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The ache beneath my breastbone stirred. It was not the torn, desperate pain I had felt on Monday night. This was deeper and steadier, something waking inside a place I had spent days trying not to touch.

"And before these witnesses."

The gold spread farther through his eyes.

His hand remained steady around the knife, but his jaw had tightened and his breathing had changed. He was still looking at me.

He had promised he would.

I remembered what I had told him outside the Glasshouse.

When I stand there, I'm going to make sure you know exactly what you're severing.

So I stopped holding the bond closed.

There were no words in it, not really. What passed between us existed beneath language: choice, longing, recognition, love. I let him feel that I had come here willingly. I let him understand that I knew what choosing him could cost and had still chosen him.

Then I gave the feeling words anyway.

I am yours because I choose to be.

His breath caught.

I love you.

More gold flooded his eyes.

I wasn't trying to command him, and I couldn't have made the decision for him even if I had wanted to. I only wanted the fear and the lies stripped away long enough for his choice to be his own.

"Do sever."

The flame between us shifted.

At the same moment, something tightened around the bond beneath my breastbone.

I had felt that sensation once before, at the Saltmere table on Monday night: a cold pull at the edges of the connection between us, as if the ritual had begun separating something that had grown into both of us.

Pain spread through my chest.

My bandaged hand went to my breastbone before I could stop it, and a small sound escaped me.

For one terrible second, I wanted to tell him to stop. I could feel the plea rising into my throat. I could have begged him to put down the knife, and no one in that Hall would have misunderstood why.

Instead, I stayed where I was.

"The bond."

His voice had changed. It was lower now, strained enough that the last word almost failed him.

A murmur moved through the front rows.

That was when the tears started.

I had spent so much time promising myself that these people would never see me cry again, but there was no point fighting it now. The tears ran down my face and fell onto the ruined green silk. I didn't wipe them away, and I didn't lower my eyes.

Kaelen saw them.

His face tightened for an instant before he continued.