Page 59 of Only Cold Depths
Aldrich picked up the story. “Micah was also a seer, although he wasn’t nearly as strong as Esmina. The two of them were at Stardrop Falls with some other young people from House Collier. Esmina had climbed down to take pictures of the waterfall when her safety rope snapped. She tumbled down the cliff face several feet and would have fallen to her death if Micah hadn’t grabbed the rope and caught her. That’s when the truebond formed.”
His words sank into my mind, and my magic surged to life. Suddenly, I could see it all happening. Esmina and Micah on a jagged cliff face studying the waterfall. Esmina’s rope snapping. Micah reaching out to catch it. The two of them staring at each other, even as pale gold magic sparked, hissed, and curled around them . . .
I blinked, and the vision vanished, although the young couple’s power kept crackling around me like static electricity.
“At first, everything was fine,” Verona said. “Even before the bond formed, Micah had feelings for Esmina. The two of them had grown up together, and he was thrilled to be connected to her.”
“But?” Kyrion asked.
Verona sighed. “But Esmina was not thrilled. She wanted to explore the galaxy and already had plans to attend a university on another planet. Micah offered to go with her, and we thought the matter was settled.”
“What did she do?” Kyrion asked, his voice sharper than before.
Aldrich nodded at Leland, who hit more buttons on his tablet.
The image of a young man hovered over the table. Dark splotches of blood covered his chest, and his legs were broken in multiple places and twisted at impossible angles. His mouth gaped, and his sightless gold eyes bored into mine in a silent, frozen plea. My stomach roiled with nausea.
“Esmina killed him,” Aldrich said in a flat voice. “She lured Micah to the waterfall where he had saved her and shoved him off a bridge. He fell into a deep chasm.”
Once again, my magic surged to life, and I could see everything playing out as though I had been there. Esmina smiling and crooking her finger at Micah. The two of them admiring the waterfall. Then Esmina sliding to the side and shoving her hands into Micah’s chest, pushing him off the bridge. His terrified screams ringing out even louder than the falling water. And then the sharp, sickeningcrackof his body hitting the bottom of the chasm . . .
I flinched at the phantom sound, and Micah’s screams continued to echo in my mind. “Micah fell, but he didn’t die right away.”
Aldrich and Verona shared a surprised look. Then the lord shook his head. “No, the fall didn’t kill Micah.”
My magic surged up again. Micah’s screams cut off, and everything went dark. Then light flared, and Esmina appeared. She unhooked herself from the rope she’d used to climb down to the bottom of the waterfall, then crouched down beside Micah. Tears streamed down his face, and his chest rose and fell in a frantic rhythm as he struggled to breathe.
Help . . . me . . . please . . .
Micah was too injured to speak, but his telepathic thought rasped through my mind, making me flinch again. Esmina stared down at him with a cold, dispassionate expression. Then she drew a lunarium dagger off her belt, leaned down, and cut his throat.
Blood spewed everywhere, coating the dagger, and the lunarium blade started glowing with a bright golden light that was the same color as Micah’s eyes. Esmina tightened her grip on the dagger, and gold sparks exploded in her green eyes. Magic coiled around her, and a satisfied smile slowly spread across her face . . .
“Esmina killed Micah,” I whispered. “She killed him so she could take his magic.”
My words startled Aldrich and Verona, who shared another surprised look.
“Yes, Esmina took Micah’s magic,” Aldrich said. “How do you know that?”
I shook my head. The awful vision faded away, but the coppery tang of Micah’s blood flooded my nose and slithered down my throat, adding to my nausea.
Shock pulsed off Kyrion and whipped through the bond to me. “EsminatookMicah’s power? How is that evenpossible? I thought only siphons could take another psion’s power for their own.”
Verona gave a helpless shrug. “We don’t know, exactly. But Esmina broke her truebond with Micah and took his magic.”
“I thought if a truebond was broken, it was almost impossible for the other person to survive.” Asterin looked at her mother. “Unless the remaining partner had an extremely strong reason and the determined will to live.”
“Not if you break the bond yourself,” I murmured.
As soon as I said the words, I couldseehow it all worked. Esmina and Micah’s bond had formed, but it hadn’t solidified, and it wasn’t stable. Maybe Esmina’s seer magic had whispered the truth to her, or maybe she’d discovered it another way. But somehow Esmina had figured out the same thing I just had: if you severed the bondyourself, then the loss of the connection wouldn’t kill you like the romance serials, fairy tales, and folk legends claimed. Instead, the other half of the bond would flow to you—and make you evenstronger.
The hard truth slammed into my heart like a meteor hitting the ground and leaving a devastating crater behind. Everything Kyrion and I thought we knew about truebonds waswrong.
The bond wasn’t an inevitable, undeniable thing that just happened because of karma or destiny or fate or whatever label you wanted to use to explain the mysteries of the galaxy. That was certainly part of the connection, but having a truebond was also achoice—and Esmina had made a very cruel choice indeed.
Leland swiped through some screens on his tablet. Micah’s bloody, broken body vanished, replaced by current photos of Esmina, but these shots had all been taken from a distance through security cameras.
“After she killed Micah, Esmina fled from the city,” Aldrich continued. “The House Collier Hammers chased after her . . .”
