The vision fades, leaving me staring at darkness.
Day six brings no letter. The silence stretches like a held breath.
I pace the palace halls, following routes that once echoed with her laughter, her arguments, her magnificent fury. Now they're tombs of crystal and ice, beautiful and utterly lifeless.
The scrying glass remains dark. Even Oberon has given up his interventions.
Day seven. Dawn finds me at my desk, staring at blank parchment. I've started a dozen letters, written words I can't send. Commands. Threats. Pleadings that die before reaching the page.
The latest report from my scouts arrived before sunrise:
My Lord,
The girl grows weaker by the hour. Father has summoned specialists from the eastern provinces, but they can do nothing. She asked this morning if you would come if she were dying. When told no one had contacted you, she nodded as if she expected nothing else.
She sleeps most of the day now. When awake, she stares north toward the mountains.
Morris
By afternoon, desperation drives me to my feet. I can end this with a word—reactivate the bond, summon her back to the palace where her omega nature would restore her health within hours. She'd return grateful, broken, ready to accept any terms I offered.
But the woman who would return wouldn't be the one I claimed. It would be a hollow shell, grateful for scraps of affection, too damaged to ever challenge me again.
Perfect submission achieved through perfect cruelty.
At sunset, the scrying glass flares one final time. Oberon's image appears, but he's not alone. Behind him, I can see other figures—ancient powers from courts across the realm.
"The prophecy fails," he says without preamble. "Magic bleeds from the world as we speak. Other bonds weaken in sympathy with yours."
"She lives," I say, though the words taste like ash.
"Barely. And when she dies—and she will die, Aratus—you'll have destroyed more than one stubborn omega. You'll have unraveled the magical framework that holds our worlds together."
The vision shifts, showing me Elise one last time. She lies in a human bed, thin as parchment, her silver hair dull against white pillows. But her eyes are open, staring at nothing, and her lips move in words I can't hear.
"What is she saying?" I demand.
"She's forgiving you," Oberon replies. "For not understanding the difference between love and ownership. For breaking something beautiful to prove you could."
The vision fades, leaving me alone with the weight of what I've done.
She's dying. Not from any human ailment, but from the slow starvation of a dormant bond that takes without giving. She'sfading away like a flower cut from its roots, and I'm the one who wielded the blade.
I could save her. Could reactivate the bond and watch her bloom back to health in my arms. Could have her grateful and willing and perfectly submissive within days.
Or I could let her die free, choosing her own destruction rather than accepting the life I offered.
The whiskey tastes like ashes as I pour another glass and settle in to wait for morning.
By dawn, I'll have to choose what kind of monster I want to be.
The bond pulses weakly, carrying echoes of her fading heartbeat. Each beat fainter than the last.
Time is running out.
CHAPTER 19
ELISE
