It began with a dream.
Aria stood in a field she didn’t recognize—silver grass swaying around her ankles, a sky overhead that flickered between night and storm. She wasn’t alone. Something pulsed beside her, like a heartbeat made of light. She looked down and saw nothing… but felt everything.
Her child.
Not as a weight inside her body, but as a presence—separate, aware.
And then came the voice.
Not hers.
Not Kael’s either.
But in between.
“He’s thinking of you.”
She gasped and jolted awake, sweat slicking her collarbone, her heart hammering against her ribs. She pressed a hand to her belly. The baby kicked once—sharp and certain.
It had spoken.
Not in words.
But in truth.
She didn’t tell Zara at first. She wasn’t even sure it was real. The dreams came more often now, curling around her in whispers and fragments. Sometimes it was Kael’s voice—sometimes it was her own, echoed back to her in a tone that didn’t belong to either.
But it always ended the same way: the tether humming like a string pulled tight between dimensions.
One night, she couldn’t take the silence anymore.
Zara was sharpening a silver-tipped dagger at the table when Aria finally spoke.
“It’s speaking to me.”
Zara didn’t look up. “The baby?”
Aria nodded slowly.
Zara set the blade down. “How?”
“Dreams. Feelings. Sometimes full thoughts. But they’re not mine.”
“Are they his?”
“I don’t know,” Aria said. “Sometimes it feels like Kael. But more often… it’s both. Like the child is hearing us and stitching things together.”
Zara frowned. “That shouldn’t be possible.”
“No,” Aria said. “It shouldn’t. But it is.”
Zara leaned back in her chair. “Have you told Maela?”
“She’ll think I’m unstable. Or worse—dangerous.”
Zara was silent for a moment. Then, “You are dangerous.”
Aria lifted a brow.
Zara continued, “But not in the way they fear. You’re more than they understand.”
Aria looked away. “The tether was supposed to break.”
“It did,” Zara said. “But your child was conceived before it snapped.”
“And now it’s using the threads left behind.”
Zara nodded.
“A psychic tether,” Aria whispered.
Zara’s gaze turned sharp. “And if Kael figures that out?”
Aria didn’t answer.
Because she already knew.
The next time it happened, she was awake.
She stood alone in the training field, running slow movements with a staff—no blade, just balance. The snow had softened to slush, and mist curled low around the stones.
Her breath came steady.
Until it didn’t.
A flash—not a memory, but a feeling.
Kael.
Not near.
But thinking of her.
No—grieving her.
And then, all at once, she saw what he saw.
A flash of her standing on the council floor.
A vision of her bleeding.
A flicker of regret so strong it made her knees buckle.
She dropped the staff.
The tether pulsed like a bruise.
Zara appeared a second later, catching her by the shoulders. “What happened?”
“He’s dreaming of me,” Aria choked out. “And now I’m seeing it.”
“Through the baby?”
“Yes.”
Zara swore under her breath and helped her sit. “This isn’t just emotional bleed. This is deep tethering.”
“It’s getting stronger.”
Zara knelt beside her. “Then we need to decide—are we going to sever it? Or use it?”
They didn’t speak of it again for several days.
But Aria could feel it shifting inside her.
Every time Kael’s thoughts touched the edge of her mind, she flinched less.
And listened more.
She learned things without meaning to. That he hadn’t returned to the council seat. That he’d been sleeping in his old quarters. That he’d refused the ceremonial blade offered to him in apology by the Elders.
He was still grieving.
Still searching.
Still… hers, in some fractured, inconvenient way.
And the child knew it.
Sometimes she caught herself humming in the dark, only to hear a low echo of Kael’s voice humming the same tune back—in his thoughts.
Other times, her dreams split in two—one half hers, the other his.
Always stitched together by the child.
She sought out Maela when the pressure became too much.
The healer listened without interruption, her face unreadable as Aria described the visions, the pulses, the shared thoughts.
“You said it’s like a tether.”
Aria nodded.
Maela crossed the room and pulled down an old book bound in thick hide. She flipped through yellowed pages, pausing near the center.
“There are legends,” she said, “of children born from true bonds carrying a thread of their parents’ link. Some were said to serve as bridges. Others… as weapons.”
Aria paled. “Weapons?”
Maela looked up. “You’re not the first to have a child after a severed bond. But I’ve never seen a case where the child mends it.”
Aria touched her belly protectively. “Then what happens if it succeeds?”
Maela closed the book. “Then you and Kael may be psychically tied… through your child. Permanently.”
Later that night, Aria stood at the edge of the ridge, looking down at the forest that stretched for miles between her and the man who had once vowed to protect her.
She felt the tether humming.
Not painfully. Not urgently.
Just… there.
Present.
She inhaled slowly and spoke aloud, not knowing if he’d hear it—but knowing the child would.
“I don’t forgive you,” she whispered. “But I don’t hate you either.”
The wind stirred the trees.
“I don’t know who you’ll be when you arrive… or what you’ll want.”
She placed a hand over her heart.
“But if you’re listening, Kael… know this: I’m not waiting for you. I’m not building this life with you.”
She looked down at her belly.
“I’m building it for them.”
Somewhere beyond the hills, Kael jolted awake in his tent, heart pounding.
He didn’t know why.
Didn’t understand the burn in his chest or the sudden clarity in his mind.
But for the first time in weeks…
He felt her voice like a whisper in his blood.
And he believed her.
