I follow, because I trust him.
Even if I don't quite trust myself.
Cadeon
The sittingroom is warm with firelight and the lingering magic of the evening.
I guide Iris to the sofa, her hands trembling in mine. The clock on the mantle ticks steadily toward midnight, but I am not watching it. I am watching her.
She is terrified.
Not of me. Never of me, not anymore. She is terrified of the same thing she has been terrified of her entire life: being seen. Being known. Being held instead of being the one who holds.
"Sit," I tell her gently, and she sinks onto the cushions like her strings have been cut.
I kneel before her. Not in submission this time, though the position is the same. This is worship. This is choice.
"Iris." I take her hands, press them flat against my chest where my heart would beat if I were still alive. "Look at me."
Her eyes meet mine, wide and bright with unshed tears. "I don't know how to do this."
"Do what?"
"Let go." Her voice cracks. "I've spent my whole life being strong. Being capable. Proving I didn't need anyone, that I wasenough on my own. And now the magic is asking me to admit that I'm not. That I need you. That I'm incomplete without you."
"Is that so terrible? Needing someone?"
"It feels like dying." She laughs, but there is no humor in it. "Which is ridiculous, because I love you. I trust you. I know you won't hurt me. But the thought of letting go, of surrendering control, of admitting I can't do this alone..."
"You've never had to do anything alone. You simply convinced yourself you did." I bring her hands to my lips, kiss each knuckle. "But I am here now. And I am not going anywhere."
"What if I can't do it? What if I try to surrender and I fail and the bond breaks anyway?"
"Then we will face that together."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it is true." I shift closer, my knees between her feet, my face level with hers. "Iris. My love. My heart. You have spent weeks teaching me that I am allowed to want things. That I am allowed to choose. That I am a person, not a weapon." I cup her face in my hands. "Now let me teach you something."
"What?"
"That you are allowed to be held. That needing someone is not weakness. That surrender is not defeat." I brush my thumb across her cheekbone, catching a tear that has escaped. "You have carried so much for so long. Let me carry you for a while."
The clock strikes eleven fifty.
Ten minutes.
"I don't know how," she whispers.
"Then I will show you." I lean in, press my forehead to hers. "Trust me. Just for tonight, trust me to hold you. Trust me to catch you if you fall. Trust me to love you exactly as you are, incomplete and afraid and desperately trying to control something that cannot be controlled."
"That's a lot of trust."
"You have given me more." I kiss her gently, barely a brush of lips. "You looked at a weapon and saw a man. You looked at two centuries of damage and saw something worth saving. You gave me back myself, Iris. Let me give you the same gift."
She is trembling. I can feel it through the bond, through my hands on her face, through the small space between us. Fear and hope and love, tangled together so tightly she cannot tell them apart.
"Okay," she breathes. "Okay. Show me."
