The wooden sphere held. Not comfortably, not without cost, but with the kind of resistance measured in creaks and in the constant pressure of tons of rock pushing from every angle at once, but it held.
Lucian kept his hands pressed against the inner surface of the sphere, eyes closed, with the focus of someone holding something together as much with will as with magic, feeling every point of tension in the wood and reinforcing it before it could fully give way.
Ebony kept the purifying fire active on the outer layer, feeding it with what little reserves she had left, which wasn't much since she had already burned through everything she got from the restoring apple, but it was enough so that anything trying to break through the wood from the outside would face a second problem before reaching them.
