“If I do this—if I choose you—there’s no going back. The bond will complete. We’ll be changed. Connected in ways neither of us fully understands.”
“I know.”
“Caspian will never forgive me. I’ll be outcast. A traitor to everything I was raised to believe.”
“I know.”
“And I still might lose myself. Might wake up one day and not recognize the person I’ve become.”
She cups my cheek, and the tenderness in the gesture breaks something in my chest. “Or you might wake up and realize you’ve finally found who you were always meant to be.”
The truth of it settles over me like falling water. Maybe I’ve been drowning my whole life and just didn’t know it. Maybe the sky isn’t poison—isolation is. Maybe reaching for something different isn’t betrayal—it’s the bravest thing I could do.
Maybe Mira understood that all along.
“I choose you,” I whisper. “Not because of the bond. Because you argue and challenge and make me want to be better. Because you’re fierce and brilliant and you see me—not the Sentinel, not the dutiful son, just Torin. And I would rather be an outcast with you than a hero without you.”
Her breath catches. “Say that again.”
“I choose you, Zara Stormwright. I choose this. I choose us.”
She kisses me like I’ve given her the sky.
This kiss isdifferent from the first.
The first was desperation and denial, all heat and no certainty. This one is choice—deliberate, frightening, and so right it makes my chest ache.
Her mouth opens under mine with a soft sound, and the bond answers like a living thing, unfurling between us. I taste salt and rain and the faint metallic tang of lightning. My hands slide to her waist, pulling her closer until her body fits against mine in the way it always has in my dreams.
She trembles. Not from fear. From want.
“Torin,” she breathes, my name turning into something sacred.
“I’m here.” I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Her eyes search mine, amber bright in the moss-light. Vulnerable and fierce in the same breath. “I’ve never done this before,” she admits quietly. “Not like this. Not with someone who matters.”
The confession punches straight through me.
“Neither have I.” My voice comes rough. Honest. “I’ve had bodies. I’ve had convenience. But I’ve never had this. Someone I’d choose over everything.”
Her smile wobbles, soft with wonder. “Then we’ll figure it out together.”
Together. The word reshapes the air around us.
I kiss her again, slow enough that I can feel every part of her deciding, every part of her leaning in. Her hands slide into my hair, nails scraping my scalp in a way that sends a shiver down my spine. Lightning crackles along her skin, sparks jumping to my mouth. My water magic instinctively rises, cool and steady, smoothing the sting into heat.
A balance. A storm held in a current.
I pull back just far enough to speak against her lips. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
She swallows. “I don’t.”
“Tell me if something hurts.”
