“Can you fly?”
She spreads her wings. They respond. Sore, aching, but functional. “Yes.”
“Then let’s finish what we started.”
They move toward Caspian. Not as merged entity. As themselves—separate, individual, perfectly coordinated. Two people who love each other enough to have sacrificed their very identities, now returned to themselves and ready to end the threat once and for all.
The storm gathers overhead. Not called consciously. Just responding to their resolve. Recognizing that this ends now. One way or another.
Caspian watches them come. Doesn’t run. Doesn’t attack. Just waits, like he’s been waiting for this moment since the beginning.
19
TORIN
Caspian sits motionless as we climb to the top of the dam—Zara flying despite exhaustion, me pulling myself up through channels and footholds carved into the ancient stone. Every movement hurts. The wounds on my back have reopened from the exertion of the merger. Zara’s wing trembles with each beat, pushed past what even transformation can sustain indefinitely.
But we climb. Because this ends now, one way or another.
The platform at the dam’s summit is maybe thirty feet across. Carved from the same stone as the structure itself, worn smooth by centuries of water and weather. Caspian stands at the center, arms loose at his sides, no defensive posture. Around the edges, maybe a dozen Deep Runners watch—his remaining forces, the ones who didn’t flee when the ritual failed.
None of them move to defend him.
We reach the platform. Zara lands beside me, wings folding carefully. Through the bond, I feel her exhaustion mirroring mine. Feel her determination too. Whatever happens next, we face it as ourselves. Not merged. Not a single entity. Two people who choose each other, still choosing.
Caspian looks at us with eyes that have seen too much. Lost too much. His silver hair, which was streaming dramatically during the ritual, now hangs limp. His scales, which were glowing with power minutes ago, have dulled to ordinary shimmer.
He looks old. Tired. Defeated.
But not surprised.
“You won,” he says quietly. No rage in his voice. No bitterness. Just acknowledgment. “The dam stands. Thousands live. Congratulations.”
I search his tone for sarcasm. Find none. He means it. Genuinely recognizes our victory.
“You could have killed us,” I point out. “Multiple times. Why didn’t you?”
“Would it have mattered?” Caspian gestures at the dam beneath our feet. “You would have regenerated, adapted, found another way. That’s what bonded pairs do—they overcome. Besides.” His expression shifts to something that might be respect. “You were proving my central thesis wrong with every breath. I couldn’t kill that. Wouldn’t be honest.”
“What thesis?” Zara asks. Her voice is steady despite her exhaustion.
“That integration destroys us. That bonds with surface-dwellers mean death of everything we are.” He looks directly at her. “You should be dead. Any other Storm Eagle who tried to bond with a Deep Runner would be. The transformation should have killed you both. The merger definitely should have.” He shakes his head. “But it didn’t. You’re alive. Changed. Stronger. Living refutation of everything I believed.”
“Then why?” I demand. “Why try to drown the valley if you knew we might be right?”
“Because I couldn’t live with it.” The raw honesty in his voice cuts like a blade. “My children died in a flood caused by surfacenegligence. They drowned while Sky-dwellers flew overhead, unwilling to help, too busy with their Integration Alliance to notice smaller peoples drowning in the margins.” His hands clench into fists. “I wanted them to feel what we felt. Wanted their children to drown while they watched helplessly. Wanted them to understand that ignoring genocide has consequences.”
“So this was revenge,” Zara says.
“This was justice.” Caspian’s eyes blaze briefly. “Or it would have been, if you hadn’t stopped it. If you hadn’t proven that maybe—maybe—there’s another way forward.”
The admission hangs in the air. Not quite surrender. Not quite acceptance. Just exhausted acknowledgment that his plan failed and ours succeeded.
I think about the High Elder’s words. Show him mercy if you can. Not for his sake. For yours.
I think about Mira. About how grief made me into someone I barely recognized. How loss twisted my thinking until isolation seemed like strength and vulnerability seemed like weakness. How I was drowning in my own pain until Zara taught me that opening up wasn’t surrender—it was survival.
Caspian is drowning the same way I was. Grief pulling him under. Difference is, he tried to take the whole world with him.
