“But what about my home? My life?”
“This is your life now. I will see you at midnight.”
And then I left—because if I hadn’t, I would have taken her back into my arms and ruined everything.
Now there are twenty minutes until the hour I named.
My nerves race through me like sparks flung from a flame with no direction—no order—only chaos and energy and need.
How am I to do this?
How am I to convince the Fates that brave, furious, beautiful woman is my viyella?
As if I have any claim to her.
I should return her to Earth and accept the cost—but I won’t. I can’t.
Fuck and damn.
That is the truth of it.
I am already damned—I know this—but damnation is a small price if it means saving my people.
I have scoured the ancient scrolls, burned half of them in frustration.
The truth is immutable.
The only way to fully protect The Ember Vein is to embrace my truest form—and I cannot do that without a zareth bond.
Letting her go is not an option.
I silence the darker part of me that revels in the choice. Want is no defense—but fire has never asked permission.
I growl and slam my hands down on the desk.
Fire leaps from my palms, sparks snapping through the air.
Missives scatter—some blackening, some igniting outright—paper curls into ash before it hits the floor.
Gods be damned.
My power is not like Alaric’s illusions or Kael’s tides.
Fire does not bend or yield.
It does not flow around obstacles.
It consumes them.
I understand that.
Just as I understand what a binding ceremony truly means.
It is not dominance.
It is not ownership.
It is surrender.
