“How do we break it?” I ask.
“You don't break it. Youcompleteit.” She pulls one of the books closer and turns it so I can read the passage she's marked. Old text, formal, the language stiff with age. I read it twice. The core of it is simple: an unfulfilled oath can be released if the oath-holder learns the purpose was achieved.
“Rodvek needs to know the children survived,” I say.
“Yes.”
“He can't hear us.” Kovren's voice is flat. “When the berserker has him, Rodvek can't hear anything. I've tried. For eight years I've tried to reach him.”
“You tried alone.” Mother Sanque looks at him over the rim of her cup. “Before you had an anchor. The bond changes this, Kovren. Maren keeps the beast controlled in you. You can go to the edge without going over. Hold that edge long enough and you might reach Rodvek underneath.”
“Might.”
“The beginning of it. The rest depends on her.” She turns to me. “You're a healer.”
“I'm not a mage.”
“I'm not talking about magic.” She leans forward. “The berserker fused with the oath through a wound. Psychological, but a wound. Rodvek broke when he believed he'd failed. The fissure let the rage in, and the oath sealed it shut. Someone needs to find the wound and close it. That's what you do. Every day. With flesh and bone.”
I wait. She's building to something.
“The binding stone didn't just formalize your bond with Kovren. It gave the anchor weight. Range.” She picks up my hand, turns it over, presses her thumb against my pulse point. “When you touch Kovren, the beast goes quiet. The anchor extends through physical contact. If you touch Rodvek while the bond is active, that same anchor can reach him through you.”
“Contact transmission,” I say. “I'm the delivery system.”
“In theory.”
“In theory.”
“I've never had a bonded pair to test it on.” She lets go of my hand. “But four sources say the same thing. The anchor extends through the bonded partner. It should work.”
“Should.”
“Should. I believe it will. But I won't promise what I can't prove.” She picks up her tea. “You've noticed he hasn't come since the binding?”
I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but she's right. No attacks since Gorvani. No screaming in the night. Nothing.
“The stone shifted the oath. Made it secondary. The pull between them weakened, and without that pull, Rodvek has no reason to track you. He'll have been drawn back to the stronghold. The place the oath began. That's where this ends.” She sets her cup down. “Two days through the mountain pass. I'll prepare supplies and draw you a route.”
Kovren hasn't spoken in a while. I look at him. He's staring at the floor, his hands locked between his knees, his shoulders tight.
“Kovren.”
He looks up. His expression is stripped bare.
“Eight years,” he says. “I've been hunting him for eight years. Trying to kill him, trying to free him, trying to reach him. And every time I face him, I lose control. Every time, the berserker takes me, and I become what he is.”
“That was before the bond,” I say.
“What if the bond isn't enough?”
“Then I'll be there. And I'll bring you back.”
“And if you can't?”
“Then we'll deal with that when it happens. But I don't think it will.”
He holds my gaze for a long time. I can feel the fear through the bond, the dread, the old guilt. But underneath it, the warmth that was there before the stone and is stronger now.
