Chapter 29
Kael
Mara sits on the bed, hair loose around her shoulders. Elena and Lila stand on either side, hands glowing with magic—silver-white witch-fire wrapped around Mara’s arms, sinking into her skin.
Unraveling. Breaking. Unmaking what I created.
“Stop!” The word comes out as a command, not a plea. The tone that once made warriors halt mid-strike and councils fall silent.
All three women freeze.
Elena’s hands remain raised, magic still flowing. Her eyes snap to mine. Assessing. Challenging.
“Kael.” Her voice is careful. Controlled. “We’re well underway. She needs—”
“I know what she needs.”
I step into the room. Close the door behind me. The bond thrashes in my chest—half-severed, raw, screaming for completion or ending. The pain is exquisite. Distracting.
I lock it down.
“But not like this,” I continue. “Not without understanding what you’re taking apart.”
“We’re giving her freedom.” Elena’s voice sharpens. “The bond you created keeps her dependent on you. Chains her to your side because she has no other choice.”
“I understand the situation.”
“Do you?” She steps between Mara and me. Protective stance. “Because you just ran in here to stop us from healing her. From giving her the choice you never gave her when you poured your fire into her dying body.”
The accusation lands clean. True.
“You’re right,” I say.
Elena blinks. Clearly expected resistance. “What?”
“You’re right. I created this bond without her consent.
Tied her to me out of desperation and instinct.
She deserves the choice to walk away.” I meet her eyes.
Hold her gaze. “But she also deserves to make that choice clearly. Not confused, with half the bond already severed and both of us uncertain what we’re losing. ”
“Mara asked us to,” Elena counters. “She wants—”
“Mara is processing trauma and fear and a week of surviving on instinct.” I keep my voice level. Factual. “As am I. Neither of us should make permanent decisions while we’re still bleeding.”
Silence falls.
Elena studies me. Reading intention. Looking for manipulation or weakness.
She’ll find neither.
“You agree the bond should be broken,” she says. Not a question.
“I agree, Mara should have the choice. Real choice.”
“Then why stop us?”
“Because I will not allow you to sever a magical bond while I’m three floors away in interrogation without even the courtesy of warning.”
Elena’s jaw tightens. “You think this is about courtesy?”
“I think this is about caution. For Mara. For the situation. For the fact that what you’re unmaking could literally kill her. You’re putting her in danger.”
“I’m not putting her in danger. I—” Elena stops. Glances at Mara. “I thought I was helping.”
“You were,” Mara says quietly. She’s been silent through the exchange, watching. “You are.”
“How can you know that?” I ask. “How do you know your magic will work? That you won’t take away the one thing keeping her alive?”
“Because the magic is strong, my Lord Kael.” Lila’s voice is deferential. “Between us, we can harness enough power to speed the healing. By the time the bond is gone, she’ll be strong enough to manage on her own.”
“You expect me to take your word for it?”
“Yes.” Elena’s jaw juts out. “We’re not idiots, you know. I would never put my friend at risk.”
“From where I’m standing, that’s exactly what you’re doing,” I snap.
Mara looks at me. “I asked for this, Kael. Don’t blame Lennie for—”
“I’m not blaming her.” I sense my voice soften. “I’m trying to protect you.”
Is that what I’m doing?
“I know.” Mara’s smile is small. Sad. “But maybe I need to figure out what protecting myself looks like. Instead of having everyone else decide for me.” She glances at Elena, then heaves a sigh, as if reaching some conclusion.
“Can you give me more time? Till tomorrow? He’s right.
I need to think about what this might mean. If it doesn’t work…”
“It will work, Mara!” Elena’s voice is firm. Her eyes flash at me.
“I’d still like to think about it,” Mara says.
There’s a pause. And then Elena nods slowly. Steps back. “Okay. Tomorrow.” She looks at me. “You have until then.”
“Understood.” I nod.
She and Lila move toward the door. Lila pauses beside me.
“She’s stronger than you think,” she says quietly. “Breaking the bond won’t break her.”
“Perhaps. But I’m not prepared to risk it.”
“Is that the reason?” Her eyes are knowing. Uncomfortably perceptive. “Because you’re looking at her like losing this connection will shatter something fundamental. And maybe it will. But she’ll survive.”
“I do not doubt her strength,” I say. “I doubt my own.”
Lila’s expression shifts. Something like understanding. “Then that’s honest, at least.”
She follows Elena through the door. It closes with a soft click.
Leaving Mara and me alone.
The bond hums between us. Damaged. Incomplete. Like a bridge with half its supports removed, swaying but not yet collapsed.
I should leave. Give her space. Let her process without my presence complicating things.
Instead, I move to the chair near the window. Sit.
“I’d like to stay a moment.”
She nods. Pulls her knees to her chest. Wraps her arms around them. Looks young. Vulnerable.
“They were almost done,” she says quietly. “The healing. When you arrived. Another few minutes and the bond would have been gone completely.”
“I know.”
“Does it hurt?” She glances at me. “Feeling it break?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
I consider lying. Consider softening the truth.
Decide against it.
“Like someone is removing pieces of my chest with a dull blade.”
She flinches. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You have every right to want freedom from a bond you never chose.”
“That’s not—” She stops. Starts again. “It’s not about freedom from you, Kael. It’s about knowing if what I feel is real.”
My heart leaps for a second. I slow it down.
“And you can’t know that while the bond exists.”
“Can you?”
The question lands clean.
I lean back in the chair. Study the ceiling. The fluorescent lights that never quite feel like real illumination. “No. I cannot.”
“So, we’re both stuck in uncertainty.”
“Yes.”
“And tomorrow we’ll find out if we’ve been confusing survival for something else.”
“Yes.”
Silence stretches.
“I’m scared,” Mara admits quietly.
“Of what?”
“That I’ll wake up tomorrow and realize everything I felt for you was just the bond. That without it, I’ll look at you and feel… nothing.” Her voice drops. “Or worse. That I’ll feel something, but you won’t.”
The honesty of it cuts.
“I’m scared of the same thing,” I tell her.
She looks up sharply. “What?”
“I’m scared that when the bond breaks, I’ll look at you and see only what I lost instead of who you are. That my memories of Lyria will drown out everything else.” I meet her eyes. “Or worse. That you’ll look at me and realize you were bound to a relic who belongs in the past, not the present.”
“You’re not a relic.”
“I am centuries out of time. I speak like the dead. Move through your world like a stranger. I don’t understand half of what you reference, and the other half confuses me.”
“You’re learning.”
“Learning is not the same as belonging.”
She studies me. “Is that what you want? To belong?”
Good question.
Do I?
I ruled once. Belonged to a court, a kingdom, a time that shaped me. Then I slept. Woke to a world that moved on without me.
Do I want to belong to this new world? Or just to—
“I want to belong with you,” I hear myself say.
Mara’s eyes widen. “Kael—”
“But I don’t know if that’s the bond speaking or something real.” I lean forward. Elbows on knees. “Tomorrow, we’ll find out.”
“And if it was just the bond?”
“Then we move forward. Separately. You heal completely. I figure out what my place is in this world.”
“And if it wasn’t?”
“Then we figure out what this is without magic forcing the answer.”
She pulls her knees tighter. “That’s very rational. Very… calm.”
“Should I be otherwise?”
“Most people would be panicking. Or angry. Or trying to convince me not to go through with it.”
“I am not most people.”
“No.” Her smile is small. “You’re really not.”
Silence falls again.
I watch her. The way lamplight catches the streaks of indigo in her hair. The way she’s curled into herself, defensive even in supposed safety. The sharp intelligence in her eyes that never quite shuts off.
She’s beautiful in ways I don’t have context for. Nothing like Lyria. Nothing like anyone I remember from before.
Just… Mara.
And tomorrow I’ll know if that’s enough.
“Tell me something,” she says into the quiet. “Something true. Something you haven’t said yet.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why did you really save me?” She looks up. Meets my eyes. “Not the practical answer about wounds you could heal. The real reason. What made you decide I was worth the effort?”
The question cuts to the bone.
I could deflect. Could give her the answer about instinct and newly woken power.
Instead, I tell the truth.
“Because I was drawn,” I begin. “Something called me. And because when I pulled you from the wreckage, you were still fighting. Still conscious. Still trying to survive despite injuries that should have killed you instantly.” I hold her gaze.
“And I thought—this female refuses to die. Refuses to give up. I can work with that.”
“So I impressed you with my stubbornness.”
“You impressed me with your will to live. Everything else—the intelligence, the humor, the way you make sense of impossible things—I learned later. But that first moment?” I shake my head.
“That was pure instinct. Yours and mine. You chose to fight. I chose to help you fight. Everything else followed from there.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me, and it’s about me being too stubborn to die.”
Despite everything, I almost smile. “Should I have led with poetry instead?”
“God no. Poetry would’ve been weird.” She uncurls slightly. “But this? This is very you. Very ‘K.’”
K.
The name she gave me before I remembered who I was.