Page 166 of House Ignis

It wasn't that I was avoiding him; I still ended up in his arms every night, tangled in his shadows and breathing him in like oxygen.

But that soul-branding question hadn't come up again. He was giving me exactly what I needed: space, patience, and time.

The morning air was still and biting. The only sound was the rhythmic crunch of our boots on the frost.

We had stopped running, the silence of the woods wrapping around us as the adrenaline faded into a heavy, quiet ache.

"It's so strange," I said, my voice barely above a whisper, watching the steam of my breath vanish. "With Jeremy, I always felt like I was following a map. There was a path, and I knew where it led. It was safe." I looked at my hands, still trembling slightly. "But Asher… he's not a path. He's the destination."

I turned to her, my chest tight with the weight of the secret I'd been carrying all week.

"Em... he asked me to marry him."

Ember froze. The playful light in her eyes vanished, replaced by pure, unadulterated shock. She looked at me like I'd just grown wings.

"Oh my gods," she breathed, her voice dropping into a stunned whisper. "Ava... what the fuck did you say?"

I looked away, focusing on a patch of frozen moss. My mind flashed back to that moment in the Umbra tower shower. Suddenly, I wasn't in the forest anymore;

I was back in his arms, hot water pouring over us, his grip on my thighs tightening the second I'd said his name—like I was his to claim, his to brand.

“Asher,” I’d breathed, my voice cracking.

His eyes had locked on mine, stormy and endless. "I'm serious, darling," he'd murmured, touching his nose to mine. "I'm not playing anymore."

Tears had mixed with the water on my cheeks. "I want you," I'd whispered. "All of you. I give myself to you."

The bond had surged—heat, devotion, and raw power rolling through me.

He'd growled, holding me tighter against the marble.

But then I’d said the words that had stalled us. “I need to speak to Jeremy first. I owe him that much.”

I'd felt a flicker of hurt from him, a quiet devastation, but he didn't retreat.

"I'm yours," I'd sworn to him.

I blinked back to the present, my chest tight. "And that was that."

His lips had brushed my cheek where my tears had fallen. “I’ll hold you to that,” he’d whispered.

Ember watched me for a long moment, her expression shifting from shock to deep, protective concern.

"Ava, that's not a question you leave hanging in the air. Not with a male like him."

"I know," I whispered. "But I can't build a life with him on the wreckage of Jeremy's heart. I've known Jeremy since we were children. He's a good male, Em. He deserves the truth, not a disappearing act. I can't say 'yes' to a future with Asher while I'm still tied to a past with someone else."

I straightened my shoulders, letting my next words carry through the bond as I spoke them aloud to Ember.

"I'm telling Jeremy tonight," I said, my voice finally finding its edge. "At the ball. I'm going to end the betrothal. I'm going to tell him that I've found the other half of my soul, and it isn't him."

I felt it then. A sharp, sudden pulse across the bond. Not just magic, but something raw and visceral from a male who had been waiting in the dark for a light he wasn’t sure he was allowed to keep.

"I'd rather face the Council's fury," I continued, my mind locked onto the shadow-wrapped presence in the Umbra tower, "than spend another night pretending that my heart belongs to anyone but Asher."

His presence brushed against my consciousness, steady and heartbreakingly patient.

"I heard you, darling," his voice murmured through the bond, so faint it could have been the wind through the pines. "And I'll be waiting."