“And you think if we—what? Blast the door with combined magic, it’ll break?”
“I don’t know.” Her honesty cuts through the dark. “But it’s the only chance we have. And I’d rather die trying than drown waiting.”
I think about Mira. She died waiting too. Waiting for healers who couldn’t help her. Waiting for permission to seek surface treatment that never came. Waiting for someone to break the rules that were killing her.
She died dreaming of the sky, reaching for something more, and I’ve spent years telling myself that reaching killed her. That staying in the deep, staying safe, staying within boundaries—that’s what keeps us alive.
But we’re dying anyway. Slow extinction dressed as preservation. And the only time I’ve felt truly alive in years is when I stopped waiting and reached for the impossible woman in my arms.
Mira would be ashamed of me. For hiding in the dark so long. For being too afraid to reach. For almost letting fear rob me of the most important thing I’ve ever found.
She died dreaming of the sky. And I have the sky in my arms.
No more.
“Zara.” I press my forehead to hers, our bound hands tangled between us. “Before we try this. Before we risk everything. I need to tell you something.”
“Torin, we don’t have time?—”
“I love you too.”
She goes still. The bond floods with her emotion—shock, joy, desperate hope.
“Not ‘I think,’“ I continue. “Not because the bond compels me. I love you. Because you argue and challenge and make me question everything I thought was truth. Because you flew into enemy territory alone to prove yourself and ended up provingsomething far more important. Because you see integration not as pollution but as possibility. Because you make me want to be better than I am.”
The water touches my lower lip. I tilt my head back, finding the last inch of air.
“I choose you,” I tell her. “Not because of the bond. Because of you. Because I would rather be an outcast with you than a hero without you. Because the only future worth living is one where you’re in it.”
Her breath hitches. Through the bond, I feel her tears mixing with the water on her face. “Torin?—”
“I’m not done.” The water reaches my nose. I take the deepest breath I can, knowing it might be my last. “Whatever happens next—whether we break free or die trying—I want you to know: these days with you have been the best of my life. You taught me to fly without ever leaving the water. You taught me that love isn’t weakness. You taught me that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is reach for the impossible.”
“I love you.” She says it clearly now. No hesitation. No ‘think.’ “I love you, Torin Blackwater. You saved me when you should have let me drown. You showed me that I don’t have to prove anything to anyone except myself. You taught me that connection isn’t diminishment—it’s multiplication. Together, we’re more.”
The water covers our mouths. I pull her into a kiss—half desperation, half declaration. She kisses me back like she’s trying to pour every unsaid word, every stolen moment, every impossible future into this single point of contact.
And the bond surges.
Not gently. Not the settled warmth of completion. This is raw power, desperate and demanding, flooding through the connection between us like a dam breaking. I feel it reachingfor something deeper, something we touched in that dry grotto when we first made love but didn’t fully claim.
The bond is telling us something. Showing us something. There’s power here—real power, the kind that could shatter enchantments and break stone—but we can’t reach it. Not yet. Not like this.
I break the kiss, both of us gasping in the inch of air remaining. “The bond,” I manage. “It’s—there’s something?—”
“I feel it.” Zara’s eyes are wide in the darkness I can see through. “It’s like—like there’s a door inside the bond. Locked. We touched it before but didn’t open it.”
“How do we open it?”
She’s quiet for a heartbeat. Then: “Completion.”
The word hangs between us.
“We made love,” I say slowly. “We claimed each other. The bond is already?—”
“Partial.” She cuts me off. “That night in the grotto—it was surrender. It was choosing. But it wasn’t—” She struggles for words. “We held back. Both of us. Some part of us was still afraid of what full completion would mean. What we’d become. What we’d lose of ourselves.”
She’s right. I know she’s right. That night was choosing each other, but it wasn’t letting go completely. Wasn’t opening every door, breaking every wall, allowing the bond to remake us entirely.
