Page 163

“You could have been vaporized.”

“Possibly.”

“Do not possibly me.”

“I did not enjoy it.”

“That is not the point!”

Her anger shakes, and beneath it is terror so naked it reaches straight through my armor. I turn toward her. The chamber rages around us, Rolaev stands within striking distance, and Choir zealots are racing through collapsing corridors to kill us all. Still, Anita Prentiss is looking at me like I am the part of the universe she cannot bear to lose.

That decides something in me.

Not destiny.

Not the bond.

Me.

“Anita,” I say.

Her grip tightens. “No. If this is a dramatic goodbye, I will punch you in the throat.”

“It is not goodbye.”

“Good.”

“It is a choice.”

Her face changes. “What?”

I take her hands because the archive already has her wrists in silver light, because Rolaev ’s key still burns, because everything sacred has burned down and this must be said before any of us dies under the ashes.

“I no longer believe jalshagar defines us.”

The words leave my mouth and do not kill me.

Anita goes very still.

Rolaev ’s destruction key pulses, but she does not interrupt. Sira’s voice calls from beyond the barrier, urging Brakk toward a lower exit path, but I barely hear her. My world is Anita’s hands, Anita’s breath, Anita’s eyes full of too much.

“I believe the bond exists,” I continue. “I feel it with every breath. It drew me to you before reason could catch up. It frightened me because I thought it was destiny placing a claim over both of us.”

Anita whispers, “Ghar.”

“I do not know if it began in biology, Precursor design, First One residue, or some accident older than time. I do not know if my people wrapped it in sacred language because they understood it or because they needed the mystery to look noble.”

Her eyes shine.

I lower my voice, though the chamber tries to swallow softness. “But I know this. The bond did not choose every moment after recognition. It did not choose your courage. It did not choose my trust. It did not choose the way you stood before Rolaev and refused both recklessness and fear. It did not choose the way you held my hand when my faith broke.”

Her mouth trembles, and she presses her lips together like she can hold herself intact by force.

“I choose you,” I say. “Not because destiny commands it. Not because my blood recognizes yours. Not because any ancient thing arranged us for its purposes. I choose you consciously, Anita Prentiss, with the truth known and the sacred gone. I choose the woman who makes terrible jokes when afraid, who opens doors she should not, who learns responsibility even when it wounds her pride, and who still believes the future deserves a chance.”

She makes a sound like the beginning of a sob and a laugh fighting for the same breath. “That is not fair.”

“No?”