We move into the second phase. Truth comes easier now—we know each other better, the words flow without forcing.
“I haven’t been this happy in years,” I admit, the magic pulling honesty from deep places. “Even with the transformationand expired food and Keith’s PowerPoints. These three days have been better than the last three years with Martin.”
“A new word has entered my thoughts: ‘we.’ It feels foreign, dangerous, and more right than anything has in centuries. When I imagine tomorrow, you’re there.”
The magic accepts our truths, glowing brighter. The salt circle sparks silver-blue. Everything is working. We’re actually doing it.
“Stage three,” he says. “Choice.”
This is where we failed last night. Where I froze. But now, looking at him in the circle’s light, seeing my translucent hand in his solid one, I’m ready. I want this. I want him. I want?—
“Do you, Rianne Martinez, choose this bond, knowing its permanence?”
The formal words trigger something. And because I’m me, because I handle serious moments with the grace of a drunk giraffe on ice skates, I do the worst possible thing.
I laugh.
Not a small laugh. A sudden, nervous, completely inappropriate giggle that escapes before I can stop it.
“Sorry,” I gasp, trying to contain it. “Sorry, it’s just—you sound like a minister at a wedding and?—”
Stenrik’s face goes cold. Actually cold. Ice spreads from his feet in sharp, angry fractals.
“This is serious, Rianne.”
“I know! I know it’s serious, I just?—”
“Do you? Because you’re laughing at potentially the most important moment of our lives.”
“I’m not laughing AT it, I’m laughing because I’m nervous and?—”
“This is what you do,” he says, and his voice is different. Harder. “You joke through everything. Nothing is ever serious enough for you to just... feel it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your deflection. Your constant need to make everything a joke.” His ice is spreading faster now, jagged and uncontrolled. “We’re trying to save everyone from transformation and you’re giggling.”
“Oh, I’M the problem?” The magic around us starts flickering, recognizing conflict. “At least I HAVE emotions to deflect from!” I’m pacing now, can’t stop moving, my hands straightening books on shelves as I pass even though my vision is blurring with tears. Ice spreads from every surface I touch, writing angry words in frost: UNFAIR, SCARED, ALONE. “You’re so frozen you don’t even know how to feel anymore!”
“I feel plenty—” Stenrik’s hands grip the desk, and ice explodes across its surface in jagged, violent patterns I’ve never seen from him. The wood cracks from the sudden cold.
“No, you process. You analyze.” I spin to face him, and a whole shelf of books tumbles to the floor from the magical feedback crackling between us. Neither of us moves to pick them up. “You think about feeling. But actually feeling? When’s the last time you just felt something without examining it from seventeen angles first?”
The temperature drops so fast my breath fogs thick between us. Through my increasingly translucent hand, I can see the bones clearly now—the transformation is accelerating with our conflict.
“You’ve turned yourself into an actual ice sculpture! Three hundred years of ‘I’m fine alone’ and ‘I don’t need anyone’ and you’re surprised the ceremony can’t read real emotion from you?”
The ceremony fails spectacularly. The salt circle explodes outward. The Chronicle slams shut so hard it cracks the binding. We’re thrown apart—I hit the Biography shelf again (samebruise, fantastic), and Stenrik crashes into Self-Help, which still feels pointed.
“PRESENTATION INTERRUPTED!” Keith wails. “KEITH DID NOT PREPARE SLIDES FOR THIS OUTCOME!”
I’m on the floor, ribs aching again, absolutely furious. “Three hundred years of perfect control, and now you want to lecture ME about emotional availability?”
Stenrik stands, and for the first time since I’ve met him, he looks genuinely furious. Ice spreads from his feet in patterns I’ve never seen—chaotic, violent, uncontrolled.
“At least I’m not so terrified of sincerity that I turn our soul-bonding into a stand-up routine!”
“At least I’m not so emotionally constipated that I make winter look warm and fuzzy!”
