"Yes."
"You're insane."
"Yes." He grins up at me. "But you knew that already."
Soulmarks.
Bonds.
My hands branded with proof of a connection I didn't choose.
Very on-theme for my life, actually.
Everyone else deciding what happens to my body. Why should cosmic forces be any different?
"How long have you known?"
The grin fades. Not all the way—it never does with him—but enough.
"The obsession. The way you've been since I got here—watching me, touching me, all of it." My voice is climbing. I force it back down. "How long have you known this could happen?"
He meets my eyes.
"I didn't know."
"Bullshit."
"I didn't." His voice scrapes. "Soulmarks haven't appeared in centuries. There's no warning, no sign. Just—" He stops. "I was obsessed with you. From the moment you walked into that room. But I'm always—"
Another stop.
Runs his tongue over his teeth
"I couldn't tell the difference. Between the bond forming and just wanting you."
The bathhouse is too quiet. Just water and steam and the blood rushing through my skull.
"So you had no idea."
"I suspected. After a while." He exhales through his nose, sharp. "Elyr was the one who actually said it out loud. She noticed before I did. Told me what she thought was happening."
I stare at him.
"Elyr," I repeat. "Your dead sister. The one whose spine you made into a blade"
"Yes."
"Your dead sister—who I've never met, who exists only as the bone of your weapon—knew about this before I did."
"Yes."
"And you didn't think that was worth mentioning? 'Hey Iowyn, my ghost sister thinks we might be cosmically bound, thought you should know'?"
His mouth twitches. "It didn't come up."
"It didn't—" I laugh, and it sounds unhinged even to me. "Of course. Why would it? Just a normal day in the life of The Mad God. Dead relatives weighing in on our love life from inside a blade. Very casual."
"She liked you."
