Page 36 of Only Cold Depths
Aldrich strode forward and stopped in front of Kyrion, inspecting him from head to toe. Verona also moved forward, doing the same thing to me. The couple circled around us, moving in opposite directions, although their steps rang out at the same steady, measured pace.
Something soft brushed up against my body, like a feather tickling my skin. A shimmer of green caught my eye, and I reached out with my seer magic again. Waves of power were ebbing and flowing between Kyrion and me, but it wasn’tourpower. Somehow the Colliers were using their own truebond and telempathy to explore the similar connection between Kyrion and me.
I stiffened, as did Kyrion, and the sticky cobweb of him in my mind pulsed with wariness. The waves kept ebbing and flowing, as though Kyrion and I were caught in two different, but connected, ocean currents. I held my breath. Kyrion and I might be strong in our magic, but the Colliers had a level of finesse we didn’t, which made them extremely dangerous.
The Colliers finished their slow, circling inspection and stopped in front of us. The invisible waves of their magic dropped away and vanished completely.
“Curious,” Aldrich said in a thoughtful voice. “Their connection is quite powerful, one of the strongest bonds I’ve ever sensed, but it’s . . . unstable.”
I frowned.Unstable?What did that mean?
“My assessment exactly,” Verona murmured. “Kyrion’s power is a cold blue moon, while Vesper’s is a white-hot star. Complementary and close together but not truly connected—yet.”
The married couple shared a look, although I couldn’t hear what thoughts they were whispering to each other with their telepathy. More soft green waves of power flowed between them, but their magic was now distant and self-contained, as though I was peering at it through a sheet of permaglass.
Seeing and feeling the Colliers’ magic was nothing like my experience with Callus Holloway. The siphon’s power had stabbed into my body like enormous needles plunging all the way down into my bones, then ruthlessly retracted, sucking out my life, energy, and magic. But even when the Colliers had been testing Kyrion’s and my connection, their magic had remained smooth and fluid, touching but not taking anything in return.
Kyrion shifted on his feet, his gaze flicking back and forth between the Colliers. A shadow passed over his face, and I didn’t need to feel his sadness rippling through the bond to know he was thinking about his parents. I wondered if the Caldarens’ truebond had felt the same to him as the Colliers’ connection did.
“We will offer you sanctuary, as Asterin has requested,” Aldrich said.
Siya’s arms plummeted to her sides. “But Father—”
Aldrich waved his hand, cutting off her protest. “They have a truebond, Siya, and thus, we must honor our own laws. Plus, Lady Vesper and Lord Kyrion helped Asterin save a great many Erztonian lives when they thwarted the Techwave attack at the Regenwald Resort on Tropics 33.”
Siya bit her lip, but after a few seconds, she dipped her head in agreement.
Aldrich turned back to Kyrion and me. “For now, the two of you may stay at the estate as our guests. You can come and go as you like in House Collier territory, but I would advise you to be cautious, given your notoriety.”
I snorted. “You mean you won’t interfere if some bounty hunters come after us.”
“I have little control over bounty hunters,” Aldrich replied.
“And what about Callus Holloway?” Kyrion asked.
Aldrich shrugged. “I have even less control over the Imperium ruler. Holloway can lodge a complaint and try to revoke your sanctuary status through the proper Erzton channels, but that will take quite some time.”
Kyrion let out a bitter laugh. “Holloway doesn’t care aboutproper channels. Sooner or later, he’ll send people to try to capture us, no matter how many Imperium and Erzton treaties it violates.”
Aldrich shrugged again. “Which is why I suggest you be cautious.”
I could hear what he wasn’t saying. The Erzton lord wouldn’t turn us over to bounty hunters or Holloway, but he wouldn’t help us defeat our enemies either.
Aldrich’s thoughtful gaze hardened into a stern expression. “The two of you might have a truebond, but it has not fully solidified. That makes it a danger to everyone in House Collier, and it could be deadly to the two of you.”
How could our bond not be solidified? Kyrion and I had tapped into our collective power to escape from Crownpoint, and since then, we’d spent practically every waking moment of the last few weeks together. We’d trained and sparred and tried to use each other’s abilities dozens of times. Not to mention all the thoughts and feelings we’d shared, along with our bodies. We’d solidifiedplentyof things in that time.
And what made the bond unstable? My fumbling with my magic? Or something else?
“What do you mean,deadly?” Kyrion asked in a sharp voice. “I thought the only danger to a truebonded pair was if one person died.”
Aldrich clasped his hands behind his back. “That is often true. If one person in a bond dies, then the other usually soon follows.” His gaze cut to Verona for a moment. “Once a truebond is formed, severing it has devastating consequences for everyone involved.”
Everyone involved? He was making it sound like it was possible formorethan two people to share a truebond, to share a psionic connection, but I had never heard of such a thing. The Regal gossipcasts concentrated almost exclusively on romantic truebonds, and none of the books I’d read about psionic theory mentioned more than two people being involved in any kind of bond, whether it was between lovers, siblings, friends, or strangers.
“As long as your truebond is unstable, you will never have full control of your power,” Aldrich continued. “And you will never be able to protect yourselves from other psions, especially siphons like Callus Holloway.”
“So you know what Holloway does to truebonded couples,” Kyrion said. “How he takes their power over and over again like they’re his own personal batteries.”
