Chapter 5 Iris
Iris
The snow starts before dawn.
I wake to the peculiar silence that means the world has been buried overnight. A muffled quiet that only comes with heavy snowfall. When I pull back the curtains, I can barely see the forest through the white curtain falling from the sky.
It's beautiful. And also potentially problematic.
Downstairs, the kitchen is cold. The fire in the stove has gone out overnight, and my breath mists in the air as I work to get it going again. Once I have flames crackling cheerfully, I make myself tea and stand at the window, watching the snow pile up.
We're going to be snowed in. Probably for days, given how fast it's falling.
Just me and an ancient vampire in a house full of weapons and unresolved trauma.
What could possibly go wrong?
The thought makes me laugh, a slightly hysterical sound echoeing in the empty kitchen. But there's also something oddly comforting about it. No village. No judging mages. No expectations. Just... this. The cottage, the snow, and the work I need to do.
I wrap my hands around my tea mug and make a decision.
Time to figure out exactly what I've gotten myself into.
Grandmother's library is significantly less intimidating in the snowy morning light.
The snow outside makes everything feel muffled and still, and with a good fire burning in the hearth, the room almost feels cozy. Almost. The weapons mounted on the walls and the grimoires on every surface prevent it from being truly comfortable.
But the desk by the window is perfectly large enough to spread out books, with a view of the snow-covered garden that's actually rather peaceful.
I start with the most basic text I can find on familiar bonds. "The Fundamentals of Binding Magic," which sounds exactly as dry as it is. But I need to understand the foundations before I can understand what's happening now.
Two hours in, I wish I hadn't.
The bond, as it turns out, is not the benign magical partnership I'd hoped for. It's... complicated. And deeply uncomfortable.
“A familiar bond is established through the master's will to dominate,* one text explains in clinical detail. *The magic requires constant reinforcement, a steady pressure of intent that reminds the familiar of their place within the hierarchy. Without this pressure, bonds naturally degrade.”
I flip to another book, hoping for a different perspective. I don't get one.
“Familiars experience compulsion as a physical sensation. Resistance to direct commands manifests as pain, increasing in intensity until compliance is achieved. This is not cruelty but necessity. The bond cannot function without clear hierarchy.”
My stomach turns.
I keep reading, because I have to. Because I need to understand what was done to Cadeon. What I'm supposed to be doing to him.
The bloodline bond, the specific magic binding him to House Ashwood, is even worse.
It's older, deeper, more invasive than standard familiar bonds.
He literally cannot feed from anyone outside the bloodline.
If the Ashwood line ended, he would starve.
Slowly. Painfully. Until he went feral or found a way to end himself.
"She did this to you. My family did this to you," I whisper to the empty library. "For two hundred years."
"I'm interrupting."
I jump, nearly knocking over my tea. Cadeon is standing in the doorway, and I have no idea how long he's been there.
"No, it's fine. I'm just..." I gesture helplessly at the books spread across the desk. "Researching"
He moves into the room with that unsettling grace, glancing at the spines of the books I've pulled. His expression doesn't change, but something in his posture goes rigid.
"Bond theory," he observes.
"Yeah." I close the book I was reading, suddenly not wanting him to see the clinical descriptions of his own suffering. "Trying to understand what's happening with the weakening. And... how it all works."
"And what have you learned?"
I look at him. Really look at him. He's standing very carefully, hands at his sides, face blank. Waiting for judgment. For disappointment. For me to realize what a burden he is.
"That it's worse than I thought," I say honestly. "The compulsion. The pain if you resist. The fact that you literally can't feed from anyone else. They did this to you. For two centuries. And she knew the whole time."
"She maintained the bond as it was meant to be maintained."
"That doesn't make it okay!"
"It's what I am." His voice is flat, empty. "I was made for this."
"No." I stand, facing him across the desk. "You were made into this. There's a difference."
He looks away. "Is there?"
"Yes." I take a breath, trying to organize the tangle of anger and horror and determination in my chest. "Cadeon, I've been reading for hours. I understand now why the bonds are weakening. They require the master's will to dominate, a ”constant magical pressure.” A refusal to see the familiar as an equal.
And I..." I laugh, sharp and bitter. "I can't do that. I don't want to do that."
"Then the bond will break." He says it like he's reporting the weather. "And I will either starve or go feral. The bloodline bond ensures it."
"Or," I say slowly, "we figure out a different way."
"There is no different way. The bond is absolute."
"The bonds are also weakening across the entire region.
Something is changing. Something about the solstice, about the magic itself.
Maybe..." I'm thinking out loud now, pacing behind the desk.
"Maybe this is an opportunity. Maybe we can find a way to change your bond.
Make it something else. Something better. "
"You're being naive."
"Maybe. Or maybe I'm being hopeful." I stop pacing, meeting his eyes. "I'm not going to dominate you. I'm not going to treat you like a weapon. And if that means the bond breaks, then..."
"Then I die." His control cracks slightly, a flash of something raw in his expression. "Or worse, I hurt you. I hurt everyone. Without the bond's structure, I don't know what I am. I don't know what I'll become."
"A person," I say firmly. "You'll become a person who gets to make his own choices."
"I don't know how to do that."
"Then we'll figure it out. Together." I move around the desk, closer to him. "As partners."
"I'm not a partner. I'm am..."
"You're whatever we decide you are," I interrupt.
"And I'm deciding that we're partners. We're going to research the bond-weakening together.
We're going to figure out what's happening and how to fix it, or how to change it into something better.
And in the meantime, you're going to let me treat you like a person. "
He stares at me like I'm speaking a foreign language.
"Starting with dinner," I continue, warming to the theme. "I'm going to cook dinner tonight. Something good. Something that actually tastes like food. And you're going to sit at the table like a person and taste it, because vampires can still taste, and you deserve good food."
"I don't deserve..."
"Let me decide what I give freely," I say, and my voice comes out softer now. "That's the only thing I'll ever ask of you, Cadeon. Let me choose to be kind. Let me choose to see you as more than a weapon. Can you do that?"
For a long moment, he just looks at me. The firelight flickers across his face, casting shadows, and I can see him struggling with something. Belief, maybe. Or hope. Things he's forgotten how to feel.
"Why?" he finally asks, and his voice is barely a whisper. "Why does it matter to you?"
"Because you deserve better than what she gave you." I hesitate, then push forward. "Because maybe we both deserve a chance to figure out who we are without her shadow hanging over us."
Something shifts in his expression. Not warmth, exactly. But the ice cracks, just a little.
"Partners," he says, testing the word like he's tasting it.
"Partners," I confirm.
"I don't know how to be a partner."
"Good. Neither do I. We'll figure it out together."
The corner of his mouth twitches, an almost-smile, just the slightest indent of a dimple, I'm learning to recognize. "You're very determined."
"I stress-bake and I research obsessively. It's my process."
"I've noticed."
We stand there in the library, firelight and snowfall, and something settles between us. An agreement. A promise. The beginning of something that might, eventually, be trust.
"The snow," Cadeon says, glancing toward the window. "We're snowed in."
"I noticed. Are you worried?"
"No." He pauses. "It feels... quiet."
"Good." I gather up the books, suddenly energized. "Then we have time. Time to research, time to plan, time to figure this out. And time for me to make dinner, which I'm thinking should involve hot chocolate first."
"Hot chocolate."
"It's snowing. We're snowed in. Hot chocolate is required. It's practically a law of nature."
"Hot chocolate?" He repeats, this time more of a question.
"It's definitely a law of nature. Trust me on this."
He follows me out of the library, and I pretend not to notice that he's chosen to follow. That he's choosing to stay close. That for the first time since I arrived, he looks almost... settled.
The kitchen is my domain, and I’ve already claimed it thoroughly.
I've got the stove burning hot, the kettle singing, and ingredients spread across every available surface. The windows are fogged from the warmth inside versus the cold outside, and the whole room smells like chocolate and cinnamon.
"Hot chocolate is an art form," I explain, measuring cocoa powder with perhaps too much ceremony. "You can't just mix powder and water and call it done. You need real chocolate, good milk, cinnamon, a tiny pinch of salt, and, this is the important part, you need to put intention into it."
"Intention." Cadeon is sitting at the table again, watching me with that same careful attention he gave to the bread-making. "Your magic."
"Warmth magic, specifically. Comfort magic. The kind that settles in your bones and eases old aches." I'm whisking chocolate and milk together, feeling the magic hum through me. "Grandmother probably would have called it frivolous."
"Mistress Elspeth," he says quietly, "was wrong about many things."
I glance at him, surprised. He's looking at his hands, folded on the table, and there's something vulnerable in his posture.
"She was brilliant," he continues. "Powerful. But she forgot... or maybe she never learned... that power without compassion is just cruelty masquerading strength."
"Did she ever..." I stop, not sure how to ask.
"Treat me kindly?" He looks up, meeting my eyes.
"At first. When I was first bound, she was.
.. different. Younger. Less hardened. But war changes people.
Loss changes people. And eventually, I became just another tool in her arsenal.
It was easier for her, I think. Easier not to see me as a person. "
My throat tightens. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's not your fault."
"But I'm an Ashwood. That makes it..."
"You're not her," he says firmly. "You've made that abundantly clear."
I pour the hot chocolate into two mugs, adding tiny marshmallows to mine because I'm nothing if not committed to the aesthetic. His I leave plain, but I've loaded it with warmth magic, comfort magic, everything I can pour into it.
I set his mug in front of him and take the chair across from him, wrapping my hands around my own mug. They are both white, basic ceramic, nothing like the mish-mash of mugs I have at home.
"Try it," I say.
He picks up the mug carefully, like it might bite him. Takes a cautious sip.
Then goes very, very still. A rigidity only vampires can achieve.
"Good?" I ask.
"It's..." He takes another sip, and I watch his face transform. The careful blankness cracks, and for just a moment, I see wonder. "I can feel your magic in it. The warmth. It's like..."
"Like what?"
"Like safety." He looks at me over the rim of the mug, and there's something raw in his expression. "I'd forgotten what that felt like."
The fire crackles in the stove. Outside, snow falls in thick, steady curtains, burying the world in white. Inside, the kitchen is warm and bright and smells like chocolate and home.
"We're going to figure this out," I say quietly. "The bonds, the weakening, all of it. And we're going to do it together. Not because you're bound to me, but because we're choosing to."
"Choosing to," he repeats, like he's trying out the words. Testing their weight.
"Every day," I promise. "Every single day, we choose."
He nods slowly, turning the mug in his hands. "I'll try. To remember how to choose. How to want things."
"That's all I'm asking."
We sit there in comfortable silence, drinking hot chocolate while the snow falls outside and the fire burns warm inside. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the wind howling, but in here, we're sheltered. Protected. Together.
"Thank you. For this. For..." He gestures vaguely, encompassing the kitchen, the hot chocolate, the choice. "All of it."
"You're welcome." I smile at him over my mug. "Now drink your hot chocolate before it gets cold. I put a lot of good magic into that."
"I can feel it." He takes another sip, and I swear I see the ghost of a smile on his face. Barely a flash on those full lips. "It's very good magic."
"Kitchen magic," I correct. "The best kind."
"Yes," he agrees quietly. "I'm beginning to think it might be."
And sitting there in the warm kitchen, snow falling outside, hot chocolate warming us from the inside, I think maybe we might be okay. He might be okay, which is all I can ask for.