27. Chapter 27
ERYNDOR
The great hall assaulted me with noise and lights.
Sound first—drums and strings and voices raised in song, all of it crashing against the silence we'd carried from the garden.
Then light—torches and floating lanterns and the warm glow of a dozen hearths, gilding everything in amber tones.
Then smell—roasted meat, honeyed wine, the green scent of living wood that permeated every corner of this city.
Liraeth knew how to celebrate. I'd give them that.
The music faltered when we entered. Just for a moment—a half-beat of hesitation as heads turned and eyes found me. The slate and obsidian of my clothes. The Crown-blue at my collar. The face of the enemy, walking into their sanctuary like it belonged here.
I didn't belong here. Everyone in this room knew it.
The music resumed. Louder now, almost aggressive. Filling the space where the silence had been.
Amaria moved forward into the crowd. People parted for her, reached for her, called her name in that lilting dialect I could barely understand. They touched her shoulders, her hands, her hair. My fists clenched. I looked away.
They looked at me like I was a disease she'd dragged in on her boots.
I kept my face neutral. My hands at my sides.
This was going to be a long night.
I'd claimed a spot near the edge of the crowd, my back to the wall, when Serenya found us.
She appeared at Amaria's side like she'd been summoned—pressing a cup into her hand before Amaria had even opened her mouth to ask for one.
Amaria's hand was already moving, passing her a candied plum—Serenya's weakness since childhood.
The exchange was seamless. Wordless. The byproduct of a lifetime spent in each other's wake.
They moved like two halves of the same creature. Serenya shifting left as Amaria shifted right. Their shoulders brushing in a way that spoke of years of proximity, years of knowing exactly where the other would be.
A female nearby had stopped mid-conversation to watch them too, her cup forgotten halfway to her lips. Light laugh lines danced around her eyes, and bone beads clicked softly in her loose braids.
"Heart-siblings," she said. "You walked the Dream Grove together?"
Amaria's hand found Serenya's. Squeezed once. "Years ago."
The female smiled. "It shows. The bond sits well on you both."
I watched the exchange from my six feet of distance. Watched Amaria's face soften in a way it never did with me. Watched Serenya lean into her, easy and trusting.
She had bound herself to Serenya. Permanently. And it looked like breathing.
She chose that.
Amaria had walked into that bond willingly. Had offered herself to Serenya the way you offer yourself to something you love.
No one had forced her. No magic had trapped her. She had just—wanted it. And it showed.
I filed the observation. Did not examine what it meant that she'd never look at me like that.
The tether pulsed. I ignored that too.
The celebration moved around me. I let it—leaning against the pillar, hidden in its shadow, taking up a position where I could watch without being watched.
The music shifted through songs I didn't recognize.
Cups were filled and emptied. People danced, laughed, wept with the particular joy of those who had come out of survival triumphant.
Near the far wall, a cluster of fae stood in faded grey cloaks. No metal on their bodies. Velmyran. Shadow-marked, by the look of them. Refugees from my own homeland.
A child among them reached for a sweet from a passing tray.
She moved with a casual, easy confidence—her hand steady, her eyes never leaving the prize.
There was no flinching, no hesitation, not a care in the world.
In Velmyra, Shadow-marked children learned to be invisible before they learned to walk.
Here, this girl was simply... eating. Smiling. Her mother's hand rested on her shoulder—casual, protective, unafraid.
I had never seen my own citizens look like that. Relaxed. Unguarded. Free of the constant calculation that came with living under the Crown's eye.
This is what they look like when they're not afraid of you.
The pillar was cool against my shoulder blade. I'd been counting Amaria's movements across the room—three conversations, two declined dances, one stolen pastry—when the crowd shifted.
I felt it before I understood it—a change in the air, a cooling of the warmth that had filled the hall. People stepped back, creating a path through the center of the room.
Two figures entered from opposite doors.
A male. A female. Both wearing the naturalistic tattoos of Liraeth, both moving with the careful deliberation of people navigating a minefield. Matching scars crossed their throats, ragged and raised. Fresh enough that the skin was still angry.
They didn't look at each other.
The music softened. Someone near me released a sorrowful sigh.
"Once-bound," a fae murmured. "One hundred and fifty years, and then the Severing."
I'd heard of the ritual. Every fae had. In Liraeth, romantic bonds weren't signed in ink—they were carved into flesh.
The throat meant the deepest commitment: I would die for you.
And when those bonds broke, you didn't simply walk away.
You returned to the place you'd first scarred each other, used the same blade to cut the mark from your skin, and burned the flesh together.
After that, your voices became weapons. Speaking to each other caused physical pain. The bond wasn't broken—it was inverted. Turned into something that hurt instead of healed.
I watched them pass within feet of each other. The space between them held nothing.
Amaria's eyes found mine across the room.
The space between us held everything.
She looked away first.
I should have looked away too. Should have found something else to focus on—the musicians, the dancers, the hundred other people in this room who weren't her.
I watched the once-bound disappear into opposite corners of the hall instead. Watched the space between them hold nothing. No invisible thread demanding they turn around, come back, stay.
That could never be us.
The thought landed before I could stop it.
My jaw tightened. I made myself unclench it.
The elders had made it clear. Severing would kill us both. There would be no blade, no burning, no walking past each other in silence for the rest of our lives.
We were stuck.
I waited for the horror to hit. The claustrophobia. The caged-animal panic I'd seen flash across her face in the garden when she understood.
It didn't come.
Something else did.
It started low—a warmth beneath the tether. Not the sharp heat of proximity or the ache of distance. A gentle yielding. A peace that felt like settling. Like a fist unclenching after years of holding tight.
Good.
No.
My hands had started shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs.
Not good. This was a cage. A collar. A leash I hadn't chosen, wrapped around my throat by magic and fate and whatever force had tangled our souls together in that sparring ring. I should be clawing at the bars. Should be screaming.
The soulbinder purred.
She can't leave. She can't walk away. She's YOURS now, permanently, and you never had to ask. Never had to beg. Never had to stand at the crossroads and choose her and admit what that choice would mean—
I shut it down. Shoved the thought into the dark and slammed the door.
But I could still feel it. Pacing. Patient. Satisfied.
Because that was the truth, wasn't it? The ugly, unforgivable truth.
I would never have allowed myself to choose this. Would never have stood before her and said stay. Would never have admitted that the thought of her walking away felt less like freedom and more like having my soul cracked open.
But I didn't have to choose.
The decision had been made for me. By magic, by fate, by forces I couldn't fight. I would never have to weigh her freedom against my own weakness. Never have to watch her decide I wasn't worth the cage. Never have to beg.
You're relieved.
The thought seared like a brand against raw skin.
You're relieved you don't have to let her go.
My vision blurred. I blinked it clear.
Across the room, someone was pulling her toward the dancers.
She resisted for a moment—shoulders tight, chin lifted, that stubborn set to her mouth that meant she was about to argue.
Then the music shifted, and the fae around her were clapping excitedly, she finally gave in.
And it was a beautiful thing to witness.
She spun into the firelight.
I watched her move. The way her body found the rhythm without trying. The way her hair caught the light—dark and wild, coming loose from its braid.
She was laughing. Head thrown back. Throat exposed.
The soulbinder stirred. Hungry. Always hungry.
But that wasn't what made my chest crack.
It was the way she looked free. Spinning in a room full of strangers who loved her, who reached for her, who saw her as something worth celebrating. For one moment, she wasn't the Rupture. Wasn't the girl who'd torn the world.
She was just—alive. Bright. Her.
Hours.
The Elder's voice cut through the warmth. You have hours.
Tomorrow at dawn, we'd stand in the Grove and try to stabilize what the Void had tangled. If we failed, the bond would collapse inward. Take us both with it.
This might be the last night she ever danced.
I watched her spin. Memorized it.
Then I stopped.
Memorizing was what you did when you'd already accepted loss. I hadn't. I wouldn't.
I would learn. I would master whatever they put in front of me. I would become something without walls if that's what it took to keep the tether from killing her.
And then—
The soulbinder stirred. And then she's yours. Permanently. No severing. No walking away. You keep her.
I should have been horrified by the thought. I wasn't.
I just watched her spin, and let the wanting and the vow sit side by side in my chest—the monster and the male, both pointed at the same target.
She would live. I would make sure of it.