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That could be my fate, if I so desired it. All I’d have to do is tell him I won’t wait for him – that the Bond is not enough, and that if he wants me, he needs to go with menow.

Then, I’d be on a crazy adventure with three men I don’t know.

There’s only one thing Idoknow about them – that they’re utterly devoted to me, and they will be for the rest of their incredibly-long lives.

That devotion scares me. Is it because they care about me? Or is it just that I’m the only one who can bring meaning to their lives? These three men have spent centuries devoted to their Empire. That’s all they’ve ever known or cared about. I might just be a continuation of their goal of protecting the Empire. I’m not their love, or their Goddess – but just breeding chattel. A way for the Aurelians to continue their species and make their Empire stronger.

Would they even love our sons?

Are they even capable of that? Or, would they just view them as tools? Servants for the Empire.

I need tothink. I need to be away from them.

I step through the doors of the Reaver and into the coolness of the Aurelian war-machine. The doors hiss closed behind me. They cut me off from the three men, yet I feel no respite in the intensity of our Bond.

I grab onto the railings as the Reaver takes off. As my stomach falls away, I also have the strange feeling I might never see them again.

As I finally leave this abandoned, industrial wasteland, I feel the auras of the three warriors grow fainter in my mind. The distance between us is putting a rift between us.

“I trust you,”comes Lazar’s voice, but it’s fainter now, and I know the other two can’t hear it.

I don’t answer back. I can’t. What could I say? He’ll hear it in my voice. No, he’llfeel itin my aura.

I don’t know what I’m going to do.

The Reaver soars ever higher, soundlessly swooping through the sky. I watch through the viewport at the abandoned building where I’d been kept prisoner these last few days.

The most important events of my life took place down there – and yet, within minutes, it’s just another ruin in a sea of derelict remains; the bones and gristle of a more prosperous era.

As I’m taken higher and higher into the air, I see that I was correct in my assessment of the rough location of this makeshift hideaway. My plan of running towards the city would have worked – assuming I’d been able to evade all the dangers present between me and the city; not to mention the Aurelians hot on my heels.

But I didn’t get away. Now, I’ve been put into a ship and sent back to where this all began. My triad will wait for me for however long it takes. Right now, they’re trusting me to try and plead for leniency. Then, they’ll turn themselves in; and their fate will be decided by the version of events I choose to tell.

The smog of capital city looms before me. I was lucky to grow up north of this city, far away from the pollution that scours the lungs of those who struggle for existence down below.

The Reaver pilots me around the city and towards my house. Sprawling manors and estates, all secluded and well-protected, denote the borders of my protected, privileged life.

How many children grow up down there, as I did? Without trust, or companionship. Hidden behind emotionless Sentinels and well-paid guards?

My house is ahead. The walls of my estate look so different from this angle. When you’re within them, they block out the outside world entirely. They feel like the end of the universe looming in on you.

But from up here, on the outside, it looks like I could simply skip over them. What’s insurmountable when you’re a frightened human girl is a mere inconvenience when you have the Bond, and the tools of an Aurelian triad.

I look down. Sentinels and mercenaries stand on the walls. Tall, powerful Aurelians dressed in the uniform of Aurelian Law Enforcement stand at rapt attention amid them. I watch the little figures down below scurry in panic at the approach of the Reaver – aiming weapons at me, even though the human mercenaries must know their clumsy slug-guns can’t breach the armor or shields of an Orb-Powered Aurelian Reaver.

I look down as we approach. So, the Aurelian Law Enforcement walk in my home; invited in by my father, and now stripped of their weapons or armor, as he insisted my triad were.

I’m nervous enough as it is. Now, I know others of their species will interrogate me about what transpired between me, Brennan, Otho, and Lazar.

What do I tell them? The truth is – well, the truth would condemn my Bonded triad. They took me from my home, and kidnapping is viewed as one of the most grievous crimes in the lawbooks of the Aurelian Empire. The three of them would suffer a fate that will pull them away from me. In a high-security prison, I doubt I’ll even be allowed to visit my Bonded triad.

I reach out to touch their auras in my mind, but I don’t know what I’m searching for. I wonder if all Aurelians are led by men as tormented as Brennan – a man who’s shouldered the great weight of leadership for so many years that it turned him into something he hates.

He’s become a man who bears responsibility for decisions that have left their terrible mark on his conscience. I plunge into Brennan’s aura, and deep within the tormented storm of his mind, I see flashes of blue, clear sky beneath.

There is hope for him. Calmness, and healing.

Ican draw it out of him – only me. I could make him whole again.