I watched through the mirror's reflection as she examined the marking.
Curiosity peaked in her expression rather than dismay. Questions formed behind those shifting eyes rather than rejection. She touched the design with fingers that trembled from surprise rather than revulsion, and when it faded beneath her contact only to return when she withdrew...
Interest.
Fascination.
The particular attention of someone encountering a puzzle they're determined to solve.
Not the reaction centuries of whispered mockery had conditioned me to expect.
Her anger—the fury that had her an inch away from slicing my throat with a butter knife of all things—stems from different sources entirely. Not from the mark's appearance or placement, but from itsexistence. From the lack of choice that suchbonds represent in worlds that have apparently evolved toward concepts my era never quite grasped.
Consent, they call it now.
I've gleaned enough from the written works that populate this library, the romance novels that students smuggle through academy halls when they think no one notices. The modern realms have developed philosophies around choice, around agency, around the right to determine one's own romantic entanglements without interference from destiny or magic or bonds that form regardless of conscious preference.
The primary gender that once accepted arrangement without question now yearns for empowerment. They seek control over their own narratives, their own bodies, their own hearts. They write stories where choice matters more than fate, where love earned through courtship trumps love decreed by cosmic forces beyond individual influence.
I understand the philosophy.
Respect it, even, in contexts where it applies.
But this—the bond between us, the mark that connects our magic in ways that transcend simple preference—this was never my choice either.
I didn't select her from a catalog of potential mates.
Didn't manipulate circumstances to ensure our paths would cross.
Didn't scheme or plot or maneuver her into position through machinations designed to serve my interests.
The bond simply is.
Has always been.
Will always be, regardless of what either of us might prefer in hypothetical alternatives.
She'll understand that with time.
Will come to recognize that her fury, however justified it might feel in this moment of overwhelming revelation, isdirected at the universe itself rather than at me specifically. I'm merely the messenger—the visible representation of truths that existed long before either of us drew breath, connections that were written into the fabric of reality when reality itself was still learning its own rules.
But that understanding will come later.
For now...
I run my tongue along her jaw.
The taste of her skin ignites sensations I'd nearly forgotten existed—pleasure cascading through systems that have operated on autopilot for longer than she's been alive. She shivers in response, the involuntary reaction speaking louder than any words could, her body acknowledging what her mind hasn't yet accepted.
The magic responds to our proximity.
I feel it building between us, power calling to power, the particular resonance that defines bonded pairs awakening from whatever dormancy her suppressed heritage had enforced. Her vines—gold and rose and pink, warm colors that speak to the light she carries—continue their intertwining with my own darker growth. The roses perfume the air with fragrances that make my chest ache with something dangerously close to sentimentality.
"Prince Koishii Yoshiro," I whisper against the curve where her jaw meets her throat, my breath stirring silver strands that have escaped their elegant arrangement. The formal introduction feels different now—more real, more significant, spoken into her skin rather than across the distance of a table.
"As much as I'd love to express the glories of my Kingdom... tragically, it no longer exists."
The grief is old enough to have scabbed over, but proximity to her picks at the wound with unexpected insistence. My kingdom. My people. My entire world, reduced to memoriesthat fade a little more with each passing century despite my desperate attempts to preserve them.
