Bryce

“Hey, babe, you almost ready?” Thea asked quietly as she poked her head into the room. I opened my eyes and cringed while I stretched out my legs. Sitting with them crossed had definitely been a mistake, but I hadn't had much of a choice. The observation room was a mess of half-erased magical circles, and anything resembling furniture had likely been removed a long time ago. The runes looked too sloppy to be my work, but I remembered being in a rush before we left to ambush Mother, so I wasn’t planning to ask about it just in case I was wrong.

“Sorry, almost done. You can come sit with me if you’d like.” I moved over to let her sit near me without getting chalk on her pants. She stepped inside, but still hesitated.

“That won’t be distracting, will it?”

“Almost definitely, but like I said, I’m almost done. A little distraction isn’t going to hurt anything at this point.”

“Okay, sure.” I could see the glint of gold in her eyes from all the way across the room, which was the only reason I wasn’t surprised when she marched up to me and plopped herself down on my lap. “How’s this? You can still work, right?”

“Hold on, let me check.” I sat my chin on her shoulder and wrapped my arms around so that I was holding Zesh’s mana gem basically in her lap. “Yeah, sorry. You’re going to have to try harder if you want to be distracting.”

“Oh, I can be distracting.” She tried to wiggle free, but I had her pretty much locked in position. So, she gave up after only a few seconds. “Hey, babe, exactly how far are you from having a working contract? Of course, I’m asking for completely innocent reasons that aren’t at all related to you being an evil tyrant while you’re stronger than me.”

“An evil tyrant, huh?” I asked as I went back to carefully pulling mana from the gem while continuing to monitor my meridians. Kai had only given me a tiny amount of her mana, but it was so potent that I was needing to use nearly ten times as much of Zesh’s to balance it. That, combined with having to ensure my own mana never got overwhelmed by either of them, made the whole thing an incredibly tedious process.

In theory, though, it would represent a pretty significant power boost when I finished. Except it still wouldn’t put me anywhere near Mother’s level, and it represented another complication that I would need to factor into my spells so I could cast properly again.

“Did I say evil tyrant? I obviously meant gorgeous and benevolent goddess, who would never hold a grudge against her first celestial.”

I chuckled as I cut off my connection to the gem and started looking over my mana to ensure I hadn’t missed anything. “Is that so? Because last I checked, I wasn’t a goddess, and you weren’t a celestial.”

“Everyone is always telling me to think ahead, and now that I’m doing it, all I hear is complaining,” Thea complained.

“I’m sorry, you’re right. This is exactly the sort of thing we were talking about. Hopeful half-truths, and definitely not considering the consequences of your actions,” I joked, and she nodded in agreement.

“Well, it’s big of you to admit that you were wrong.”

“Shush you. Take a look at this.” I conjured a contract in front of us and we both started scanning through it. The first thing I noticed was that it was long. Really long. Much longer than any other contract I had ever had with Thea. Which, of course, made it clear that there were things in it I hadn’t written, but none of the additions looked malicious. I spent nearly half an hour just scouring through the wording before Thea spoke up again.

“Um, I don’t see anything horrible or life ruin-y, but it’s definitely a lot more… thorough, I guess? It would be pretty easy to miss something in there.”

“I think that’s Zesh’s mana working to fill in loopholes that I missed when I wrote the original, but it might also be Kai’s trying to hide something.”

“Can it actually do that?” Thea half-rotated on my lap so she could see me. “I mean, it’s still just mana, isn’t it?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. Aspect mana is just so different from anything I’ve ever seen before. Hells, half the time it feels like it’s alive, but that just seems absurd.”

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“Oh, creepy. So, do we just risk it, then? I mean, I didn’t see anything dangerous in there, and besides, we can always just end the contract if it turns out to be terrible.”

She was right, but I still had concerns. There were three long paragraphs at the very start ensuring that either of us could end the contract if something went wrong, but that was assuming there wasn’t another clause further down that added exceptions or limitations. I was about to say that I wanted more time to read it over, but before I could, Thea signed it and turned back toward me with a grin. “There. Done. Now, you can’t overthink it.”

“I still haven’t signed.”

“Oh, right. Well, do it quickly before you start thinking too much.” She punctuated her point by poking me in the ribs, and I had to hold back a yelp. I glared at her, but she just kept grinning up at me. “Come on. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You mean other than both of us being turned into mindless zombies?” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she at least had the decency to look bashful.

“Uh, yeah, other than that.”

I let out a defeated sigh. “Alright, fine. You’re right. I didn’t see anything dangerous either, and we’ll most likely be able to cancel the contract if we find anything we don’t like, but you need to tell me right away if something feels off.”

“Deal!” she instantly agreed, and I shook my head before finally signing the contract. The effects were immediate, and Thea cackled madly before using her newfound strength to escape from my devil trap so she could loom over me. “Now I can extract my revenge.”

“Oh? What sort of revenge are we talking about here? Should I be worried or excited?”

She paused and scrunched up her face. Clearly, she hadn’t thought this far ahead. “Both? Yeah, definitely both. Although, I think I’m mostly just going to be abusing the fact that I can now safely kiss you without having to worry about getting trapped for half an hour.”

“Okay, that’s not fair. I never trapped you for half an hour.”

Thea crossed her arms and scowled at me. “Bullshit. What about this morning? That was at least half an hour.”

“That was…” I shifted uncomfortably, then quickly stood up. “That one doesn’t count. Anyway, we should get going. We still have a lot to do today.”

Her expression softened, obviously having seen right through my misdirection. “You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you? Even after we went back to bed together?”

“I did a little. Maybe half an hour?” I offered weakly. She definitely didn’t seem convinced. “Before you ask, yes, it was a nightmare, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Bryce…”

“I know! But we have too much to do, and we can’t take the whole day off just to dig into my trauma. We’ll talk about it, I promise. Just not right now.”

“Okay, fine. We’ll talk about it later.” I let out a sigh of relief, and was about to thank her for being understanding, when she held up a finger. “Hold on, I’m not done yet. We’ll talk about it later, but I want to know when. Give me that, and I promise not to bring it up a single time until then. Hells, we don’t even need to go over any details. We can just do a check in or whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Thea, you are way too good to me.” I pulled her into a hug and tried to kiss her, but she pulled her head back.

“Nope. None of that until you give me a time.”

“Seriously? That’s blackmail.” I frowned at her, and she smiled back up at me.

“Yes, it is, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. There’s a lot I could do.” I switched to a playful smile, which caused Thea to give me a warning glare. “But I think I’ll just give into your demands. At least, this once.”

“That’s what I thought. So, when? Give me a time.”

I took a moment to consider everything we had on our plate, and try to build a timeline of when I’d have the mental capacity to unpack the trauma. There was definitely a part of me that recognized how idiotic it was to think I could schedule something like that, but at the same time, I didn’t have a choice. There were a half-dozen different issues all requiring my complete attention, and even the slightest misstep would cost me more than just my life. “How about the night after tomorrow? We should be back from Drassun by then, and I’m not planning on scheduling the council meeting until the following day. That should take a decent amount off my plate. At least, for now.”

“Deal,” Thea quickly agreed before adding a stipulation. “But we’re going to talk about it even if the fight gets delayed or we haven’t met with your brother yet, okay?”

“Okay, but if that happens, then it’s probably just going to be a check-in,” I warned, and Thea agreed before finally kissing me. Then she broke the embrace so she could pull a small metal tin from her pocket. “What’s that?”

“Sedatives. Softie overheard our conversation last night and pulled me aside after you left the table. Apparently, they have nightmares pretty often, and this is what they use when they can’t sleep.”

I felt somewhat violated at the idea of Sora listening in on our very private conversation. But then remembered that we had been talking in the middle of the living area, and that as the ship’s navigator, they wouldn’t have had a choice. “Remind me in the future to move private conversations to our bedroom.”

“Sure, and if the sedatives work, I’ll also remind you to thank Softie for listening in.” Thea gave me a chiding look, and I took a breath before nodding.

“Yeah, that too. Sorry, I’ve been a little irritable recently.”

“It’s fine. We’ve all got a lot going on, you especially. Let’s just focus on getting through today, and hopefully tomorrow will be easier.”

That was definitely optimistic, but I felt like my poor mood was getting on Thea’s nerves. So, I did my best to force a smile. “One day at a time, that I can do. Are you ready to head out?”

She stood up on her tip-toes to steal another kiss, then smiled up at me. “Yep. I’m good to go, and I’m even choosing to believe that one day soon you’ll actually mean that.”