“In a manner of speaking,” Ozias agrees solemnly.
Heaving a long, heavy sigh, I twist to face him. “I can work better with this,” I say with all the confidence I can muster. With this error, I’m reminded of how young I am compared to him, to Zhoric. They’ve lived years like this, scheming and planning, plotting new ways to escape, and then I come here like a young, wild horse, tearing up order and causing more problems than I’m likely worth. “I just need to make sure I’m the one to enact the bond and I’ll be fine.” I don’t miss the minute waver of my voice. I’m not at all surprised when Ozias moves to my side.
“You initiate the bond, you control when it ends.” He slips his fingers into my palm and smooths his thumb along the back of my hand. “Regardless, it would be a good idea for you to make him fall for you. If he does, he might be less likely to force you into a bond first.”
I look back out the window, barely feeling his hand in mine. “It seems unfair. Is this how it is? One always at the behest of the other?”
“A true bonded pair who trust one another implicitly would enact the bond the traditional way, with both giving and taking it in the same moment and in equal measure.” He says all of this so wistfully, with such reverence that a thought that hadn’t occurred to me before comes rushing forth.
“Have you bonded before?”
His head lowers and his hand squeezes mine. “I have.”
“One like you’ve just described,” I guess.
He’s quiet for a moment. “She was killed after Zhoric took power.” I don’t have the words to convey my sympathies, but even if I did, he moves on quickly. “Not many in our day bonded the way we did. It used to be the only way to bond, until around four centuries ago.”
My brows furrow. “What changed?”
“The human world.”
“What do they have to do with this?” I turn back to Ozias. He’s so close now, I can see the lines of grief carving down the smooth planes of his face.
“Everything,” he murmurs.
“How?”
He looks down at our hands, still twined together. “The mortal world shapes the way we are. Every change they make reflects on us. We are, in essence, a manifestation of how they are evolving. The adaptations to our elahi are a direct result of needs we’ve had when collecting souls to protect us or help us do our duty. When the mortals change, so do we. When they no longer believed we could fly on our magic alone, they gave our forms wings. When men started warring and pillaging from others, turning away from peace and divinity, we too started to become more gluttonous with our greed and power. It’s all connected. Even the gods are affected.”
I think of Zhoric’s choices, of Dyeus and the way women have been manipulated and made to do as they say. “It sounds like the humans have caused us more harm than good.”
“Some of us think that way. Some have no interest in carrying out our divine duty to ferry souls to the gods once we end this.”
I’m not certain I disagree with them. My brows pinch together. “So what will change when I take Zhoric’s power? What can we do to keep from coming right back here again?”
“We need to remind the mortals that there is more to them than what they’re told. The idea of sealing a woman’s dragon didn’t come from nowhere, Kaisa. It came from the human world. From men who wanted to be revered like the mothers. So they stole from them. They told them they were weak, only good for a set of hips to carry a child.”
I shake my head. “But how? How did they believe them?” I find it hard to imagine that people living with peace would do anything to alter it.
“They burned the world. The books and the knowledge keepers. The women who were leaders of thought and peace, calling them wicked things. The men of greed hid behind the gods and gave them different names. After a time, the only women that were left didn’t know how to speak peace, or were too afraid to do it. Then, when they movedon to the next life, those after them didn’t have the books or teachings to guide them. It was all lost. All it took was a faction of men who thought they could do better and were willing to burn the world to get what they wanted.”
My stomach churns and my skin is cool, though I can feel sweat prickle along the back of my neck.
I don’t realize I’m still shaking my head until Ozias clasps both hands on either side to stop me. “We will do more than adapt to their ways this time, Kaisa. We will help change them.”
“How?How? You said yourself it’s been this way for centuries. How can it possibly change after all that time?”
“It was once peaceful before the men. Peace will come again. Like you have opened your eyes to your true power, so will the mortals who’ve been oppressed by those who were perverse enough to think power was a thing to claim.”
Like Zhoric. Zhoric is exactly like those men Ozias speaks of. I feel sick over the sympathy I felt for him last night. An awful thing happened to Zhoric, but it does not forgive what he chose to do after.
Ozias places his forehead against mine. “I know I’m asking a great and terrible task of you. But do not lose yourself in it, Kaisa, or you’ll doom us all.”
I nod and lick my lips. “I won’t fail us.” I say the words and hope they’re true.
His gaze falls to my mouth. “I know.”
We stay there, breathing in one another’s air, his hands still caging in my face, not letting go.
