KAEL ASHFORD
Kael woke with his hand already pressed to his chest.
It had become a habit over the past three weeks—this instinctive reach for something that wasn't there, this desperate attempt to soothe an ache that had no source. His fingers splayed over his sternum, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath silk and skin, and for a moment he could have sworn there was another rhythm beneath it. Slower. Deeper. Not his own.
He sat up slowly, golden hair falling into his eyes, and pressed harder.
Nothing.
Just his heart. Just him. Alone in a bed large enough for three people, surrounded by velvet curtains the color of old blood and walls so white they hurt to look at in the morning light.
The pull was still there.
It lived in his chest like a second pulse, faint but insistent, tugging at something he didn't have a name for. It wasn't pain, exactly. It was absence. The feeling of reaching for a hand in the dark and finding only empty air.
Kael exhaled slowly and let his hand drop.
His reflection stared back at him from the mirror across the room—gray eyes shadowed with sleeplessness, sharp cheekbones, a mouth that had forgotten how to smile without calculation. He looked like a prince. Controlled. Composed. Perfect.
He looked like a lie.
The tremor started in his fingertips.
It was subtle at first, just a faint vibration beneath his skin, but Kael recognized it immediately. He clenched his fists, willing it to stop, forcing his breathing to slow. The magic inside him stirred like something waking from a long sleep, restless and hungry, and for a moment his eyes flashed gold in the mirror.
Not gray. Gold.
He closed them.
Breathe. Control it. You've done this a thousand times.
The tremor faded. The gold disappeared. When he opened his eyes again, they were gray once more, dull and human and safe.
But the pull remained.
"Why do I feel incomplete?" he whispered to the empty room.
No one answered.
The palace around him was already stirring—footsteps in the corridors, the distant clatter of breakfast trays, the low murmur of advisors gathering in the council wing. Kael could hear it all through the thick stone walls, could feel the weight of the day pressing down on him like a hand on his throat.
Another day of duty. Another day of restraint. Another day of pretending he wasn't slowly unraveling from the inside out.
He rose from the bed and dressed himself in silence, pulling on the formal robes expected of a prince of Valengard—deep blue trimmed with silver, high-collared and suffocating. The fabric was soft as water and twice as cold.
The pull tugged at him again as he fastened the last clasp.
This time, it felt almost like a direction.
The council chamber was exactly as sterile as Kael's bedroom—white marble floors, high vaulted ceilings, and windows that let in too much light and not enough warmth. Twelve advisors sat around the long table, each one dressed in the formal gray of the Covenant Office, each one watching him with the same carefully neutral expression.
Kael took his seat at the head of the table and folded his hands in his lap to hide the faint tremor that hadn't quite left them.
"Your Highness," Councilor Theron began, his voice as dry as old parchment. "We have reports from the northern border. Three unauthorized bond attempts in the past month alone."
Kael kept his face blank. "Unauthorized?"
"Multi-party bonds," Theron clarified, as if the words themselves were distasteful. "Two were dissolved before completion. The third..." He paused, glancing at his notes. "The third required intervention."
Intervention. A polite word for what the Covenant Office did to people who broke the law.
"I see," Kael said quietly. "And the individuals involved?"
"Separated. Re-educated. Their bond markers have been removed."
Removed. Another polite word. Kael had seen what that process looked like once, years ago, and the memory still made his stomach turn.
"The law is clear," another advisor said, a woman named Maren with steel-gray hair and a mouth like a blade. "One soul, one bond. Anything else is chaos."
"Chaos," Kael repeated softly.
"Yes, Your Highness. The gods themselves decreed it. Multi-party bonds destabilize magic, create unpredictable power surges, and—most importantly—make individuals ungovernable." Maren's eyes were sharp as she looked at him. "Surely you understand the necessity."
Kael understood perfectly.
He understood that the law wasn't about chaos or instability. It was about *control*. One bond per person meant one loyalty, one anchor, one point of leverage. It meant people could be tracked, managed, predicted.
It meant no one could become too powerful.
"Of course," he said aloud, his voice smooth and empty. "The law exists for a reason."
Theron nodded approvingly. "Indeed. Which brings us to another matter, Your Highness." He leaned forward slightly, his gaze sharpening. "Your own bond status."
Kael's chest tightened.
"You are twenty-four years old," Theron continued. "Unbonded. Unmarried. The court is beginning to ask questions."
"Let them ask."
"Your Highness—"
"I am not ready," Kael said, and the words came out harder than he intended. He softened his tone, forced his shoulders to relax. "I will bond when the time is right. Not before."
Maren's eyes narrowed. "The time is right when the kingdom requires it. You are the crown prince. Your bond is not a personal matter—it is a political one."
Kael wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or both.
Instead, he said, "I am aware of my responsibilities."
"Are you?" Theron's voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it now. "Because there have been... reports, Your Highness. Unusual magical fluctuations in your quarters. Instability in your aura. Some have even suggested—"
"Suggested what?" Kael's voice was ice.
Theron hesitated. "That your curse may be worsening."
Silence fell over the room like a shroud.
Kael's curse. The thing no one spoke about directly, the stain on the Ashford bloodline that had killed his grandmother and crippled his uncle. The unpredictable, uncontrollable magic that lived in his veins like poison, waiting for the moment he let his guard down.
"My curse," Kael said slowly, "is under control."
"Is it?" Maren asked. "Because if it is not, Your Highness, the Covenant Office has protocols—"
"I said it is under control."
The words came out sharp enough to cut, and for just a moment, Kael felt the magic flare inside him—hot and wild and furious. His eyes flashed gold again, just for a heartbeat, and the air in the room seemed to crackle.
Theron went very still.
Maren's hand moved to the sigil at her wrist, the one that would summon guards if necessary.
Kael forced himself to breathe. Forced the magic back down. Forced the gold to fade.
"Forgive me," he said quietly. "I am... tired."
"Of course, Your Highness." Theron's voice was carefully neutral again, but Kael could see the calculation in his eyes. "Perhaps you should rest. We can continue this discussion another time."
Kael rose from his seat, every movement controlled, every breath measured.
"Thank you, Councilor."
He left the chamber before anyone could say another word.
The gardens were the only place in the palace that felt even remotely alive.
Kael walked the stone paths slowly, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes on the ground. Around him, roses bloomed in perfect rows—red and white and gold, their petals flawless, their stems trimmed to identical heights. Even here, everything was controlled. Ordered. Managed.
He hated it.
The pull in his chest had grown stronger since the council meeting, a constant pressure that made it hard to breathe. It wasn't painful, exactly, but it was insistent, like a hand tugging at his sleeve, demanding his attention.
Kael stopped walking and pressed his palm to his chest again.
This time, the sensation was unmistakable.
It felt like a second heartbeat—slow and steady and *not his own*. It felt like warmth spreading through his ribs, like a thread pulling taut, like something inside him was reaching for something outside him.
Like he was incomplete.
"What are you?" he whispered.
The pull didn't answer, but it *shifted*, and for a moment Kael could have sworn he felt it split—one thread pulling north, another pulling east.
Two directions. Two sources.
Twosouls.
His breath caught.
No. That was impossible. The law was absolute. One soul, one bond. Anything else was forbidden, erased, *destroyed*. He had seen what happened to people who tried. He had heard the stories.
And yet.
Kael closed his eyes and let himself feel it—really feel it, without trying to suppress it or explain it away. The pull was there, undeniable and growing stronger by the day. It wasn't his imagination. It wasn't his curse.
It was real.
"Two threads," he murmured. "Two other souls I cannot name."
He didn't know who they were. He didn't know where they were. But he knew, with a certainty that terrified him, that they were out there. Waiting. Searching.
Calling to him.
The loneliness that had lived in his chest for as long as he could remember suddenly felt unbearable. He had spent his entire life surrounded by people—advisors, servants, courtiers—and yet he had never felt more alone. He had never felt *seen*.
But whoever was on the other end of those threads... they would see him. He knew it the way he knew his own name.
And gods help him, he wanted it.
He wanted it so badly it hurt.
"This is forbidden," he said aloud, as if saying it would make the pull go away.
It didn't.
If anything, it grew stronger.
Kael opened his eyes and stared up at the sky, at the clouds drifting lazily overhead, and felt something inside him crack.
He had spent his entire life being obedient. Controlled. Good.
And where had it gotten him?
Alone. Afraid. Incomplete.
"I don't care," he whispered. "I don't care if it's forbidden."
The words felt like a confession. Like a prayer.
Like a promise.
It happened just after sunset.
Kael was alone in his chambers, standing by the window and watching the last light fade from the sky, when the pull suddenly surged.
It hit him like a wave, so strong it drove the breath from his lungs and sent him stumbling back against the wall. His hand flew to his chest, fingers digging into the fabric of his robe, and for a moment he couldn't tell where his heartbeat ended and the other rhythm began.
And then he saw it.
A flash of something in the corner of his vision—a figure, shadowed and indistinct, standing just beyond the edge of the light. Kael's head snapped toward it, his heart pounding, but when he blinked, it was gone.
No. Not gone.
Fading.
Like an afterimage. Like a memory that didn't belong to him.
He could still feel the presence, though—warm and solid and *real*. It lingered in the air like a touch, like someone had just brushed their fingers against his skin.
Kael's breath came in short, sharp gasps.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
The presence didn't answer, but the pull in his chest *thrummed*, and for just a moment, Kael felt something he hadn't felt in years.
Hope.
He pressed his hand harder against his chest, as if he could hold onto the feeling, as if he could keep it from slipping away.
"I am not alone," he said quietly, his voice shaking. "I feel them."
The words hung in the air, fragile and impossible.
"I just don't know who."
But he would find out.
Even if it killed him.