“I know,” I answer.
The admission surprises us both. The bond between us is unusually quiet tonight. It does not pull or flare or press for dominance. It hums instead, low and even, like a current that has decided to flow rather than crash. It allows space.
Amelia sits across from me on the hearth rug, knees drawn in slightly, posture less guarded than I have ever seen it. Her hands rest loosely in her lap, fingers entwined not in tension but in thought. Firelight paints her features in amber and shadow, catching the exhaustion she hides from her coven and the resolve she refuses to set down.
She studies the flames for a long moment before speaking again.
“I think,” she says slowly, as if testing the words for balance, “that I understand now why you are so careful. Why you keep distance even when you are standing close.” Her gaze lifts to mine. “I do the same thing. Just differently.”
That earns my attention.
“I’m scared,” she continues, not flinching from the truth of it. “Not in the way they expect me to be. I’m not afraid of responsibility. I’m afraid of losing the ground beneath it.”
She shifts, drawing one knee closer, grounding herself.
“My magic still feels wrong. Ever since the ritual broke, it doesn’t move the way it used to. It listens, but not always to me. The coven watches me now as if they’re waiting for proof that the bond has changed something essential.” Her mouth tightens. “Some of them think I’ve already chosen Velcryn over Nytheria. Others think I’ve been claimed.”
She exhales sharply, frustration threading through the weariness.
“And Vira,” she adds, quieter now. “She just waits. Every council session, every silence, she’s there , like a shadow that knows exactly how long it needs to stretch before it reaches your throat. I can’t even prove she is sabotaging all of it, because I can't do it all alone.”
I remain silent, not because I have nothing to say, but because this moment is not about me filling the space.
“I was raised to inherit certainty,” she says. “Answers. Authority. Faith. Instead I inherited collapse, and everyone looks at me like I should already know how to stop it.”
There it is. The heart of it. Not fear of failure, but the weight of expectation with no margin for learning.
“You believe they don’t trust you,” I say carefully.
She hesitates, just long enough to tell me the answer matters.
“I know they don’t,” she replies.
The silence that follows is not uncomfortable. It settles between us like a shared understanding neither of us feels compelled to interrupt.
She lifts her head, eyes sharp and asks me something I couldn't predict for a million years. “Do you regret our bond?”
I take my time answering. Not because I am avoiding the truth, but because I respect it enough not to cheapen it with immediacy.
“I regret the circumstances,” I say finally. “The desperation that forced the choice. The fracture that made the bond a necessity instead of an intention. I regret that it was forged under pressure rather than freely. I know I forced it, but it was a necessity for me as much as it was for you.”
Her shoulders tense at that word.
“But,” I continue, meeting her gaze fully now, “I do not regret you.”
The air shifts, as if something that had been braced for impact has decided to stand down. She studies my face with careful attention, searching for exaggeration, for strategy, for the familiar signs of calculation. Whatever she finds, it makes her breathe easier.
“You could still walk away,” she says quietly. “If this becomes too volatile. If Nytheria fractures beyond saving.”
“I could,” I agree.
“And you won’t.”
“No.”
The certainty of it settles between us like a stone placed deliberately, not thrown.
“I don’t regret it either,” she says.