Page 91 of Sunder

She took one of Athan’s hands and tucked their fingers together. It was so strange, how right that could feel. As if... as if they were made just so. Whole, when they were together.

Was she going to do this?

Maybe.

That was better.

She could start, and if it went poorly, if she got too frightened, she’d stop. Put it off another day.

But that weighed on her like a terrible omen. A weighty spectre that would haunt and rob her of her newfound joys, and she was sotiredof it all.

“What is the bond for?” Orma found herself asking, her thumb drifting over his. Once. Twice. While Athan considered, and she tried to keep her heart from coaxing sobs out of her throat.

She waited to hear one of the practiced answers they all learned as fledglings. All about the Maker and pairings. How special they were, how privileged.

“Do you have a particular answer in mind?” Athan asked. He wasn’t being mulish, merely... careful. “Or is that a genuine enquiry?”

She was still shaking, and his arms tightened about her.

“Babies,” Orma blurted out. “That is what it is for. What it urges from us, yes? To be together. In the most fundamental of ways. To be together for the whole of our lives and raise our families.”

She hoped he’d see her point without her having to say more, but nothing in his posture tightened. He was merely waiting.

She lacked the words. She truly did.

And sometimes, things were better shown than articulated.

It wasn’t a difficult movement, not when his hands were placed as they were. When all it meant was for her to pullthem slightly downward. To hold them there and wait. “I was in agony,” she reminded him. “And nothing was helping.”

Athan grew very still. If he was breathing, she couldn’t feel it.

“Orma,” he whispered. Pained.

The bond flared with it, stealing her breath and making her eyes wet. “I didn’t care all that much at the time,” she continued, feeling strangely detached from it all. As if she wasn’t really there. “They explained it, or tried to. And it made sense. Mama wept for days when they suggested it. I didn’t know at the time. I thought someone had died and they’d forgotten to tell me. But no, she was crying for me. For what I wouldn’t have.”

She swallowed. “What we won’t have.”

He was going to get up. He was going to pace the room, or maybe flee it entirely. And then he’d come back and ask her to remove her things from his house.

“Who knew the bond was for more than that?” Orma continued, her voice wistful. Sad. As she waited for him to react. “Because it stayed. Even... even when that part of me was gone.”

She should keep talking. Prattle on so there was no room for him to react. She wanted to take it all back, tell him it was nothing, she was wrong, that there wasn’t a scar across her abdomen that never seemed to fade no matter how many lotions her mother swore would help this time.

But nothing else would come out. Not a sob, not a word, and that left Athan time enough to rub his thumb precisely where the scar was, and he couldn’t possibly know that, could he? The bond would offer nothing so precise but...

His education might.

Because there were other reasons for the procedure. Ones that were far less experimental and were necessary. So if he’d done one, if he’d recommended it, she would not be sick at the thought. She’d understand and reassure him, and she’d...

He moved.

His hands shifted to come to her waist, and she braced herself to be lifted from his lap and set back on her own feet. For the affection to have cooled between them, and to follow that thread of horror that was coming from him to turn into anger. Accusation. How could she not have told him sooner? She’d taken him home and let her bring her bed and call it theirs, all while she knew, sheknewsuch a fundamental thing had been taken from them.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, because it was true. Sorry more for him than for herself. She couldn’t actually imagine carrying a child, let alone caring for one. But she could well picture Athan. Preparing meals in his kitchen. Chiding them for slipping bits of breakfast down to Brum rather than eating it themselves. Bringing them into this very room and helping them pick out books. Teaching not to scribble on the pages, and to treat them gently.

He’d be an excellent father.

Just as he was an excellent mate, and she...

---