The bloodline bond, the specific magic binding him to House Ashwood, is even worse. It's older, deeper, more invasive than standard familiar bonds. He literally cannot feed from anyone outside the bloodline. If the Ashwood line ended, he would starve. Slowly. Painfully. Until he went feral or found a way to end himself.
"She did this to you. My family did this to you," I whisper to the empty library. "For two hundred years."
"I'm interrupting."
I jump, nearly knocking over my tea. Cadeon is standing in the doorway, and I have no idea how long he's been there.
"No, it's fine. I'm just..." I gesture helplessly at the books spread across the desk. "Researching"
He moves into the room with that unsettling grace, glancing at the spines of the books I've pulled. His expression doesn't change, but something in his posture goes rigid.
"Bond theory," he observes.
"Yeah." I close the book I was reading, suddenly not wanting him to see the clinical descriptions of his own suffering. "Trying to understand what's happening with the weakening. And... how it all works."
"And what have you learned?"
I look at him. Really look at him. He's standing very carefully, hands at his sides, face blank. Waiting for judgment. For disappointment. For me to realize what a burden he is.
"That it's worse than I thought," I say honestly. "The compulsion. The pain if you resist. The fact that you literally can't feed from anyone else. They did this to you. For two centuries. And she knew the whole time."
"She maintained the bond as it was meant to be maintained."
"That doesn't make it okay!"
"It's what I am." His voice is flat, empty. "I was made for this."
"No." I stand, facing him across the desk. "You weremade intothis. There's a difference."
He looks away. "Is there?"
"Yes." I take a breath, trying to organize the tangle of anger and horror and determination in my chest. "Cadeon, I've been reading for hours. I understand now why the bonds are weakening. They require the master's will to dominate, a ”constant magical pressure.” A refusal to see the familiar as an equal. And I..." I laugh, sharp and bitter. "I can't do that. I don'twantto do that."
"Then the bond will break." He says it like he's reporting the weather. "And I will either starve or go feral. The bloodline bond ensures it."
"Or," I say slowly, "we figure out a different way."
"There is no different way. The bond is absolute."
"The bonds are also weakening across the entire region. Something is changing. Something about the solstice, about the magic itself. Maybe..." I'm thinking out loud now, pacing behind the desk. "Maybe this is an opportunity. Maybe we can find a way to change your bond. Make it something else. Something better."
"You're being naive."
"Maybe. Or maybe I'm being hopeful." I stop pacing, meeting his eyes. "I'm not going to dominate you. I'm not going to treat you like a weapon. And if that means the bond breaks, then..."
"Then I die." His control cracks slightly, a flash of something raw in his expression. "Or worse, I hurt you. I hurt everyone. Without the bond's structure, I don't know what I am. I don't know what I'll become."
"A person," I say firmly. "You'll become a person who gets to make his own choices."
"I don't know how to do that."
"Then we'll figure it out. Together." I move around the desk, closer to him. "As partners."
"I'm not a partner. I'm am..."
"You're whatever we decide you are," I interrupt. "And I'm deciding that we're partners. We're going to research the bond-weakening together. We're going to figure out what's happening and how to fix it, or how to change it into something better. And in the meantime, you're going to let me treat you like a person."
He stares at me like I'm speaking a foreign language.
