I have not told him.
The admission sits heavily in my mind.
It is not a lie. Not directly. I have not spoken falsehood to him. I would not. I cannot.
But omission?—
Omission is a narrower path… a technicality. One I have been walking since Solan placed the documentation in front of me earlier today.
Rift formation theory. It’s incomplete and fragmented. It’s also dangerous.
And yet?—
Possible.
I close my eyes briefly, recalling the details with unwanted clarity. Energy thresholds. Structural instability. Patterns that might—might—be manipulated into reopening a controlled tear between worlds.
It is not a solution. It is not even reliable. But it is enough to give hope—enough to give Pax a way back to Earth.
My stomach constricts. The reaction is immediate, bordering on violent. Instinctive.
No.
The word forms before I can stop it.
The thought of him leaving?—
It is not tolerable.
The bond recoils at the idea, something deep within me reacting with a visceral rejection that borders on panic. My heart stumbles, breath shortening for a fraction of a second before I force control back into place.
If he leaves, I will die.
Not metaphorically.
Not just eventually.
But within a short span of time. It is the nature of my kind.
On Othrynn, fated bonds were common. Expected. Integrated into the structure of our society as naturally as breath. We were not rare in this.
But separation… true separation… was.
When a bond is severed by choice, when one mate leaves the other behind, the result is not grief alone. It is death. It’s not immediate and not always clean, but it is inevitable.
The body fails and the mind fractures. The bond, once formed, does not tolerate absence. It destroys what remains.
I have seen it and have witnessed the aftermath. I have no desire to survive it. If Pax leaves, I will not attempt to. The thought does not frighten me. Instead, it clicks into place with quiet certainty.
If he is gone, there is nothing of value left to preserve.
My hand stills against his back. I have not told him this.
I told him the truth: that his choices are his own and that I will not bind him. That he is free.
All of that is accurate. I did not tell him the consequence. Because if I do, it ceases to be a choice. It becomes coercion, and that is something I will not do to him. Even if it kills me.
The pain at the base of my skull pulses again, a direct response to the strain of holding that omission in place. It is the closest my body comes to rejecting the decision.
