Silence stretches.
“I’m scared,” Mara admits quietly.
“Of what?”
“That I’ll wake up tomorrow and realize everything I felt for you was just the bond. That without it, I’ll look at you and feel…nothing.” Her voice drops. “Or worse. That I’ll feel something, but you won’t.”
The honesty of it cuts.
“I’m scared of the same thing,” I tell her.
She looks up sharply. “What?”
“I’m scared that when the bond breaks, I’ll look at you and see only what I lost instead of who you are. That my memories of Lyria will drown out everything else.” I meet her eyes. “Or worse. That you’ll look at me and realize you were bound to a relic who belongs in the past, not the present.”
“You’re not a relic.”
“I am centuries out of time. I speak like the dead. Move through your world like a stranger. I don’t understand half of what you reference, and the other half confuses me.”
“You’re learning.”
“Learning is not the same as belonging.”
She studies me. “Is that what you want? To belong?”
Good question.
Do I?
I ruled once. Belonged to a court, a kingdom, a time that shaped me. Then I slept. Woke to a world that moved on without me.
Do I want to belong to this new world? Or just to—
“I want to belong with you,” I hear myself say.
Mara’s eyes widen. “Kael—”
“But I don’t know if that’s the bond speaking or something real.” I lean forward. Elbows on knees. “Tomorrow, we’ll find out.”
“And if it was just the bond?”
“Then we move forward. Separately. You heal completely. I figure out what my place is in this world.”
“And if it wasn’t?”
“Then we figure out what this is without magic forcing the answer.”
She pulls her knees tighter. “That’s very rational. Very… calm.”
“Should I be otherwise?”
“Most people would be panicking. Or angry. Or trying to convince me not to go through with it.”
“I am not most people.”
“No.” Her smile is small. “You’re really not.”
Silence falls again.
