Updated Nov 20, 2025 • ~8 min read
The problem with the bond being open was that it didn’t close.
Three days after the testing facility, Liana was still getting random flashes of Kaelen’s life. Memories that weren’t hers, surfacing at the worst possible moments.
She’d be making coffee and suddenly taste salt water, feel the burn of muscles after training. She’d be trying to work and instead see a woman with kind eyes and gray-threaded locs, singing in a language Liana didn’t know. She’d be falling asleep and jolt awake with the phantom sensation of blood on her hands.
It was invasive and exhausting and completely unavoidable.
“This is normal,” Thorne had assured her when she’d called in a panic. “The bond is settling. You’re synchronizing. It’ll stabilize once you’ve processed the initial memory exchange.”
“How long does that take?”
“Varies by pair. Could be days. Could be weeks.”
Perfect. Just perfect.
Now Liana stood in the training room at the facility—a space they’d been assigned for daily practice—trying to focus on the meditation exercise Kaelen had taught her. Trying to quiet her mind and control the flow of power through the bond.
It wasn’t working.
“You’re fighting it again,” Kaelen said from across the room. He was watching her with those unsettling silver eyes, arms crossed. “I can feel you putting up walls.”
“I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Concentration isn’t the same as control.” He moved closer, and Liana’s whole body tensed with awareness. “You can’t block the bond. The more you fight it, the harder it pushes back.”
“So what, I’m just supposed to let you have access to everything?” Liana’s voice rose. “My thoughts, my memories, my entire interior life?”
“That’s how the bond works.”
“Well it sucks.”
Kaelen’s expression shifted—something almost like sympathy. “I know. But if you don’t learn to manage the flow, it’ll overwhelm you. I’ve seen it happen to unbonded people. They lose themselves in their partner’s consciousness.”
Liana shuddered. That was exactly what she was afraid of. Losing herself. Becoming subsumed in someone else.
“Show me how,” she said quietly. “How you manage it.”
Kaelen hesitated, then gestured to the mats. “Sit. Face me.”
They sat cross-legged, knees almost touching. The bond hummed between them, electric with potential.
“The key is acceptance,” Kaelen said. “You can’t stop the memories from coming. But you can choose how you interact with them. Observe without attaching. Let them flow through rather than fighting to keep them out.”
“That sounds like therapy talk.”
“I’ve had a lot of therapy.” His mouth quirked, almost a smile. “Comes with the Starborn training. We’re taught to maintain psychological balance when bonded.”
Of course he’d been trained for this. He’d had his whole life to prepare. Liana had had less than a week.
“Try this,” Kaelen said. “Close your eyes. Breathe. When a memory comes—mine or yours—just acknowledge it. Don’t try to push it away or pull it closer. Just let it be.”
Liana closed her eyes. Took a breath. Tried to relax.
Immediately, a memory surfaced—but not hers.
A younger Kaelen, maybe sixteen, standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The wind whipping through his locs. A man beside him—older, weathered, with the same silver eyes. “The bond is a gift,” the man was saying. “But gifts can be burdens. When you find your mate, you’ll understand.”
The memory faded, replaced by another.
Kaelen in a stone room, training with bladed weapons. Moving with brutal efficiency. An instructor calling corrections. “Faster. Harder. Your mate will depend on you. You cannot fail.”
Another shift.
A woman screaming. Fire everywhere. Kaelen trying to reach her, but the flames were too hot, too bright. Her hand outstretched. His fingers closing on empty air. The bond between them snapping—
Liana’s eyes flew open, gasping. “Who was she?”
Kaelen had gone very still. “You saw that.”
“I felt it. The bond breaking. Kaelen, who—”
“My sister.” His voice was flat. Careful. “She was marked five years ago. Her mate died in a Void incursion—a small one, before we knew what we were facing. The bond backlash killed her too.”
Liana’s throat closed. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s why I know what the bond costs.” Kaelen’s eyes were haunted. “That’s why I tried to push you away. Everyone I’ve loved, everyone I’ve tried to protect—they all die. I won’t let that happen to you.”
Through the bond, Liana felt the depth of his guilt. His certainty that he was cursed. His absolute terror that history would repeat itself.
“I’m not your sister,” she said softly. “And you’re not responsible for protecting the entire world.”
“The prophecy says otherwise.”
“The prophecy can—” Liana caught herself. Started over. “Look. I’ve spent my whole life refusing to let fate define me. I’m not going to start now. We’re partners. That means we protect each other.”
“You don’t know how to fight.”
“Then teach me.”
Kaelen studied her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he held out his hand. “Show me one of yours.”
“What?”
“A memory. Something that matters to you.” His expression was open, vulnerable in a way she hadn’t seen before. “The bond goes both ways. I’ve been taking from you unintentionally. Let me actually see.”
Liana hesitated. Letting him in on purpose felt different than the involuntary sharing. More intimate. More dangerous.
But fair was fair.
She took his hand, closed her eyes, and let the memory surface.
Eight years old, sitting on the front steps of her mother’s house at midnight. Waiting. Her mother had promised he’d come back tonight—Liana’s father, the man who’d left before she was born. The prophecy had said so. The cards. The signs. But the street stayed empty. The stars watched, indifferent. And eventually, her mother came out, pulled her inside, crying. “I’m sorry, baby. I was wrong. I’m so sorry.”
Another memory.
Seventeen, screaming at her mother. “You wasted your entire life waiting for someone who was never coming back! You let prophecies destroy you!” Her mother’s face, devastated. “I just wanted to believe in something bigger than myself.” Liana, cold with fury: “Well I don’t. I never will.”
And one more, more recent.
Standing in front of her mother’s grave. Maya’s hand in hers. The weight of regret so heavy Liana could barely breathe. “I should have visited more. Should have called. Should have—” Maya, gentle: “She knew you loved her.” Liana: “Did she? I spent so long being angry about the prophecies, I forgot she was just lonely.”
Liana opened her eyes. Kaelen was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t name.
“That’s why you fought the bond,” he said quietly. “Why you don’t believe in fate.”
“Prophecies took my mother from me long before she died.” Liana’s voice was rough. “I won’t let them take me too.”
“But you’re here anyway.”
“Because the Wraiths are real. The danger is real. The bond—” She gestured between them. “This is real, whether I like it or not. So I’m dealing with reality. Not destiny.”
Kaelen’s thumb brushed over her knuckles, sending warmth through the bond. “I understand that. The not wanting to be defined by fate.”
“Do you?”
“I was born into a legacy I didn’t choose. Trained for a war I didn’t start. Marked by stars I had no say in.” His eyes met hers. “But I’m choosing to fight anyway. Not because prophecy demands it. Because people will die if I don’t.”
“So we’re both here out of spite,” Liana said. “Refusing to let fate have the last word.”
“Something like that.”
They sat there, hands linked, the bond settling between them. Liana could still feel echoes of his memories—the grief, the guilt, the fierce determination. And she knew he felt hers—the abandonment, the anger, the fear of becoming her mother.
But underneath all of it, something new was growing. Understanding. Trust.
Maybe even the beginning of friendship.
“I’m glad it’s you,” Kaelen said abruptly. “My mate. If I had to be bonded to someone, I’m glad it’s someone who fights.”
Liana felt heat rise in her cheeks. “That’s the closest thing to a compliment I’ve heard from you.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
But he was smiling—actually smiling—and through the bond, Liana felt his sincerity. His relief that they were starting to understand each other.
“Come on,” Kaelen said, standing and pulling her up with him. “Let’s run through combat drills. If you’re going to fight, you need to know how not to die.”
“You really know how to sweet-talk a girl.”
“I’ll work on it.”
As they moved into position, Liana felt the bond hum with contentment. The memories were still there—his and hers, tangled together—but they didn’t feel as intrusive anymore.
They felt like connection.
And maybe, just maybe, that wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
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