Hands That Bind
The guards' hands closed around my arms before I could process what I'd just said.
"Wait—" The word came out strangled. The bond was still screaming, still flooding me with everyone's emotions, and I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't separate my panic from Seraphine's devastation from Elara's cold calculation from the guards' grim satisfaction from—
"Release him." Elara's voice cut through the chaos. Not loud. Barely above a whisper. But every mage in the room froze.
Kross tilted his head. "Your Majesty, the hero has confessed to—"
"I said release him." Elara stood. The temperature in the throne room dropped ten degrees. "You have made your accusations, Archmagus. You have presented your evidence. You have extracted your confession. But you will not lay hands on my hero without my permission."
"The Council's authority supersedes—"
"Nothing." Ice formed on the windows. Actual ice. "The Council advises. The Crown rules. Or have you forgotten which of us wears the circlet?"
Kross's smile never wavered. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, but we must consider the greater good. The hero's admission changes everything. If he knew of the forgery, if he participated in the deception, then his bond with the kingdom is compromised. Tainted. We cannot allow—"
"Cannot?" Elara descended the dais. Each step echoed. "You use that word as if you have the power to enforce it."
The guards' grips loosened. Not much. Just enough for me to feel the shift.
Seraphine hadn't moved. Hadn't spoken. Her sword still lay on the floor between us, and through the bond I felt her emotions like shards of glass in my chest—betrayal, confusion, something that might have been grief or might have been rage, I couldn't tell, couldn't separate it from my own spiraling panic.
"Jake." Her voice was flat. Dead. "Look at me."
I couldn't. The bond was pulling me in seventeen directions at once, and if I looked at her, if I saw what I'd done reflected in her eyes—
"I said look at me."
My head turned. Not because I wanted it to. Because she'd given an order, and some part of me still responded to her voice like a compass finding north.
Her face was blank. Completely blank. The kind of blank that came from years of military training, from learning to hide everything behind a mask of professional composure. But her eyes—
"Did you know?" she asked. "Before today. Before this moment. Did you know the treaties were forged?"
The bond pulsed. I felt her hoping I'd say no. Felt her preparing for me to say yes. Felt the hairline fracture in her trust widening with every second I didn't answer.
"I—" My throat closed. "It's complicated."
"That is not an answer."
"Seraphine—"
"Did. You. Know."
The guards' hands tightened again. Kross watched with the patience of a man who'd already won. Elara's expression gave away nothing.
"Yes," I said. "But not—I didn't understand what it meant. I didn't know the full—"
"When?" Seraphine's hand moved to her belt. Not to a weapon. To nothing. Just a reflexive gesture, muscle memory searching for something to hold onto. "When did you learn?"
I thought about lying. Thought about deflecting. Thought about using the bond to feel out what answer would hurt her least.
"Three days ago," I said. "Elara told me three days ago."
The silence that followed had weight. Physical weight. Like the air itself had turned solid.
"Three days." Seraphine's voice didn't change. Still flat. Still dead. "You have known for three days that everything we have been fighting for was built on lies. That my oath to protect the kingdom was sworn on false pretenses. That the peace I have spent five years defending was purchased with forgery and deception."
"It's not that simple—"
"And you said nothing." She took a step forward. The guards tensed. "You looked me in the eye. You trained with me. You let me believe—" Her voice cracked. Just for a second. Just enough for me to hear it. "You let me believe you were different."
The bond flared. I felt her pain like a knife between my ribs, felt the exact moment her trust in me shattered, felt—
"Enough." Elara's hand landed on my shoulder. The bond immediately quieted. Not gone. Just muted. Like someone had turned down the volume on a screaming radio. "Seraphine, you will stand down. Archmagus, you will withdraw your guards. This matter will be discussed in private council, not in open court."
"Your Majesty—" Kross began.
"Now."
The word wasn't loud. Didn't need to be. The ice on the windows spread to the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The temperature dropped another ten degrees. Several mages started shivering.
Kross studied Elara for a long moment. Then he smiled. "As you wish, Your Majesty. We will reconvene in one hour. I trust you will use that time to prepare your defense." He turned to leave, robes swirling. "And perhaps to consider whether protecting a compromised hero is worth the cost of your crown."
The mages filed out. The guards released me. The throne room emptied until only three of us remained.
Elara. Seraphine. Me.
Nobody spoke.
"You should have told me."
Seraphine's voice broke the silence. We were in Elara's private study now, warded against scrying and eavesdropping. The queen stood by the window, back to us. I sat in a chair that cost more than my car back home. Seraphine stood at attention near the door, hand on her sword hilt.
"I made a tactical decision," Elara said. "Jake needed time to process the information before—"
"Before what?" Seraphine's composure cracked. "Before the Council exposed us? Before he confessed in open court? Before he made himself complicit in your crimes?"
"They are not crimes."
"You forged peace treaties. You deceived the entire kingdom. You built our alliance on lies." Seraphine's knuckles were white on her sword. "What would you call it?"
"Survival." Elara turned. Her face was carved from ice. "I did what was necessary to prevent war. To save lives. To protect this kingdom from tearing itself apart. If that makes me a criminal, then I accept the title gladly."
"You had no right—"
"I had every right. I am the queen. The burden of impossible choices falls to me, not to you, not to the Council, not to anyone else." Elara's eyes found mine. "And I will not apologize for doing what needed to be done."
The bond pulsed. I felt her conviction. Her certainty. Her absolute lack of regret.
I also felt the lie underneath it.
"You're scared," I said.
Elara's expression didn't change. "Excuse me?"
"You're terrified. I can feel it through the bond. You're not certain at all. You're just—" I stood. The room tilted. I grabbed the chair for balance. "You're just really good at pretending."
"Jake—"
"No. No, you don't get to do that. You don't get to act like you're this cold, calculating ruler who makes hard choices without flinching when I can literally feel you falling apart inside." My voice was rising. I couldn't stop it. "You told me three days ago. You looked me in the eye and told me the treaties were forged and then you—"
I stopped. Seraphine was staring at me. Elara's face had gone very still.
"Then I what?" Elara asked softly.
The memory hit me like a freight train. Three nights ago. Elara's chambers. Her hands in my hair, her mouth on mine, her body pressed against me while she whispered that she trusted me, that she needed me, that I was the only one who understood—
"Oh god." The words came out strangled. "Oh god, you—"
The bond flared. Not the overwhelming flood from the throne room. Something else. Something targeted. Something that felt like Elara's power reaching into my chest and squeezing.
And I knew.
I knew exactly what she'd done.
"You used the bond," I said. "When we—you used the bond to make sure I'd—"
"Jake." Elara's voice was sharp. Warning. "Do not finish that sentence."
"You manipulated me." My legs gave out. I sat down hard. "You slept with me to make sure I'd stay loyal. To bind me emotionally so I wouldn't—so I couldn't—"
"That is not what happened."
"Then what did happen?" I looked up at her. "Because I can feel it now. I can feel the bond between us, and it's not—it's not natural. It's not like what I have with Seraphine. It's twisted. Forced. You shaped it into something that would—"
"Enough." Elara's hand moved. The bond went silent. Completely silent. Like someone had cut a wire in my chest. "You do not understand what you are saying. You do not understand the complexities of—"
"I understand that you fucked me to keep me under control."
Seraphine made a sound. Not quite a gasp. Not quite a laugh. Something in between.
Elara's face went white. "How dare you—"
"How dare I?" I stood again. Steadier this time. "You forged treaties. You lied to your entire kingdom. You manipulated your hero into complicity. And now you're going to stand there and act offended that I called you on it?"
"I did what was necessary—"
"You keep saying that. Like it justifies everything. Like necessity is some kind of magic word that makes all your choices okay." I took a step toward her. The bond was still silent, but I didn't need it to see the cracks in her composure. "But you know what? I don't think you did it because it was necessary. I think you did it because you were scared. Because you couldn't handle the idea of losing control. Because you'd rather lie and manipulate and destroy people's trust than admit you don't have all the answers."
"You know nothing about ruling—"
"I know about being used." My voice dropped. "I know what it feels like to realize someone you trusted was playing you the whole time. And I know—" I stopped. Swallowed. "I know that whatever we had, whatever I thought we had, it wasn't real."
Elara's mask cracked. Just for a second. Just long enough for me to see the horror underneath.
"Jake," she said. "I never meant—"
"Did you want me?" The question came out raw. "Any of it. Did you actually want me, or was it all just strategy?"
She didn't answer.
The the pause extended longer than comfortable.
"Your Majesty." Seraphine's voice was carefully neutral. "Perhaps you should answer the question."
Elara's hands clenched. "It is not that simple—"
"It is a yes or no question," Seraphine said. "Did you initiate intimacy with Jake as a political strategy, or did you not?"
"I—" Elara's composure shattered. "I do not know. I thought—at the time, I believed—" She turned away. "I convinced myself it was both. That I could want him and use him simultaneously. That the two were not mutually exclusive."
"But they are," I said.
"Yes." Her voice was barely audible. "They are."
The bond flickered back to life. Just for a moment. Just long enough for me to feel her self-loathing, her disgust at what she'd done, her desperate wish that she could take it back.
Then it went silent again.
"I am sorry," Elara said. "For what little that is worth. I am—" She took a breath. "I am sorry."
I wanted to say something. Wanted to tell her it was okay, or that I understood, or that we could work through it. But the words wouldn't come. Because it wasn't okay. And I didn't understand. And I had no idea if we could work through it or if the damage was permanent.
"We have forty-five minutes before the Council reconvenes," Seraphine said. "We need a plan."
"There is no plan." Elara's voice was hollow. "Kross has evidence. Jake has confessed. The Council will vote to strip me of my crown and exile us both. It is over."
"No." Seraphine moved away from the door. "It is not over until we say it is over. We have forty-five minutes. We will use them."
"To do what?" I asked.
"To find leverage." Seraphine looked at Elara. "The Council wants your crown. They have wanted it for years. This is simply the excuse they have been waiting for. Which means they have secrets of their own. Vulnerabilities. Weaknesses we can exploit."
"You want to blackmail the Mages' Council?" I said.
"I want to survive." Seraphine's hand tightened on her sword. "And I am willing to do whatever that requires."
Elara studied her. "You would stand with me? Even after—"
"I swore an oath to protect the kingdom. Not you. Not Jake. The kingdom." Seraphine's voice was steel. "And the kingdom needs stability more than it needs justice. If that means protecting a queen who forged treaties and a hero who knew about it, then so be it."
"That's—" I started.
"Pragmatic," Seraphine finished. "Welcome to politics, Jake. Nothing is ever clean."
We spent the next thirty minutes tearing through Elara's intelligence files. Letters. Reports. Surveillance records. Everything she'd collected on the Council over the past five years.
It wasn't enough.
"Kross is clean," Elara said. "Frustratingly clean. No bribes, no affairs, no questionable dealings. The man is either a saint or exceptionally good at covering his tracks."
"What about the others?" I asked. "There are twelve Council members. One of them has to have something."
"Several do. But nothing that would outweigh treaty forgery." Elara threw down a file. "We need something catastrophic. Something that would destroy the Council's credibility entirely. And we do not have it."
Seraphine was reading a report near the window. She'd been quiet for the past ten minutes, just scanning documents with mechanical efficiency.
"Seraphine?" I said. "You find something?"
"Perhaps." She held up a paper. "This is a research request from Magus Seris. Submitted two weeks ago. Requesting access to the Forbidden Archives."
"Seris?" Elara frowned. "The historian? What would he want with—"
"The request was approved yesterday," Seraphine continued. "By Kross himself. Which is unusual, because access to the Forbidden Archives requires unanimous Council vote. Unless—"
"Unless Kross wanted to keep it quiet," I finished. "What was Seris researching?"
Seraphine's eyes scanned the document. "Dimensional theory. Specifically, the relationship between Aethermoor and other worlds. He was investigating—" She stopped. Her face went pale. "Oh."
"What?" Elara moved to her side. "What did he find?"
"According to this, Seris discovered something in the Archives. Something about the nature of dimensional summoning. Something that—" Seraphine looked at me. "Jake, where did you say you were from?"
"Earth. I mean, that's what we call it. Different dimension, different—"
"Not a different dimension." Seraphine's voice was shaking. "According to Seris's research, Earth is not another world. It is Aethermoor. Thousands of years in the future. After the magic collapsed."
The room tilted.
"That's—" I grabbed the desk. "That's not possible. Earth doesn't have magic. We have technology, science, we—"
"You have the remnants of a magical civilization that destroyed itself," Seraphine said. "Seris found records. Ancient records. Prophecies. Warnings. All describing a cataclysm that would drain the world's magic and leave behind—" She consulted the paper. "—a world of metal and glass and artificial light. A world where people forgot they had ever been anything more than mundane."
"No." The word came out strangled. "No, that's—you're saying I'm from the future? That I can't go home because home doesn't exist yet?"
Seraphine didn't answer. She didn't need to. The truth was written on her face.
"Why would Kross approve this research?" Elara asked. "Why would he want Seris investigating—" She stopped. "Unless he already knew. Unless he has known all along that summoning Jake was not bringing a hero from another world, but pulling someone from our own future. Which means—"
"Which means the summoning was never about saving the kingdom," I said. "It was about changing the timeline. About preventing whatever causes the magical collapse. About—" My legs gave out again. "About making sure Earth never happens."
"And if Kross knows," Seraphine said slowly, "then he knows you cannot go home. He knows you are trapped here. He knows—"
The door exploded inward.
Kross stood in the doorway, six mages behind him. His smile was gone. His face was carved from stone.
"Forgive me," he said, "but we cannot allow you to leave this room. Not now. Not when you have learned what you have learned." He raised his hand. Magic crackled around his fingers. "You were never meant to discover the truth about Earth. About the summoning. About what we are truly trying to prevent."
"You knew," I said. "You knew the whole time that I was from—"
"From the future we are desperately trying to avoid. Yes." Kross stepped into the room. The mages fanned out behind him. "And now that you know, now that you understand what is at stake, you have become a liability we cannot afford."
Elara's hand moved. Ice formed in the air. "You will not touch him."
"We will do what we must," Kross said. "For the greater good. For the future. For—"
The bond exploded.
Not the overwhelming flood from the throne room. Not the targeted manipulation from Elara. Something else. Something that felt like every connection I'd ever made, every person I'd ever touched, every emotion I'd ever felt, all surging through me at once.
And I felt it.
The truth.
The real truth.
The summoning hadn't pulled me from another dimension. It had pulled me from a future that hadn't happened yet. A future that might never happen. A future that depended entirely on choices that hadn't been made.
And Kross wasn't trying to prevent that future.
He was trying to cause it.
"You're lying," I said. "You don't want to stop the collapse. You want to—"
Kross's hand closed into a fist. The magic around his fingers turned black. "I am sorry, Jake Mercer. But you have learned too much. And we cannot allow you to—"
The window shattered.
Something massive crashed through the glass, all scales and wings and teeth, and I had exactly one second to recognize it as a dragon before Seraphine grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the door, shouting something I couldn't hear over the roar, and then we were running, Elara right behind us, Kross's voice echoing through the corridor—
"Seal the palace! No one leaves! Find them and—"
The bond pulsed one more time.
And I felt it.
The dragon wasn't attacking.
It was rescuing us.
Which meant someone else knew the truth.
Someone else knew what Kross was planning.
Someone else was playing a game we didn't even know existed.
Seraphine pulled me around a corner. Elara threw up an ice wall behind us. The dragon's roar shook the palace foundations.
"Who sent it?" I gasped. "Who—"
"Does it matter?" Seraphine's eyes were wild. "We need to—"
The floor beneath us cracked.
And we fell.