Chapter 10 Cadeon
Cadeon
The days after our argument have a careful quality to them.
We move around each other like dancers learning new choreography, polite, cautious, both acutely aware of the space between us. Iris doesn't push. Doesn't demand answers I don't have. She simply continues her routine: cooking, researching, tending her slowly reviving greenhouse.
And I continue mine: patrol, maintenance, being useful in the only ways I know how.
The difference is that now, the silence feels wrong. Heavy. Like we're both waiting for something to break or heal, and neither of us knows which it will be.
I'm checking the wards on the eastern boundary when I feel it through the bond: ”a spike of irritation mixed with resignation. Someone is at the cottage. Someone she doesn't want to deal with.
I'm moving before I consciously decide to, covering the distance back to the house in minutes. The bond has grown so thin these past weeks that feeling anything through it this strongly means she's genuinely upset.
When I round the corner of the cottage, I see why.
Magnus Ironwood stands on our doorstep like a conquering general surveying disputed territory.
He's dressed in the formal robes of the old war mages: deep blue trimmed with silver, sigils of power embroidered at the cuffs. His familiar, a hawk shifter named Talon I’ve met a few times, perches on his shoulder, eyes sharp and predatory.
Iris is in the doorway, still in her work apron dusted with flour. The contrast between them is almost comical. The legendary battle mage and the kitchen witch.
Except there's nothing funny about the way Magnus is looking at her. It’s like she's a disappointment he's obligated to correct. Even in the gathering darkness, I can see his expression and I do not like it.
"You cannot possibly maintain this estate alone," he's saying as I approach, his voice carrying that particular condescension the old guard reserves for anything they consider beneath them.
"Your grandmother understood the importance of proper authority.
Of strength. Of knowing one's place in the natural order. "
"Good evening, Magnus," I say, deliberately interrupting. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"
He turns, and something in his expression sharpens. Assessing. "Cadeon. Still here, I see. Tell me, can you even feel the bond anymore? Or has it degraded past functionality?"
The casual cruelty of his statement, the assumption that I'm a tool to be evaluated makes something cold and sharp settle in my chest. But I've had two centuries of practice maintaining perfect control to show him.
"The bond is adequate to its purpose," I say, keeping my voice neutral.
"Adequate." Magnus makes a dismissive sound. "Elspeth's bond was iron. Unbreakable. Absolute. This..." He gestures vaguely between Iris and me. "This diluted connection is an insult to her memory."
Through the bond, I feel Iris's anger flare bright and hot and directed entirely at Magnus. She's biting her tongue, literally biting it, trying to remain civil.
"Would you like to come in?" she asks, voice tight. "I'm afraid I'm in the middle of baking, but I can make tea."
"No need." Magnus adjusts his robes, and Talon shifts on his shoulder, ruffling his feathers in what I recognize as a dominance display.
"I came merely to deliver a message from the council.
We've been researching the bond-weakening.
Our findings suggest that those who maintain proper discipline, proper dominance, experience no degradation at all. "
"How interesting," Iris says flatly.
"The implication being," Magnus continues, clearly enjoying himself, "that weakness in the bond reflects weakness in the master. Those who coddle their familiars find their connections deteriorating. It's simple cause and effect."
"Or," Iris says, and I hear the edge in her voice now, "different relationship dynamics create different bond structures. Partnership bonds might simply function differently than domination bonds."
"Partnership." Magnus says the word like it's obscene. "Familiars are not partners, girl. They are bound servants. Tools. Weapons. The moment you forget that is the moment you lose control."
"I'm not interested in control," Iris says quietly.
I have to bite my tongue at him calling her a girl. She might not be Elspeth, but she’s still the same rank as he is. Still a mage in her own right.
"Then you're a fool." He looks at her with something approaching pity. "Your grandmother understood. Power requires dominance. Dominance requires will. Without constant reinforcement, the bond degrades and the familiar becomes dangerous. It's not cruelty, it's protection. For both of you."
I feel my hands curl into fists at my sides. Every word out of his mouth is technically correct, according to the old texts, according to centuries of tradition. But hearing it spoken aloud, hearing Iris reduced to incompetent child who doesn't understand basic familiar management...
"Did Mistress Elspeth coddle me?" I ask suddenly.
Magnus turns to me, surprised. Familiars don't speak unless spoken to. Familiars certainly don't interrupt their betters.
But I'm so tired of the old rules. I am, I realize. I am so tired.
"Did she?" I press. "Did Elspeth Ashwood coddle me? Show me weakness? Fail to maintain proper dominance?"
"Of course not," Magnus says stiffly. "Elspeth was exemplary in her control. Absolute discipline. You were a perfect weapon under her command."
"Then why," I say, keeping my voice very calm, very controlled, "do I barely remember what it feels like to be a person?
Why did two hundred years of her 'exemplary control' leave me so broken that I flinch at kindness?
Why did her 'perfect discipline' make me forget how to want anything, feel anything, be anything except a tool? "
The silence that follows is profound.
Magnus stares at me like I've grown a second head. Talon makes a sharp sound of distress. And through the bond, I feel Iris's shock, and underneath it, fierce pride.
"You're bound," Magnus says finally, his voice hard. "What you feel is irrelevant."
"Is it?" I take a step forward. "Is what I feel irrelevant? Or is that just more convenient than acknowledging what your 'proper discipline' actually does?"
"Cadeon..." Iris starts.
"No." I don't look at her, keeping my eyes on Magnus.
"He came here to tell you that you're failing.
That your inability to dominate me properly makes you weak.
That you should strengthen your will, maintain constant pressure, force me into obedience like she did.
" My voice is still calm, still controlled, but underneath it I can feel two centuries of rage trying to surface.
"But what he's really saying is that kindness is weakness.
That seeing me as a person is failure. That the only way to maintain a bond is through cruelty disguised as necessity. "
"I never said anything about cruelty," Magnus sniffs.
"You didn't have to." I'm standing directly in front of him now, and I have height, reach, and hundreds of years of combat experience.
He knows it. His familiar knows it. "You said tools.
Weapons. Objects that don't require consideration beyond maintenance.
You said dominance is protection. That control is care.
" I lean in slightly. "Has your familiar ever told you what it feels like?
The constant pressure? The compulsion? The way resisting even slightly feels like being crushed from the inside? "
Talon shifts uncomfortably on Magnus's shoulder.
"Has he?" I press. "Or have you simply assumed that because he obeys, he must be content?"
"That's enough," Magnus snaps, but there's uncertainty in his voice now.
"No. It's not nearly enough." I straighten.
"You came here to tell Iris she's failing.
But she's the first master in two centuries who's asked me what I want.
Who's seen me as something other than a weapon.
Who's given me choices instead of commands.
" My voice softens. "If that's failure, then I'll take failure over success any day. "
Magnus looks between us, his expression a mixture of shock and disgust. "You've gone soft. Both of you. Elspeth would be appalled."
"Good," Iris says quietly, and when I glance at her, she's looking at me with something that makes my chest feel too full. "I hope she would be. Because I never want to be what she was."
Magnus adjusts his robes with sharp movements. "You'll regret this. When the bond breaks and he loses control, you'll understand why the old ways exist.” He turns to leave, then pauses. "Your grandmother maintained perfect control for years. Try to make it two months, girl. For your own sake."
Then he's gone, sweeping away with Talon on his shoulder, leaving us standing in the doorway.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
"I'm sorry," I say finally. "I shouldn't have..." The anger flows out of me with a sigh.
"Don't." She's looking at me with eyes that are too bright. "Don't apologize. That was... that was incredible."
"I was insubordinate. Defensive. I made things worse."
"You stood up for yourself. For us. For what we're trying to build here." She reaches out, takes my hand, and squeezes. "Thank you."
The touch is brief. Casual. But it settles something in my chest that's been tight since our argument.
"Come inside," she says. "I have bread in the oven and I desperately need to rage-bake something else before I explode."
The kitchen is warm and smells like yeast and honey. Iris pulls the bread from the oven: perfect, golden, obviously made during some earlier bout of stress and sets it to cool.
Then she braces her hands on the counter and takes a deep breath.
"Did grandmother coddle you?" she asks quietly, not looking at me.
"No." The word is simple. Final.
"Was she cruel?"