My chest tightened. The ritual had worked, then. Evara's soul was loose in the world, seeking a vessel, and somewhere out there three women had been flagged as possibilities. The fate of everything—the Unnamed, the Dragon Lords, the world itself—rested on finding the right one.
"I have to go."
His voice was heavy with reluctance. I felt it through the bond: the weight of duty warring against the desperate desire to stay. Four days since the ritual. Four days of watching me surrender, watching his power return, watching the bond between us grow stronger with every cup of tea I accepted, every meal I finished, every brush stroke through my hair.
He didn't want to leave.
But the world needed him more than I did.
"My shadow-sense is still the sharpest," he continued, turning me gently to face him. In the soft glow of the nursery's captured stars, his eyes were brighter than they'd been yesterday—moresilver, more ancient, more his. "Even diminished, I can read resonance signatures the others might miss. One candidate is on the Storm Coast. One in a mountain monastery. One in a city that borders cult territory."
I heard what he wasn't saying: some of these places were dangerous. Some of this work couldn't be trusted to anyone else.
Part of me wanted to cling.
The feeling rose unbidden from somewhere I didn't want to examine—a desperate, childlike urge to wrap my arms around him and refuse to let go. We'd barely been separated since the ritual. The thought of existing in this vast, beautiful place without his presence anchoring me made something in my chest ache with anticipated loneliness.
But I wasn't helpless. I wasn't weak. I was a wound-walker who had survived twenty-seven years alone, who had walked into plague villages and dying towns and never flinched. I could survive a few days more.
"How long?"
"Three days. Perhaps four."
He cupped my face in his hands, tilting it up until our eyes met. The touch sent fire through my veins—even now, even after four days of his care, his proximity made my blood sing. His thumbs traced my cheekbones, gentle and possessive all at once.
"I need you to stay in the Sanctuary," he said. "Rest. Eat. Let the transformation settle."
"Morgrith—"
"Rules, little one." His voice firmed into something that made my spine straighten automatically—not with resistance, but with a different kind of response. Something that wanted to obey. Wanted to please. "You will not skip meals. You will sleep in the nursery each night. You will not push your wound-walking—no experimenting with your new abilities while I'm not here to anchor you."
His thumb stroked my cheek, and the gentleness of the touch contrasted sharply with the authority in his voice.
"And you will not leave the Sanctuary under any circumstances. The wards will protect you, but only if you stay within them."
The old Lena would have argued. Would have bristled at being told what to do, at being treated like someone who needed protection. Would have insisted she could take care of herself, thank you very much, and if she wanted to skip a meal or stay up all night reading shadow-script or test the limits of her transforming power, that was her business and no one else's.
But I wasn't the old Lena anymore.
I was someone who had signed a pact. Someone who understood that his rules weren't control—they were care. His authority wasn't domination—it was devotion, expressed in the language of boundaries and structure and keeping me safe when he couldn't be there to do it himself.
"Yes, Daddy."
The words came easier than I expected. Easier than they should have, maybe. But I was done fighting what I wanted.
His eyes flared with heat at the words. I felt his reaction through the bond—a surge of satisfaction and hunger that made my breath catch. His whole body tensed with the effort of not pulling me closer, not pressing me down into the shadow-silk sheets, not doing all the things we'd negotiated and agreed to and desperately, desperately wanted.
"Good girl," he breathed.
The praise washed through me like warm honey, pooling low in my belly, making my thighs press together. I was wet—god, I was wet just from his words, from his hands on my face, from the promise of what was coming when he returned.
He leaned close. His lips brushed my ear, and his voice dropped to a register that made my knees go weak.
"Three days. Four at most. And when I return..."
His breath ghosted across my neck. I shivered.
"When I return, little one, I intend to test exactly how much of my power you've restored."