Page 15

T he ceremonial attire is a cage of fabric.

It feels both alien and restrictive, the woven material heavy on my shoulders, the intricate clasps cool against my skin.

I stare at my reflection in a polished metal plate on Jaro's wall.

The woman looking back is a stranger, her face painted with subtle, swirling blue lines, her hair bound in a complex braid interwoven with metallic threads.

This is not Dr. Kendra Miles, xenobotanist. This is a sacrificial offering.

Kyra enters the dwelling silently, her presence a small comfort in the suffocating quiet. She carries a small, velvet-lined box. Her amber eyes are filled with a sorrow that mirrors the ache in my own chest.

“It is time,” she says softly.

I nod, my throat too tight for words. She opens the box. Inside, resting on dark cloth, is not a piece of jewelry, but a shard of polished black obsidian, its edges honed to a wicked sharpness. It's beautiful and deadly.

“The elders say this is a traditional charm,” Kyra explains, her voice barely a whisper as she presses it into my palm. Her fingers close over mine for a moment, a gesture of solidarity that feels like a lifeline. “To ward off ill omens during the ceremony.”

I look from the shard to her face. We both know its true purpose. This is not a charm. It is a tool. A potential weapon. An escape.

An option. The word resonates in my mind, a stark contrast to the powerlessness of this entire situation.

“Thank you, Kyra,” I say, my voice steady. I slip the shard into a hidden fold of the ceremonial garment. The weight of it against my thigh is a small, cold point of reality.

She escorts me from Jaro's dwelling. The air in Vara-Ka is thick with anticipation.

The entire tribe is assembled in the central gathering space, a massive circle of packed earth surrounded by the silent, watching dwellings.

Their collective gaze is a physical weight, pressing down on me.

I feel the low hum of their curiosity, their suspicion, their hope.

My enhanced senses, a side effect of this world and this bond, are a curse right now, making me privy to every hostile whisper and every pitying glance.

Jaro waits for me at the center of the circle.

He is magnificent in his warrior regalia, the dark leathers and polished bone adornments emphasizing the sheer power of his frame.

His amber eyes, glowing with an inner fire, find mine across the space.

The heart-bond mark on my chest gives a sharp, painful pulse.

I can feel his anxiety, a turbulent current beneath his calm exterior.

He is determined. He is afraid. He is about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

As I walk toward him, the tribe begins a low, rhythmic chant.

It's a sound that seems to rise from the very earth of Xylos, ancient and inexorable.

Every element of this ritual is designed to intimidate, to overwhelm, to reinforce the power of the tribe and the insignificance of the individual.

Every step I take toward Jaro feels like a step away from myself.

When I reach him, he doesn't touch me. The space between us crackles with unspoken words, with the raw energy of our bond.

An elder, his face a mask of stern tradition, begins to speak, his voice a deep baritone that carries across the clearing.

The words are a blur of ancestral invocations, of pronouncements about the strength of Jaro's bloodline, his duty to the tribe.

Jaro then speaks, his voice resonating with a power that commands attention. He speaks of protection. Of provision. Of the sacred duty of a male to shelter his mate. His words are meant to be a comfort, a promise. To my ears, they sound like the terms of a contract I never agreed to sign.

I stand impassive, my expression a carefully constructed mask of scientific neutrality. I observe. I analyze. The ritual's structure is designed to reinforce a patriarchal hierarchy. The male pronounces, the female receives. The tribe witnesses, validating the transfer of ownership.

Another elder steps forward, carrying a set of woven red cords.

The ceremonial binding cords. My breath catches in my throat.

This is it. This is the point of no return.

Seeing them, so tangible and real, shatters my last vestiges of analytical detachment.

The full, irreversible nature of this ceremony, the complete and total surrender of my autonomy it demands, crashes over me with the force of a physical blow.

This is not symbolic. This is a declaration of my subjugation.

Jaro turns to me, his amber eyes filled with a desperate, pleading light. Please, they seem to say. Please understand. Please do this for us.

He reaches for the binding cords.

Hypothesis: Submission leads to survival. Counter-hypothesis: Submission leads to the extinction of self. Conclusion: The extinction of self is not a form of survival.

I take a step back.

The movement is small, but in the charged silence of the ceremony, it is a tectonic shift. A collective gasp ripples through the tribe. Jaro freezes, his hand hovering over the red cords. His eyes widen in disbelief.

“No.”

The word leaves my lips, clear and steady, cutting through the chanting and the tension. It is a single, hard point of defiance in a world built on compliance. The clearing falls utterly silent. Even the wind seems to hold its breath.

I look at Jaro, at the shock and hurt warring on his face. Then I lift my chin and address the tribe, my voice ringing out with a strength I didn't know I possessed.

“I honor your traditions,” I say, my Xylosian still stilted but my meaning clear. “I understand the need for strength, for protection. But I will not be claimed. I will not be possessed.”

I press a hand to my own chest, over the mark that binds me to their prince. “This bond... it is a connection. It is not chains. On my world, a partnership is a bond between equals. It is a choice, made freely by both. It is not ownership. It is not the strong possessing the weak.”

I sweep my gaze across the stunned faces of the elders, the warriors, the females. “I value Jaro's protection. I value his strength. But I will not forfeit my right to choose. I will not be bound.”

Jaro stares at me, his face a mask of disbelief.

All his plans, all his political maneuvering, all his desperate attempts to balance his world and mine, have just crumbled to dust at his feet.

He had truly believed I would acquiesce.

He had fundamentally misunderstood the line I would not, could not, cross.

The silence is shattered by a single, mocking laugh. Vex. He steps forward, his scarred face alight with triumph.

“The alien disrespects our sacred ways!” he shouts, his voice booming across the clearing. “She rejects the claim of our prince! She proves herself a source of weakness, a corruption! Jaro cannot control his own mate. How can he lead this tribe?”

The tribe erupts into an uproar. Vex's supporters roar their agreement, their voices a wave of hostility.

Jaro's warriors look lost, confused, their loyalty now a liability.

The elders exchange grim, disapproving glances.

I see Chief Torq rise, his expression unreadable, his hand raised to call for order in the growing chaos.

The ceremony is over. My rebellion is complete. And the trust I had begun to build with Jaro lies in shattered pieces at my feet.

In the chaotic aftermath, Jaro finally breaks through the wall of shouting warriors to reach me. His face is pale beneath his blue skin, his eyes wide with a pain that tears at our bond.

“Kendra, what have you done?” he whispers, his voice raw. “I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” I turn on him, my own voice shaking with the force of my betrayal. “You call that protection? Jaro, you were going to let them tie me up like an animal for slaughter!”

“It was symbolic!” he insists, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “A political necessity! Do you think I wanted to do it? I did it to save us! To save you from being a target!”

“I am not a political tool, Jaro! I am a person!” I jab a finger at my chest. “My autonomy, my right to choose, is not something you can sacrifice for political gain. Did you ever, for one second, stop to think about what that ritual meant to me ? Or did you just assume I would fall in line because you are the great warrior-prince and I am the helpless alien?”

“That's not...” he starts, but he can't finish. Because he knows it's true. He never truly saw me as an equal partner in this decision. He saw me as a problem to be managed.

“Did you really think I could be with someone who would do that?” I ask, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

“Someone who would so willingly trade my freedom for his own security? The man I thought I was getting to know would have understood. He would have found another way. But you... you chose tradition. You chose power. You chose possession.”

The fragile connection we had built, the trust that had started to bloom in the dark caves of the Sacred Mountain, is gone. Annihilated.

I look at his anguished face, and for a moment, I feel a pang of pity. But it is quickly consumed by the cold, hard certainty of my decision.

“I cannot be with you, Jaro,” I say, and each word is a stone dropping into the chasm between us. “I cannot be with a man who does not see me as his equal.”

I turn my back on him, on the chaos of the tribe, on the impossible, painful pull of the heart-bond. I walk towards the edge of the settlement, my head held high.

“I want to leave,” I announce to the guards who move to block my path.

“I will not stay in a place where I am considered property.” I look past them, my gaze sweeping over the wild, dangerous expanse of the Xylosian wilderness.

It is a world that has tried to kill me more than once. But out there, at least, I am free.

“I choose the forest,” I say, my voice ringing with a finality that allows for no argument. I am choosing my own brand of survival. One that does not require my submission.

I leave Jaro standing in the ruins of his claiming ceremony, a prince left to face the political storm alone, the bond between us a raw, open wound.