After hearing Sahora's confession, I could not help but wonder why the gods paired us.
She had taken lives. I had spent mine saving them.
My village worshipped Banthys, the god of life and breath. His priests were gifted with the power to restore a fading soul. Or cut the cord when all things must end.
Life and death. Two halves of my god's domain.
So why pair her, a woman shaped by blood and survival, with me, a man shaped by healing and restraint? Why link a blade to a prayer?
I did not judge her for what she did, but I could not stop wishing the world had been kinder to her. That her path had not been carved through fire and pain. That she did not have to save Celentra when she had not yet learned how to save herself.
I looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time.
Her black hair draped across her shoulders in a slight wave. Her skin was tanned from a lifetime beneath a merciless sun. And freckles scattered across her nose like constellations trying to guide her home.
She sat rigid, as if softness was a shape she was never taught to hold. Her shoulders stayed low and heavy, as though she truly believed the weight of this world belonged on her alone.
"If you are going to stare," she muttered, her voice cold and braced for impact, "just tell me you think me the monster I am."
"I do not think you are a monster," I said, steady. "I think you had to survive. And survival always leaves casualties."
She laughed, a real laugh, breathless and sharp. "The joke keeps getting better. I have always been someone's weapon. Now I am someone else's Soulbearer, a vessel for a power I do not understand."
"Nevertheless," I said, "it is a power only you can wield. And even more, one you can shape into what you choose."
"I don't know what I want." Her voice cracked, small and raw. "All I have ever wanted is freedom."
"Maybe restoring Kathera will help you find it," I said quietly.
"Or maybe restoring Kathera will kill me." She said it not as fear, but as fact. "If Celentra is waking, if the world itself has a heartbeat, then bringing her back will cost something. And the cost is most likely my life."
She lifted her chin, the way someone does when they have already accepted the end.
"I am ready to greet death when it comes for me."
My chest tightened. A dull ache bloomed under my ribs.
"Careful, Sahora," I murmured, forcing a grin. "You are starting to sound like a hero."
She did not smile, but she leaned, just barely, into my arm when I wrapped it around her.
Stories said Soulfated pairs who lose each other feel it like death, like their own soul being torn out. Left hollow. Breathless. Broken where no priest or god can mend.
It took extraordinary strength to keep living without your other half. I did not know if I possessed that kind of strength.
And as her head rested against my shoulder, the truth settled heavy and undeniable.
I did not want to learn how to live in a world where she did not survive.