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Something unpleasant rolled over in her stomach. “What are you saying?”

Kora didn’t answer, but was he debating what to tell her or choosing how to tell her? At length, he scratched at the hollow place below his right ear. “That soul binding? The one keeping you bound to Agmon?”

“Yes?”

“It’s unbreakable.”

Unbreakable. The word swirled in her head, heavy with implications she didn’t understand or want to consider. “What—what does that mean?” She pressed her back against the stone wall to steady the shaking in her knees.

Kora leaned closer and lowered his voice. “It means you’re always going to be bound to us. To the Bifrost.” He held her gaze, all levity and playfulness abruptly gone. “You’ll always be bound to him.”

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Chills skittered across her skin, as if a thousand spiders crawled all over her. Always was a very long time. The word held such finality, such permanence. “But what does that mean? For me?”

A flicker of a wince contorted his expression. “I don’t know that. Sorry. I know I said I knew everything, but perhaps I exaggerated. What I can tell you is that whatever side effects you’re experiencing are not going to go away. In fact, they may get worse if you try to leave.”

The nightmares. The shadows breaking into waking moments. The children.

A low moan escaped her mouth. “But—but I can’t stay. Medda might die if I don’t get her help. And I’m supposed to be married, Kora.”

“Yes, yes, we all know about that wretched fellow you fancy yourself engaged to. I wouldn’t worry about that. There are ways to be rid of unwanted beaus, you know.” He waved a hand as if to suggest she might swat the dark elf away and be rid of him. “As for Medda...”

She waited for him to continue, but he floundered for words. “Yes?”

Kora cleared his throat and moved to rest his palm against the tunnel wall. “Well, you’re going to have to weigh the scales, my dear. More than one life hangs in the balance. On the one hand, you have a child that might be in danger. On the other, an entire kingdom filled with people who are in danger.”

The words held a cruel sort of finality. His opinion was clear. He didn’t think she should go, that the risk to Agmon and the Bifrost was too great. But to sacrifice Medda…to throw her chances to the wind when she couldn’t fight for herself or voice her own opinion?

“No,” she rasped with a shake of her head. “Someone has to fight for Medda. Someone needs to give her a voice in all this.”

His eyebrows lowered over his eyes. “Do you know what you’re risking, Anrid?”

“I do.” She shivered but lifted her chin. “And I’m trusting you to hold things together until I get back.”

To hold him together.

“You’re coming back?” His body grew very still, as if every inch of him waited to hear her response.

Her tongue pasted itself to the roof of her mouth. She peeled it away with effort. “I will bring Medda back,” she said slowly. “Until then, can you keep everything from falling to pieces?”

Kora flinched and crossed his arms. “You do realize you’re putting me in a tight spot.” But she didn’t see accusation in his expression, rather a strange sort of resignation, as if he’d known all along they would both come to this exact place. “There is something else you should know before you do this.”

Her heart skipped a beat. What else should she know?

Kora worked his jaw side to side before continuing, “The elves know about the binding, too. And about the risk you’re taking. And yet they’re still demanding you leave with them.”

She wrinkled her brow. What was he implying? That Talos wanted her to come to harm? Or that he didn’t care if Agmon was in danger, or wanted them to come to harm? But why? She knew little of politics and grand schemes. She knew relations with the dark elves were strained on all fronts…but were they all as terrible as Talos, or was he an exception to the rule?

“I’m sure they mean well.” But her own tone lacked conviction.

A smile quirked his mouth, but it wasn’t a nice sort of smile, especially when paired with one arched eyebrow. “Don’t be a fool, Anrid. You’ve met him. Your husband. He doesn’t mean well, and yet he came to offer his help. Makes one pause, doesn’t it, dear girl? Definitely makes one pause.”

She shook off the fear his words invoked. “You’re being cautious, is all. I have to go. You do see that, don’t you?”

Kora didn’t answer right away, the smirk sliding off his face like melting ice down a warm windowpane. “It isn’t me you need to convince, you know. You’re going to have to live with the consequences of your choice. As will we all.”

Frustrated tears pricked at her eyes. “I don’t have a choice. I can’t risk Medda’s life over a ‘maybe,’ over something that may not even happen. She needs me now, and that’s all I can do. I can only do this one thing and hope that everything else doesn’t fall apart. Kora, I’m counting on you to take care of Rig until I get back. To take care of all the children. Then when I return, well, we’ll figure out a way to work around the binding so that no one is at risk when I leave again.”

He withdrew into himself then, eyebrows lowering. When he spoke, he sounded tired and resigned and older than she’d ever heard him sound before. “You do what you need to do, Anrid.” He worked his jaw side to side and straightened his spine, as if preparing himself to walk into battle. “And I will do the same.”