Then she asks, blunt as a blade: “Is there something between you and the Golden Son?”
“No,” I snap, sharp and absolute. There’s no lie in my voice. “But… being away from Daedalus for so long, away from his pull, his presence, the gravity of his eyes and the heat of his touch…”
I breathe in slowly.
“It’s made things clearer. Like I can finally hear my own thoughts again.”
She arches a brow. “You mean without him on top of you, you’re capable of coherent reflection?”
A startled laugh bursts from me, half-guilty, half-relieved, my cheeks flushing. “Something like that.”
The sound is enough to make my daughter stir. She murmurs softly in her crib, swaddled tight and warm. I bite down on my tongue, holding my breath, willing her back to sleep.
Ashen leaps onto the bed with the grace of a shadow. No sound, barely a ripple in the covers. He hisses at me, low and reprimanding, as if warning me to keep it down. Then he circles once and settles, curling beside the crib.
My daughter sighs herself back to sleep.
“There is nothing wrong with how you feel,” Solena says, lowering her voice. “But perhaps you should speak to Daedalus.”
“What if I can’t?” I whisper.
She lifts an eyebrow. “You’ve stood against human armies. You’ve brought down a Fae queen with green fire spilling from your palms. I think you can manage a conversation with your husband.” A pause. “Just try to keep your hands to yourself long enough to get the words out.”
“But it’s more than that,” I say, my voice thin, as if pleading a case no one asked me to defend. “It’s this... presence. This thing coiled in my belly. It fills me up, moves in my blood.”
I glance down, my thumbs brushing the pads of my fingers, the memory of his touch blooming in my skin.
“There’s a thread. Gold. Blinding when we touch. I know I must be imagining it, but…”
Solena freezes, eyes widening before she grabs my shoulders, hard enough to jolt me.
“What did you say?”
Her voice spikes louder than she intends. Ashen lifts his head with a low growl, eyes flashing as he checks the crib. My daughter sighs again, undisturbed.
“Golden threads?” Solena repeats, her voice tight with urgency. “Are you certain?”
I nod slowly. “They’re strongest when we...” I don’t finish, but the way my jaw locks says enough.
She nods once, understanding passing silently between us.
“Those are Binds of Fate,” she says, her voice wrapped in reverence. “They’re the threads of destiny that connect soul-bound mates, Amara.”
“Mates?” The tiny hairs along my arms prickle. “That word is for the Fae only. Why would I see something like that?”
Solena’s gaze flicks to the rune inked at the base of my neck. “You may be human, but Fae magic courses through you, rivers of it, pulsing beneath your skin. That wordisyours now, and if you’re truly searching for why you feel the way you do, why you’re drawn to Daedalus like the moon pulls the tide, then the Binds of Fate explain everything. You two were matched. Meant for each other long before you ever met.”
A scoff slips from my lips. “That can’t possibly be true. How does that make sense? How can something as powerful as love leave you so helpless?”
Solena’s eyes narrow slightly, as if I’ve missed something painfully obvious. “You say that like it’s a flaw. Love, true love, is powerlessness. That’s the point, Amara.”
I hate how the words settle. How they fit like puzzle pieces I didn’t even realize I’d been fumbling with. How, suddenly, everything makes sense. The gravity between us. The ache when he’s not near. The madness when he is. It’s ridiculous, absurd, even, to believe that before I ever laid eyes on him, some ancient force had already etched our story into the stars, or stone, or any other mystical artifact.
And yet… I feel a strange relief. A little less unhinged. As if the chaos inside me has been given a name, a reason. Permission to love him with no logic. To want him past sense, past reason, past self.
To need him in that breathless, tangled way that leaves me feeling morewholethan I ever have in my life.
“Do you think Daed knows?” I ask softly.
