Chapter 6 Zeidan
ZEIDAN
The bond is louder than it should be.
I sit alone in the northern tower of the citadel, overlooking the storm-lashed cliffs.
A scroll of old bond law lies open in front of me, but the words blur, meaningless.
I can feel her, Amelia, like a heat pressed against my spine, even though she’s rooms away.
Her emotions rise and fall like waves: sharp worry, simmering exhaustion, and something else, something coiled too tightly to name.
The bond shouldn’t be this clear. Not yet. I close the scroll with more force than necessary.
The Matrons cannot know. If they do, they will have me stripped, bound, and reduced to something barely living. Already, I’ve heard the whispers in the halls. That the ritual was too violent. That the girl is unstable. That I am.
Let them whisper. Their fear means nothing. Their fear means they remember what power feels like. Still, I bind a suppression rune across my chest and draw the fabric over it. The glow fades. The bond quiets…slightly.
Not gone. Never gone.
A knock comes. Three sharp raps and no hesitation. That means Council. I rise slowly, careful to smooth the tension from my shoulders. The bond tugs, resisting the distance, already uncomfortable from this short separation. I ignore it. I must.
The Matron Council enter and I swear the room goes colder than usual, though no wind passes through these walls. Six of them are, half-seated, half-hovering near the high arch windows, like vultures ready to pick truth from bone.
Matron Serida speaks first. “You should have reported the outcome of the ritual.”
“It succeeded,” I say simply.
Matron Yrelda narrows her eyes. “Define success. The warding stones cracked. The ritual chamber had to be resealed.”
“You’re still alive,” Hessa says, dryly. “That’s more than we expected.”
“And she?” Serida’s voice is silk around steel. “The Purna?”
“She survived,” I answer. “The magic bond was forged. It holds.”
There’s a beat of silence. They are definitely trying to gauge the situation.
“She should not have,” Yrelda murmurs. “Not if the bond flared as violently as they say. There is more to this, isn’t it?”
I offer nothing. I keep silent. They don't have to know exactly how strong Amelia is or that there is a mating bond between us, urging us to accept it. They circle like wolves now.
Serida steps forward, studying me with those calculating, viper-bright eyes. “You’re feeling it more than you should.”
I let out a soft exhale. “The magic bond is... responsive.”
“Responsive?” Hessa laughs once. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
Serida ignores her. “We’ve studied these rituals. The bond should be dormant, erratic at best in the early days. And yet you sit here breathing her magic like it’s your own.”
I don’t flinch. “We knew this wouldn’t be standard.”
“She’s affecting you,” Yrelda says sharply. “You’re compromised.”
“She’s my responsibility. That’s what I agreed to.”
Serida’s expression sharpens. “Then fulfill your end. Accompany her back to Nytheria. See the state of her people. Aid them, if the bond allows it. But we expect your reports. And keep this little Purna ona tight leash. The bond doesn’t serve her.
It serves you. And you serve us. Don’t forget that. ”
I nod once. That, at least, was always part of the plan.
“And Zeidan,” Serida adds as I turn.
I pause in the doorway.
“Remember who you belong to.”
I say nothing. But the bond answers for me, flaring warm under my skin, wild and defiant.
We leave Velcryn at dawn. Six guards ride with us, all silent, all carefully trained not to look at us too long.
Amelia wears her cloak high and her silence higher.
The bond still hums between us, pulling tight when we drift too far apart.
But we both pretend we don't feel it. She doesn’t speak to me the whole time.
When the rains begin, they come hard and fast. By the time we reach camp, the ground is already soaked and the tents struggle against the wind. The guards erect the shelter quickly, but only one is large enough to be insulated from the arcane storm crawling in from the west.
“There’s only one stormproof tent,” Garrick says, handing me a dry cloth. “You and the Purna will have to share.”
Amelia glares at him, then at me. I don’t flinch. “Fine,” she mutters. “But if you snore, I’ll set you on fire.”
I roll my eyes and duck inside first, stripping off my gloves. The air inside the tent is warmer, but barely. Rain still drums against the canvas like a war drum. Amelia enters a heartbeat later, dragging wet hair out of her face, her boots slopping with mud.
Her eyes flick to the single bedroll in the center of the tent.
“Of course,” she mutters. “One tent, one bed. How very convenient.”
“I didn’t plan the weather,” I say, sitting without ceremony. “But feel free to sleep in the mud if you want to make a point.”
She peels off her damp cloak with more force than necessary. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me freezing to death while you brood in comfort.”
“If I liked it, I’d have asked for two tents and left yours open to the storm.”
She glares at me. “You’re insufferable.”
I arch a brow. “And you’re soaking the floor.”
She looks down, then growls under her breath and steps aside to remove her boots. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Define ‘this.’” I stretch out slightly, feigning relaxation. “The near-death bonding ritual, the political game, or the privilege of your sparkling personality?”
She throws a sodden glove at me. I don’t move, and it hits my chest with a wet slap.
I sigh. “Very mature.”
“At least I’m honest,” she snaps. “You walk around acting like this bond is a strategy, like I’m just a piece on your gameboard.”
“Isn’t that what you are?” I murmur.
The flare of fury that pulses down the bond is immediate. Hot. Sharp. Alive.
But underneath it is something else. Hurt and wounded pride and… doubt. I feel it all, whether I want to or not. Oh this is going to be so annoying.
She sits stiffly across from me, arms crossed. “Tell yourself whatever you need to sleep at night, prince.”
“I don’t sleep much.”
She scoffs. “Color me shocked.”
For a long moment, we sit in silence, the bond straining between us like a stretched wire, vibrating with too many things unsaid. I can feel her fatigue crawling along my bones. The weight of her stubbornness. The edge of her fear.
“I didn’t want this,” she says quietly, not looking at me.
“I know.”
I don’t offer comfort. But I don’t look away either.
She lies down, turning her back to me. “Wake me if the storm breaks the wards.”
“I’ll let you freeze a little first,” I say.
A pause and then:
“Smug bastard.”
I almost smile.
The silence stretches and I think she finnaly fall asleap when she says:
“Why didn’t you tell me it would feel like this?”
I glance at her. The bond tightens, reacting to my attention. “Because I didn’t know.”
She scoffs. “You know everything.”
“Not about this.”
She sighs, and they say softer: “It’s overwhelming.”
“I know.”
“I keep waking up with your emotions in my throat.”
“And I dream with your thoughts in mine.”
She rubs at her arms, then shivers. “Is this forever?”
I don’t answer. Not because I don’t know, but because I don’t know what form it will take.
Lightning cracks above us, and she jumps slightly. Instinctively, I reach out, my fingers brushing her wrist. The bond flares, bright and immediate.
She gasps. I freeze. Her pulse jumps under my touch. For a moment, we don’t move.
“I—” she starts, but the words tangle.
“Don’t,” I say. “You don’t have to explain it.”
We sit in the quiet, the only sound the storm above us.
Eventually, she shifts closer. Not enough to touch. Just… closer.
I don’t move away. Soon, the exhaustion takes me.
That night, I dream. Of fire…consuming, endless, living fire. It rises like a tide from the earth itself, devouring trees, stone, sky. Screams echo through the smoke, familiar and distant, layered over each other like shattered glass.
I run.
The ground cracks beneath my feet, and blood seeps from the fractures, thick and black and smoking. Shapes move in the fire: twisted reflections, clawed things with empty eyes. They whisper my name like a curse. Like a prophecy.
I see her then.
Amelia stands at the center of the inferno, her cloak in tatters, her hands ablaze with flickering magic she cannot control. The sigils on her arms are burning too bright, too fast, spreading up her throat like vines made of light.
She reaches for me.
Her lips move, but no sound comes. Her eyes, gods, her eyes, are wide with pain and fury and something like betrayal. And then she crumples, her knees hitting the scorched earth.
Blood spills from her mouth in a slow, terrible ribbon.
“No—” I try to reach her, but my limbs are heavy, too slow. The dream turns against me, dragging me back with invisible hands. The fire roars louder, but the sound is no longer flame, it’s her screaming.
Screaming my name.
The bond pulses like a blade being driven through my chest. I feel her pain in my bones, in my marrow, and still I can’t reach her…
I wake with a shout, lungs heaving like I’ve broken the surface of deep water. My heart slams against my ribs. My hands are shaking. Across the tent, Amelia is already awake.
She’s sitting up, her eyes fixed on me, not startled, not confused. Just… watching.
As if she saw it too. As if she always does.