Chapter 39 Lorik
“I…I killed the dragon,” Thea’s voice trembled. “It was going to kill you.”My lips parted to tell her I understood, that she could move past this, that I knew why she had done it, even if the pain sank deep into my bones but she kept going.
“It was innocent, another victim of the parasites,” she said as she finally met my gaze, pausing for a long moment. “I feel so much. Heartbreak, guilt, grief, adoration…”
“Not all of those feelings are yours,” I said, pushing my voice into the chaos of her mind, stopping the spiral before it could pull her under completely.
The guilt was real, perhaps even the adoration. That part belonged to her. But the rest, the crushing sadness, the grief was too old, they were mine.
The coercion in my mind wouldn’t let me speak anymore. It blocked me from telling her about my past, explaining who I was, what she should expect from our bond. It blocked me from speaking to her or to anyone about so much of what mattered.
Still, I could say this much. I could state what was true in the present, what was happening now, without being asphyxiated into silence. I could anchor her to this moment, even if I could not yet tell her everything.
“You can speak to my mind when no one can, I can feel what you feel. How?” Thea asked, agitated and nervous, from feeling too much too quickly.
“Breathe, Thea. Build your walls to block me out as if it were mental magic. Like in Chen’s class,” I said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. She rubbed the back of my hand slowly. Through our bond, I tasted fear, but I also felt trust, loyalty, and desire.
Thea took a deep breath as she closed her eyes. I felt how her walls rose around her mind block by block as she separated her mind from mine with practiced ease. She finally opened her eyes, calmness filling her body, but her face still showed guilt.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her gaze dropping to the ground instead of meeting mine.. A single tear slipping free from her eye. “I didn’t listen. I lost control—again. How am I supposed to forgive myself? How can you forgive me this time?”
Thea Solenhart had been raised to hate dragons.
Her legion was trained to kill them, just as they were trained to kill wildweavers but the remarkable female before me saw past all of it.
She trusted her studies. She trusted her instincts.
She formed her own judgments. She was extraordinary, unreal and the reason I hadn’t been able to look away from the moment I saw her, despite every reason I had to stay away.
Despite everything her ancestors had taken from me, my family, my life and my voice.
She had still consumed my soul with longing for her alone.
So I lifted her chin to look at her in the eyes.
“Don’t apologize. Don’t ever apologize for anything you do to protect us,” I said steadily, meaning every word. “You thought you were saving me, saving us. There is nothing you could do that would make me change how I feel about you. Nothing can sever the bond between us.”
A long moment of silence stretched between us as she digested my words and searched my eyes. Thea widened her eyes. Her expression was a tangled mix of surprise, fear, and longing. She had been raised all her life to fear this bond.
“Your eyes are…,” but she couldn’t name the color, as if a knot stuck in her throat. “Copper,” I said softly, my gaze never leaving hers.
Her eyes were no longer gold. The color had shifted into something more profound, warmer—copper.
The line we had crossed could never be uncrossed.
Neither of us spoke for a long heartbeat. Moonlight glinted in her coppery eyes, and a smile I couldn’t stop softened my face, reaching all the way to my eyes.
Thea Solenhart was the most astonishing female I had ever met, and she had chosen me. Even though she had not said it out loud yet, her soul already had. Our souls had merged, bonded as one.
“We are…” she started saying, but I cut her off because I couldn’t hear her speak about the bond the way the Solenhart court called it.
I couldn’t bear hearing again that our bond was a misfortune.
This bond was dangerous, it was a crime for her court, but I couldn’t hear the word “cursed” come out of the female I loved.
“We are soulbound,” I said.