heartbeat weak, restrained, but undeniable.
Eryndor closed his eyes, whispering to himself:
"They can contain the light. But they can't make it stop existing."
Outside, thunder answered.
The storm didn't stop that night.
It crawled along the sky like a restless creature, tapping against the reinforced windows of the containment block.
Inside, the air buzzed with something electric neither silence nor peace.
Eryndor sat cross-legged on the floor, his hands hovering just above the shimmering surface of his regulator.
Each pulse of blue light felt slower now, weaker as if the device itself struggled to contain what it didn't understand.
Luca paced the room, his movements sharp and restless.
He kept glancing toward the ceiling, where the thin hum of surveillance drones resonated.
"They're watching us," Luca muttered. "Every breath, every blink."
Eryndor didn't look up. "Then we'll give them something worth watching."
Luca frowned. "You're thinking of breaking out, aren't you?"
"Not yet," Eryndor whispered, tracing a line of condensation along the cold wall. "But the regulators they're linked now. That means one signal."
"One chance," Luca said, realization dawning.
They shared a look brief but heavy with unspoken intent.
For the first time in days, something inside them aligned not through power or pain, but choice.
Hours passed in quiet preparation.
Every movement was deliberate; every whisper, calculated.
They tested the rhythm of the regulators how each pulse could be timed to distort the chamber's monitoring frequency.
"Three seconds," Eryndor murmured, counting the pattern aloud. "We have three seconds between each recalibration."
Luca smiled faintly. "Three seconds is enough for me."
He reached out, his fingers brushing against Eryndor's wrist.
For a moment, the regulators pulsed brighter synchronized perfectly.
Then came a low hum, almost like the room was breathing with them.
Outside, Dr. Soren stared at the monitors.
Something was wrong. The data looped, flickered, then smoothed again.
But instead of two distinct readings, he saw one seamless wave of light.
He leaned forward, his brow furrowed. "That shouldn't be possible"
An alert flashed across the screen:
Containment Sync Error Detected System Override Pending.
Soren's hand hovered over the command board.
He hesitated then withdrew it.
"Let's see what you're trying to show me," he whispered.
Inside the chamber, the air shifted.
The lights dimmed, and the hum deepened into a low vibration that resonated through their bones.
Eryndor stood, eyes glowing faintly beneath the flicker.
"Now," he said.
Luca pressed his palm to the wall.
The regulators flared white, flooding the room with light. The glass rippled like water, distorting reality itself.
Then.
A crack.
A fracture spreading through the transparent barrier.
The sound of containment failing.
Eryndor gasped as power surged through him wild, untamed, alive.
It wasn't destruction; it was release.
The resonance wasn't meant to be contained it was meant to connect.
The chamber lights shattered in a storm of sparks.
The containment field collapsed.
For a heartbeat, they were free standing in the glow of something larger than both of them.
And then silence.
Only their breathing, fast and trembling, filled the space between them.
Luca looked at Eryndor, eyes wide, a flicker of fear and awe tangled in his voice.
"You did it"
Eryndor shook his head slowly. "We did."
He stepped closer, rainlight from the broken window painting their faces silver.
"Whatever happens next," he whispered, "we face it together."
Outside, the storm finally began to fade.
But somewhere deep within the Academy, alarms were already screaming.