The implication hits me like a fist.
“The oath with Rodvek,” I say.
“Yes.” Mother Sanque nods. “Right now, you're bound to two things. The involuntary bond with Maren, and the old oath that ties you to Rodvek. The old oath has seniority. It was formed first, under the formal rites of the order. The blood-bond with Maren is newer and weaker.” She taps the old book. “But a marriage bond, witnessed by the binding stone, formalized through the choosing ceremony, would take priority. Not because it's older, but because it's chosen. The stone recognizes agency. Freely given bonds outrank compulsory ones. Always.”
“So, the bond with me would supersede the oath binding him to Rodvek,” Maren says. Her voice is steady. Clinical. “It would give us a tool.”
“It would give you more than a tool. It would give the anchor effect permanence. The beast would stay quiet. The rage would still be there, but contained, managed. And when you finally face Rodvek, the oath that ties Kovren to him would be secondary to the bond that ties him to you.”
Silence.
Mother Sanque watches us both. Waiting.
I can't look at Maren.
Five days. I've known her five days. Five days is nothing. Five days is a wound still bleeding, a bond still raw, a wanting I can't separate from the magic that may have created it.
Last night she stopped us because five days wasn't enough. She was right.
And now I'm supposed to ask her to marry me.
Not because I love her, though something in my chest is building toward that word with a momentum I can't stop. Not because she makes the beast go quiet, though she does. Because it's tactically necessary. Because without the binding stone, the anchor will fail and the rage will come back and everything we've built in five impossible days will collapse.
It feels like using her. It feels like the oath reaching through me to trap her.
“I need to think,” I say.
Mother Sanque snorts. “You need totalk. Both of you. I'll make tea.” She stands, shuffles toward the kitchen with the air of someone who has delivered difficult diagnoses before and knows when to leave the room.
The door closes behind her.
Maren is quiet for a long time. I watch her from the floor, my back against the hearth, and I wait for her to speak because I don't trust my own voice.
“You're not going to ask me,” she says finally.
“No.”
“Because you think it's the bond talking. Because you can't tell if you want this or if the magic is making you want it.”
I close my eyes. “Yes.”
“Kovren.” Her voice is closer. I open my eyes and she's moved to the edge of her chair, leaning toward me, her elbows on her knees. “I'm a healer. I deal in bodies, in mechanisms, in things that can be observed and measured. So let me tell you what I've observed.”
I wait.
“You carry my pack even though I don't ask. You count my steps. You positioned yourself between me and every stranger on the road, and you did it so naturally I didn't notice until the third time. Last night you held me and when I said wait, you stopped. Immediately. Without hesitation.” Her gray eyes hold mine. “The bond may have started in a ditch. But the man who does those things? That's not magic. That's you.”
My throat aches.
“I'm not saying yes because of the bond,” she says. “I'm saying yes because we need the anchor to hold, and because the alternative is watching you lose yourself to the berserker while I stand by and do nothing. That's not something I'm willing to accept.”
“That's a tactical decision.”
“It is.” She doesn't flinch from it. “It's also the truth. I choose to do this with my eyes open. Not swept up. Not romantic. Practical.”
“Five days, Maren.”
“Five days in which you've shown me more about who you are than most people show in years.” She reaches down, takes my hand. Her fingers are small and rough and certain. “I have conditions.”
