“I came here to prove I could handle a crisis alone. To show everyone I was more than Kael’s little sister. More than the safe diplomat. More than—” I stop. Start again. “But that’s not what happened. Instead, I found you. And you taught me that being alone isn’t strength. That asking for help isn’t weakness. That sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let someone else carry you through the darkness.”
His breath hitches. “Zara?—”
“I’m not done.” The water is at my lower lip now. I have to tilt my head all the way back, my bound hands still resting against his face. “I spent my whole life trying to prove I didn’t need anyone. Trying to be complete on my own. And then I met you, and I realized—I don’t want to be complete alone. I want to be complete with you.”
“That’s what the bond means.” His voice is rough with emotion. “Completion. Not because we’re incomplete individually, but because together we’re more.”
“More,” I echo. The water touches my nose. I feel Torin lifting me higher, his own face dipping under for longer stretches. He’s giving me his air. His space. His precious remaining minutes.
“I have to tell you something too,” he says when he surfaces. “Before—before we run out of time.”
“What?”
“I would do it all again.” Water laps at his chin as he speaks. “Every choice. Every risk. Every moment that led me to you. If I could go back, knowing how it ends—I’d still pull you from the river. Still bring you to the Citadel. Still choose you over everything I thought I was. Because you’re right. We’re more together. And I’d rather have these days with you than a lifetime without.”
The water reaches my eyes. I close them—it makes no difference in the darkness—and feel Torin pressing me against the ceiling. Stone above me. Water below. No more room to rise.
This is it. This is how it ends.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again. My last words, probably. “For not telling you sooner.”
“Telling me what?” His voice is strained now, muffled by water.
“I think I love you.”
The words hang between us in the shrinking pocket of air. The water rises. And Torin’s hands tighten on my waist, holding me up, keeping me breathing for every possible second.
“I know,” he says. “I know you do.”
The water closes over my nose.
Torin’s lips find mine in the darkness, and I feel him push oxygenated water into my lungs. It’s not air—doesn’t feel like breathing—but it works. For now.
We’re pressed against the ceiling, the water risen to the very top, and we’re still alive. Still fighting. Still refusing to let go.
Through the bond, I feel his determination. His love. His absolute refusal to surrender.
And I feel something else. Something building between us. The bond responding to our extremity, our desperation, our need.
Power.
The same power that created electrified water in the reed bed. The same power that marked our bodies with transformation. The same power we’ve been too afraid to fully explore.
What if it’s not just for fighting?
What if it’s for surviving?
Torin breaks the kiss to give me another breath. Water and oxygen, shared between us, keeping me alive in a way that shouldn’t work but does.
“Torin,” I manage between breaths. “The bond.”
“What about it?”
“It changed us. Gave us new abilities. Your electricity resistance. My water breathing.”
“You can only breathe water for seconds?—”
“But I couldn’t before at all.” I grip his shoulders. “What if there’s more? What if the bond has power we haven’t found yet?”
