ZEIDAN
The ink bleeds across the parchment in thick, deliberate strokes. I’ve copied this passage a dozen times now, but I still don’t understand the final line. The ancient dialect is stubborn, full of layered meanings and cursed nuance.
Where blood roots, power feeds. Where will bends, soul binds.
The phrase coils around itself in my mind, Crowd and elusive. I set the quill down and flex my fingers. Across the stone table, three more scrolls lie open, histories of bond rituals, forbidden accounts of the early schisms between our kind and the Purna. None of them explains what happens when two unwilling souls are forced into alignment.
I look down at my forearm. The shimmer beneath the skin has intensified. The bond magic is no longer sleeping. It pulses now, aware and expectant.
The room is quiet save for the crackling of cold flame in the braziers. Garrick enters without knocking, as always.
"They’ve called another meeting," he says. "The Matrons are restless."
"Let them be restless," I reply. "Their venom only strengthens my resolve."
Garrick crosses his arms. "They’re not just posturing. They say if you perform the bond, you’ll forfeit your seat. You’ll be stripped of all command."
I stand slowly. "Good. Let them try."
But his expression doesn’t change. "Are you sure this isn’t personal?"
I meet his gaze, unmoving. "Everything is personal."
He says nothing more, only steps aside as I leave the chamber. The corridor beyond is dark, lined with torches that do not burn but glow, Vrakken magic, cold and luminous. My steps echo through the hall like warnings.
In the council chamber, six sets of eyes await me. Matron Serida is the first to speak.
"You risk everything for a dying witch."
"I risk nothing," I say, voice steady. "I act in accordance with our interests."
Matron Hessa scoffs. "You act for your pride."
"If pride led me, I would’ve turned her away and let the blight eat them alive. But I see the future. I see what we could become."
Serida leans forward, fingers steepled. "And what exactly do you see in her?"
A thousand images flicker through my mind. Her eyes lit with fury. Her voice, sharp and clear. The way she refused to kneel.
"A fire worth stoking," I answer.
They whisper among themselves, but I no longer care. Their approval is a game I’ve stopped playing.
The council chamber hums with tension. Matron Serida taps her long nails against the obsidian table as if the rhythm will unsettle me.
Serida leans forward. “Even if it works, the consequences would be dangerous. Binding with a Purna would fracture public loyalty. Our people still remember the wars. The betrayals.”
“Let them remember. Let them watch. If the ritual succeeds, they will forget their fear in awe.”
“And if it breaks you?”
“Then I will be the one who survives it.”
Silence follows. Not approval, but not refusal, either.
Matron Yrelda speaks next, quiet but firm. “You won’t have our blessing.”
“I never asked for it,” I say.
