Luin

"You can come home."

The words echoed in my mind as I struggled to process them, but they were too immense and my head hurt too much for any of this to feel real.

Once you were exiled from Alterra, there was no going back. Or, there never had been before. When I left, I had accepted that I would cut all ties of family, friendship, and loyalty. Fen shouldn't be here, shouldn't be speaking these horrible, impossible, wonderful words.

But...

But I would have to sever my soul bond. I could make my choice again, Fen had said. As in, the original deal still stood: exile or life without my soul mate. It was an agonizing choice for so many people faced with my situation, I knew, but for me it had been so simple that first time. I had felt no doubt, no hesitation as I signed away my citizenship and stepped through the gate to the human realm. I had been too full of hope and, yes, no small amount of grief, but there had been such a sense of conviction and rightness that the choice had been easy. Even in all these years, I had never regretted it. Sure, I had wondered whether a life alone in Alterra without hope or a life alone here with a dying hope would make for a happier life... but that was just wondering. A way to keep my mind at work and a way to steel my resolve when I came up with the inevitable conclusion: of course I was better off here.

But that was back when the questions that circled my mind were purely hypothetical, with no way of ever acting on them. It's easy to decide you made the right choice when it's impossible to take it back.

"Luin?" Fen said gently.

I shook my head. "I apologize. That's a lot to take in."

Fen grimaced. "I know."

I needed to think about something else, just for a little while. "My family?" I asked.

"They're okay," Fen said, but the sympathy in his eyes had my chest twisting in dread. I watched him and waited, even though that dread escalated every second until I thought I might choke on it. Finally, one corner of Fen's mouth twitched upward and he shook his head, affection mingling with the sympathy in his eyes. "You always were good at waiting me out. It's your dad. He got sick a couple of years back, and... he didn't make it."

I shut my eyes against words that hit me like a physical blow. I was suddenly glad for the ache of depleted magic throughout my body. It seemed fitting, in the face of such news, that I should hurt. My father had been gone for years and I'd had no idea.

It was always a possibility, I knew – a real Schrodinger's Cat situation. I had always known that someday, my parents would die and I would be none the wiser. Someday. But I never thought I would feel the sharp grief of knowing that it had actually happened.

I sorted through questions in my mind – how long was he sick? What killed him? How had my mother and sister taken it?

Did he suffer?

But when it came down to it, those answers weren't what I really wanted to hear about. "Tell me more," I asked. "What do you know of my mother and Corrin?"

Fen brightened now and some of the weight eased from me. They must be okay, or he wouldn't look like that. "Corrin and her bond mate are expecting their third child. Your mother is loving being a grandmother. She bought the house next door to them, and I think that bothered Corrin at first, but they seem really happy now."

"I'm an uncle?"

"Rin is five and Sula is three," Fen supplied.

Somehow, having more information on them made me feel worse. Did they know their mother had a brother? Did they know my name? Even if I went back, I would be a stranger to them. What would my life look like?

It turned out, distracting myself from the offer Fen had come to make was impossible. I leaned back and looked up at the sky, watching the clouds move while I tried to calm the conflict raging through my mind. Fen gave me a few minutes, but he had never been very good at staying quiet so it wasn't long before he said, "Will you come back?"

I looked at him, at the hope in his eyes even though I could see how hard he was trying to keep a neutral expression. I let myself imagine it, just for a minute. Picturing my homecoming was almost impossible. I would be looked down on by a lot of our society and treated with suspicion by even more. My mother and sister wouldn't care, though. They would welcome me back with open arms. My mother would insist that I live with her and I could use the proximity to Corrin's family to get to know her children and her bond mate. I could be in her new child's life right from the beginning.

But the cost was high. I would never see Lachlan or my other friends again. No way would they let me come back, not when I was such a risk to the Seelie-exclusive way of life that was so valued by my people. And I would be shredding the last scrap of hope I had left of being with my soul mate, or even meeting him.

He probably isn't coming.

The thought invaded my mind and I shoved it away with a vigor that had been hard to muster the past few years.

If he hasn't come in the past sixteen years, I'm an idiot to think he'll come at all.

This thought, too, I shoved away.

"My bond," I said to Fen, and struggled to voice the rest of what I had to say. He must be bonded by now. He must know the joy and fulfillment that came from living life with your soul mate. It was a feeling I could only dream of, and I wanted it badly enough to cling to this realm and all the hardships it brought me.

Fen nodded at me and I thought he understood, until a deep sense of wrongness invaded every cell of my body and I wheezed, doubling over in agony. I gasped for breath with lungs that didn't seem to work right anymore and my heart raced, though every single beat felt labored and wrong. I shivered even as sweat broke out over my body, like I was too hot and too cold all at once. My head, merely pounding before, felt like it might split open. I almost wanted to physically split it open, myself, because in that moment, I truly believed that would hurt less.

But all of that I could have managed. What was truly unbearable was that the bond that had been so much a part of my every waking thought for the past fourteen years was just... gone. Extinguished so thoroughly it was like it had never been. I grasped for it, fighting off horror and utter panic, but there was nothing to grasp onto.

It must be magic, but mine was still completely exhausted, not a drop left. I couldn't investigate that way, and I certainly wouldn't have been capable of snapping my bond in that state even if it were something I'd ever be willing to do. That left Fen.

I pushed through the agony that gripped me to stare at him in horror. "Stop!" I gasped.

Fen grimaced. "This is why they sent me," he said. "I can sever bonds. If you come back with me, I'll make this permanent."

"This is temporary?" I asked desperately.

He frowned and nodded slowly. "Yes. Think of it like a nerve block. The bond is numbed, not gone."

I leaned forward and planted my hands in the mud in front of my knees, heaving for air while processing the overwhelming relief in knowing my bond would come back.

"I know it hurts," Fen said. "I'm sorry. My orders... they want you to feel what it's like to be without the bond. They thought it would make your decision easier."

"Make it easier to choose Alterra, you mean," I retorted. Even through a mind swirling with pain and caught in an onslaught of upset, I could see the logic.

We weren't meant to snap our soul bonds. It took a kind of inner strength very few possessed. As soon as a person tried it, the pain started, and you'd have to bear through the pain to finish the job. Knowing that pain was coming, and this awful gaping hole where the bond should be would make it harder for people to choose that for themselves.

If the Seelie numbed the bond ahead of time and let you get past the pain of it, however... if it became a choice to keep the bond silent instead of a choice to destroy it while it was whole...

Well, I could see how that might make things easier. It wasn't enough to sway me, though. I couldn't get past the glaring wrongness. So often throughout the day, I'd reach down the bond to check on my bond mate. It let me know that he was still a realm away from me, yes, but it also told me he was still out there somewhere, alive and maybe on his way to me. Now when I reached for him, I just got...

Nothing.

Gradually, the pain receded, and that awful sense of wrongness only grew stronger. If there had been any doubt in my mind about staying here and waiting for my bond mate to come, this would have been all it took to convince me. I felt hollow, empty. Incomplete.

I couldn't live like this.

"Fen, please. Bring the bond back."

Fen looked down at his hands, which were clenched on his lap. "I can't do that," he said. Before I could panic too much over his words, he explained, "The block I put on will dissipate on its own, but it would be risky to try and remove it. The magic has claws, and there's no telling how much damage it might do if I pull at it while those claws still have strength."

"How long?" I asked.

"It will fade by this time tomorrow. You have to make your decision before then."

I couldn't be upset with Fen for following orders, but I silently cursed the manipulative jerks that gave them. A whole day without my bond. What must my bond mate be thinking? He would have no idea this was temporary. In fact, he might not even know a temporary block was even possible – I hadn't until Fen put one on me. So would my bond mate think I had given up on him? That I had snapped our bond myself?

And... did it cause him as much pain as it caused me? I really hoped not.

"I don't need time to make a decision," I said through pain-gritted teeth. My voice betrayed my anger and hurt, and I hoped Fen knew not to take it personally. "I can't go back to Alterra. This is where I belong, whatever my fate."

I looked to Fen to see how he was taking it, and he just smiled self-depreciatingly. "I had to try, didn't I?" He stood and brushed at the back of his pants, though his hands came away mud-smeared, so he probably only made the mud situation worse. "Why don't we get something to eat? You officially have until tomorrow afternoon to make your choice, and I'm not allowed to leave until your bond senses return, so we have some time."

My stomach turned at the very thought of eating, and some of what I felt must have shown on my face because Fen grimaced and said, "Sorry."

I waved off the apology even though I couldn't quite bring myself to accept it. "Why don't I take you to my favorite café? Maybe tea will help settle my stomach, and they have good soups and sandwiches," I offered. Truth told, I wasn't in the mood for company and I was, in fact, a little angry with Fen for numbing my bond even though I knew he wasn't really to blame. But I wouldn't let that ruin the time I had left with my friend.

--

That night, Fen offered to share his hotel room with me so we could spend what time we could together, but even though I hated to waste this opportunity, I really needed some time alone.

The intense pain from Fenn numbing my soul bond and from my low magic reserves had faded somewhat. The back of my head and my temple still throbbed and my sense of equilibrium was still a little off, but now I felt like I could think around the pain, and I had a lot of thinking to do.

I laid on my bed without bothering to change my clothes or get under the blankets, and I shut my eyes while I focused on relaxing my whole body, starting with my toes and moving up until I reached my shoulders. My head I gave up as a lost cause and anyway, by the time I made it that far, I was fighting off a swell of anger I didn't realize had been festering.

Part of it was misdirected at Fen, who had only been following orders. Most of the anger was focused right where it belonged, with the Seelie. It wasn't the first time I felt that way. I could see why they wouldn't want any Unseelie coming onto their lands, but to exile anyone who chose to affiliate with them seemed excessive. Why was it I couldn't go back and visit my family? Was I really such a threat, I who had never even met an Unseelie before?

Yet even though I had asked myself these questions countless times, I knew the answers – it was about loyalty. The Seelie court had to assume that my loyalty was not with them, so I couldn't be trusted. And if I had contact with my family, their loyalty would have to be called into question, as well. Better to cut out the infection where it started than to allow it to spread.

As I always did, I shoved the questions and the deep sense that fate had wronged me away, and instead I concentrated on the hollow part of myself where my bond should have been. It wasn't like when I was younger, before the bond ever developed. There had been no hollow feeling then, just a curious weightlessness I could never put my finger on until the bond tethered me.

This, what Fen had done to me, felt deeply wrong. I could feel the gaping lack in my chest almost like a wound. When I sent my magic into it, testing it, sharp pain speared through me. Was this how I would feel for the rest of my life if I took Fen's offer and went back to Alterra? Would there always be this hollow part of myself? I thought that must be the case. Even though all I had now was a block, not a fully ripped out bond, surely severing it permanently would only hurt worse.

Who would choose this?

But I thought back to the friends I had made once upon a time, Carmine, Nuala, and Amelie. They were all jaded back when I knew them, and that was a long time ago. If they were still alone, they might just have given up hope to the point of accepting even such a lousy deal as this. They might accept their inevitable outcast status back in Alterra, might accept this awful hollowness, and might be willing to forsake forever the possibility of ever completing their soul bonds.

Not me. Fen's stunt today had only reinforced what I had always known: I would wait as long as it took, even if it took the rest of my life.