Something flickered in his eyes then, respect, sharp and reluctant. "We'll see."
I tried to figure out if that was a threat or a promise. He gave me the time I needed to recalibrate. To think. Finally, I asked, "They aren't chosen? You don't… just find one?"
"No," he said quietly. "You recognize one."
The room felt smaller all of a sudden. Heat pulsed through me. I folded my arms, grounding myself in the familiar pressure."You're describing something that sounds less like romance and more like… quantum entanglement."
A faint curve touched his mouth. "If that helps you survive the explanation."
It did. "Two systems, separated but still correlated. Changes in one are reflected in the other, regardless of distance."
"Yes."
"And when reunited, the system stabilizes."
"Yes."
I leaned back, staring at the ceiling as the implications rippled outward. Yin and yang. Not good and evil. Not male and female. But balance. Necessary tension. A closed loop that corrected itself.I can live with that, I tried to convince myself. Yet, my body, traitorous as ever, chose that moment to remember the electricity of his touch. The way my skin reacted before my mind could object.
I clenched my jaw. "So let me guess, this wasn't exactly something you were hoping for."
"No," Dravok admitted without hesitation. "It wasn't."
That answer surprised me. I looked at him again, not as a god, not as a captor, but as something ancient and… incomplete.
"And you're telling me all this," I asked slowly, "because…?"
"Because if you are what I believe you might be, then the Abyss will not stop reaching for you."
A thought surfaced, quiet at first, then loud enough to make my stomach twist. This wasn't aboutme. Not really. This was about Nythor. The realization hit like cold water. He thought I was Nythor's Aelyth. The idea repulsed me so strongly that my body reacted before my mind finished forming the sentence. Heat flared, sharp and rejecting, like my entire system was screamingno. Not him. Notthat. Not someone else's missing half misfiled onto me like an administrative error.
I hated it.
I hated how much sense it made, and how wrong it felt.
"That's what this is, isn't it?" I accused tightly. "You think I belong tohim."
Dravok frowned. Actually frowned. The confusion was immediate and genuine, like I'd just spoken a language he didn't recognize. "Him?"
"You think I'm Nythor's Aelyth," I specified.
"Nythor's Aelyth?" he repeated, dumbfounded, then he laughed, making my temper flare once again until I realized he wasn't laughing in mockery or out of cruelty, but in surprise. "No," he still sounded incredulous. "Absolutely not."
Relief flared, followed immediately by something far more dangerous. "Then whose?" I demanded.
He didn't answer right away. In that pause, something shifted between us. The words left his mouth as if neither of us had expected them. "You're mine."
We both froze. The silence that followed was… total. He stared at me. I stared at him. In that heartbeat, I realized something with startling clarity. He hadn't meant to say that. Not consciously. It wasn't strategy. It wasn't manipulation. It was something he hadn't intended to allow himself to articulate.
"You're not happy about that," I observed quietly.
His expression hardened. "Happy?" he snapped, the word was edged with raw pain. "No." He turned away, running a hand through his hair like he was restraining something far more volatile than anger. "Over eons, I've accepted my fate. I learned discipline. Control. I mastered my temper. I kept the Dark Abyss at bay when others couldn't."
He faced me again, and this time I knew I wasn't wrong when I saw amber sparks dancing in his eyes. "There is no room in that for an Aelyth," he continued. "No space for distraction. No allowance for…this." He gestured vaguely between us. "I don't fit with others. I never have."
I wasn't sure if I felt offended or relieved. "And yet," I couldn't help but challenge, "you kidnapped me."
His gaze locked onto mine.
