Good. That should make this easier.
It doesn’t.
The bond twists uneasily, reacting to her restraint, her silence. She is fighting it, consciously, stubbornly, and the resistance sends tremors through the connection like hairline fractures. She thinks distance will dull it. She’s wrong. It only makes the pull sharper, more erratic.
I catalog her the way I do everything dangerous.
The way loose strands of her hair catch the light. The tension in her jaw. The exhaustion she refuses to show anyone but me, because I feel it anyway, layered beneath her resolve.
She is beautiful in a way that infuriates me. Not soft. Not ornamental. Dangerous beauty. The kind that survives fire and dares it to try again. I hate that I’m bound to her. I hate that she barely speaks to me now, as if silence might be a weapon.
And I hate most of all that I am forced to know her anyway, through pulse and breath and the subtle shift of her emotions bleeding into mine. Understanding her without permission is far worse than conversation.
I turn away before the bond tightens further.
Velcryn greets me with whispers.They slither through corridors, coil in shadows, crawl along the marble like living things. The Matrons have already decided the story: that I am compromised, that the bond is unstable, that the Purna girl has sunk her claws deeper than expected.
Let them talk.
I don’t stop walking. Garrick finds me in the eastern hall, leaning against a pillar carved with the names of fallen princes. He straightens when he sees me, expression grim.
“They’re preparing a vote,” he says without preamble. “Stripping you of command. Possibly worse.”
I keep moving. “How long?”
“A few days. They’re gathering allies. Spinning fear.”
“Good,” I say. “Fear makes them sloppy.”
Garrick frowns. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“I am,” I reply. “That’s why I’m not reacting.”
He studies me. “You’re unraveling.”
I stop.
The bond surges, hot and sharp, reacting to my stillness, to my anger.
“I am perfectly controlled,” I say.
Garrick exhales. “You haven’t slept. You’re bleeding power. And you keep looking east like you expect her to walk through the gates.”
I say nothing.
Because the bond is screaming. It wants proximity. It wants her. Every step away from Nytheria feels like tearing skin from bone. My magic lashes against its restraints. The suppression runes barely hold.
“She’s affecting you,” Garrick says quietly.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And it changes nothing.”
He looks unconvinced. “You’re going back.”
“I’m retrieving the anchors,” I say. “Then I’m returning.”
