His brother stalked away, but Seyn barely noticed it.
He stood frozen, a tight, sickening feeling settling low in his gut.
Every doubt he’d been carefully suppressing since his little breakdown after the ball, surfaced again. Was he really as obsessed with Ksar as his brother had said? Did he subconsciously think that Ksar was perfect?
Seyn scoffed at the mere thought. Of course he didn’t consider Ksar perfect. Ksar was an arrogant, infuriating, despicable, horrible person.
But he’s my horrible person. Mine.
Seyn closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. And then another.
It did nothing to quell the panic rising in his chest.
Chapter 18
The ancient clock on the wall sounded deafening in the utter silence of the room.
Ksar stood still, leaning back against the stone wall, his gaze on the clock.
He just wanted this to be over.
“This place is creeping me out.”
Ksar tensed. It took a conscious effort to relax his muscles again. He and Seyn hadn’t said a word to each other since they had been left alone to wait for the mind adept that would break their non-existent bond. Not speaking to Seyn had suited Ksar perfectly. The less they interacted, the better. The less he looked at Seyn, the better. He didn’t trust himself not to do something he would regret.
“It’s the High Hronthar,” he said neutrally, sweeping his gaze over the stone walls.
The High Hronthar was a peculiar place indeed. Located in the middle of nowhere, in the center of Calluvia’s sole desert, its architecture and culture were dramatically different from the rest of Calluvia. The sprawling building was thousands of years old and hadn’t changed much since it was built. The monks lived a secluded life devoted to mind arts, interacting with the rest of the planet only when their services were needed. Admittedly, now that the childhood bonds were breakable, perhaps their services would be needed more often.
But then again, Ksar mused, perhaps not. In the month since the amendment to the Bonding Law had passed, only three petitions out of thousands had been approved by the Council, his and Leylen’s among them. Considering how much bribery and coercion had been required to get them approved, Ksar would be very surprised if more than a few petitions were approved in the future.
“How is Harry?” Seyn said stiffly, breaking the silence again.
Ksar didn’t look at him, his lips thinning at the reminder of his brother’s condition. Harry’s condition had deteriorated to the point that he barely reacted when people tried to talk to him. Sometimes there were rare moments of lucidity, but they didn’t last long. Even with the best care modern medicine could offer, Harry’s health was failing at an alarming rate.
“I have heard that his and Leylen’s bond was broken yesterday,” Seyn said. “But obviously he isn’t answering my calls. Did it go well?”
“As well as one would expect,” Ksar replied. It had been a challenge to convince the High Hronthar that he needed to be present while they broke Harry and Leylen’s bond. Even with Harry’s forged medical records, it wasn’t easy to convince the monks that Harry wasn’t well enough to go to the monastery unaccompanied. After that, the rest had been relatively easy. Unlike Ksar and Seyn, Harry and Leylen actually had a bond to dissolve; the challenging part had been to trick the mind adept who performed the ceremony into thinking that there wasn’t anything unusual about Harry’s mental state. Thankfully, everything had gone smoothly. The bond between Harry and Leylen had been officially broken and no one seemed to suspect that anything was afoot.
“I’m taking him off-world later today to get treatment for his illness,” Ksar said, choosing his words carefully. The High Hronthar didn’t use modern technology to monitor its rooms, but that didn’t mean there weren’t eyes on them. The monastery was old enough to have secret passageways for observing the visitors.
“Oh,” Seyn said. “Good.”
There was nothing “good” about it. Ksar wasn’t exactly looking forward to delivering Harry to his human. He was still less than pleased about the necessity of leaving his ill brother at the mercy of a member of a civilization that didn’t even believe in extraterrestrial life. Harry was extremely vulnerable in his current state. If his human rejected him, that would absolutely destroy him.
“Do you know who will break our bond?” Seyn said.
Ksar’s lips thinned as he was reminded of another thing he had no control over. The mind adept who had broken Harry’s bond was Class 4 at most. However, that didn’t mean the mind adept appointed to their case would be as weak.
“No,” he said curtly.
“Cease talking about it,” he told Seyn telepathically without establishing eye contact. “We don’t know who might be listening.”
“You’re worried,” Seyn told him, his thoughts laced with bewilderment. “Why? I’m sure you can do it.”
Ksar almost laughed. It was infuriating that Seyn thought manipulating a trained mind adept would be easy. And yet a part of him felt like puffing his chest out at Seyn’s show of faith in his abilities. Fucking pathetic. He couldn’t wait to be free of Seyn and the disconcerting effect he had on him.