"You think I'd do that?" My voice comes out small, maybe a little hurt. "You think I'd become like her?"
"I think power corrupts. I think having someone bound to obey you is intoxicating. I think even good people, especially good people, convince themselves that control is protection." He pulls his hand from mine. "Your grandmother wasn't always cruel, Iris. She was kind once. Laughed once. Cared about things other than winning. But decades of war, of having a weapon at her disposal, of never having to ask because she could simply command... it changed her."
"I'm not her," I put steel in my tone because I need,need, him to understand this.
"Not yet. But what happens in ten years? Twenty? Fifty? When you've gotten used to me always being there, always saying yes, always doing exactly what you want? Will you even notice when you stop asking and start commanding?"
The accusation stings because there's truth in it. Power does corrupt. And I have absolute power over him.
"Then we break the bond," I say. "We let it dissolve at solstice if it’s possible. You go free. No risk of me becoming her. No risk of you staying trapped."
His laugh is broken. "And then what? I starve? I go feral? I hurt someone and you have to put me down like a rabid dog?"
"That won't happen." I don’t point out that I couldn’t hurt him even if I wanted to, not with my magic.
"You don't know that!" He's shouting now, and it's so unlike him that I actually flinch. "You keep saying that like it's a fact, but it's just hope. Just wishful thinking. You have no idea what will happen if the bloodline bond breaks. No one does. It's never been done."
"Then we'll be the first."
"And if we fail? If I lose control? If I hurt you?" His voice breaks. "I couldn't live with that. I've done terrible things, but Idid them under orders. If I hurt you of my own free will, if I hurt you because there's no bond to stop me, I don't know how to survive that."
We stand there, two people terrified of opposite outcomes, neither willing to back down.
"I won't dominate you," I say quietly. "I won't strengthen the bond the way she did. I won't treat you like a weapon or a tool or anything other than a person. I can't. Even if it means the bond breaks. Even if it means we don't know what happens next."
"Even if it means I might hurt you?"
"You won't hurt me."
"You can't know that!"
"No!" I'm shouting now too, frustration and fear boiling over. "I can't know that! I can't know anything for certain! But I trust you, Cadeon. I trust that the person who brings me tea and makes me laugh and holds me when I'm cold is real. I trust that the man who's terrified of hurting me won't hurt me. And I'm asking you to trust that too."
"What if I'm wrong? What if you're wrong?"
"Then we'll deal with it. Together. But I won't enslave you just because I'm afraid. I won't become her just because it's easier than believing in you."
He stares at me for a long moment, and I can see him breaking. Can see the centuries of conditioning warring with the fragile, new hope that maybe he could be something other than a weapon.
"I need to patrol," he says finally, his voice flat. "The wards need checking."
"Cadeon, please."
"I need to patrol," he repeats, and he's already moving toward the door. "I need to be useful. I need to... I just need to go."
And he's gone, disappearing out the door with that supernatural speed, leaving me alone in the library surrounded by books that suddenly feel like accusations.
I sink back into my chair, hands shaking.
That went badly. That went so, so badly.
Through the bond, that gossamer-thin thread that's barely there anymore, I feel him. Panic. Fear. Guilt. Shame. And underneath it all, a desperate, aching need to besomething. To have purpose. To matter.
"Damn it," I whisper to the empty room.
I thought finding answers would help. I thought understanding the bond-weakening would make everything clearer.
Instead, I've just made everything worse.
