Time fractures around us.
I feel it happening—the divine power in this place responding to my collapse, to the Arbiter’s blade still embedded in my stomach, to the proximity of death that the Gate was designed to facilitate.
Through the Auric Veil, I see possibilities branching and dying. Futures closing off. The pattern of inevitability tightening around us like a noose.
But I also see?—
A thread. Thin. Almost invisible. A single pathway through the collapse that doesn’t end in my death.
I follow it with my failing sight. Read its structure. Understand its cost.
Mating.
Dragon mating. The permanent bond that ties lifespan to lifespan, magic to magic. If Tyr claims me now, his centuries-long existence becomes an anchor for mine. His lifespan expands to cover mine. The temporal collapse reverses because I’m no longer bound to mortal time.
The Auric Veil shows me the truth of it: this is why the Arbiter orchestrated this moment. Not to kill me—to force this choice. To make Tyr bind himself in a way that limits his power, chains his freedom, ties him to a witch he never wanted.
Clever, I think again.So fucking clever.
But the gods made a mistake.
They assumed the choice would be his. They assumed I would be leverage, passive, dying while he decided whether to save me.
They forgot that I choose too.
“Tyr.” My voice is almost gone now. The cold has reached my throat, my lungs, the last warm parts of me. “There’s a way.”
He pulls back. Stares at me with wild eyes.
“There’s one thread. One pathway.” I cough. Taste blood. Keep talking because stopping isn’t an option. “Mating. Your lifespan… anchors mine. Reverses the collapse.”
Understanding floods his features. Then horror. Then desperation.
“That’s—Zephyra, that’s forever. Binding. It can’t be undone, ever?—”
“I know.” I squeeze his hand as hard as my failing body allows. “I can read the pattern. I know exactly what it means.”
“You’d be bound to me. Forever. My lifespan, my territory, my—” He stops. Shudders. “My obsession.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t want that. You can’t?—”
“Tyr.” I use his name like a tether. Like the only fixed point in a world that’s fracturing around me. “I’m making a choice. Not dying. Not surrendering.Choosing.”
His breath shakes against my face.
“Choose with me,” I whisper. “Or let me go.”
For a heartbeat—an endless, frozen heartbeat—he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. His eyes hold mine, and I see the war happening behind them: dragon against restraint, instinct against fear.
Then his hand tightens on mine.
“I will never let you go.” The words come out layered, doubled—man and dragon speaking as one. “Never. Do you understand? If I do this, you’re mine. Forever. No escape. No ending.Mine.”
“Then take me.” My hand lifts—barely, the motion costing everything I have left—and presses against his face. “And don’t let go.”
His mouth finds mine.
