The food came quickly when Cassen realized the conversation between Ezo and Kammon had stalled. Ezo was still trying to wrap his head around Kammon’s flirting. Kammon knew it, too, from the way his lips curled up in the corner behind his cup.

It was ridiculous to hold off on this discussion, though. As much as Kammon flustered him, Ezo wanted answers. He took a long drink from his mug, steeling himself for it. If Kammon continued flirting, it might break his brain.

Now that he thought about it, that was probably why he did it.

“Tell me.” Ezo set his mug down but kept his fingers around it, playing with it as he looked at Kammon.

Kammon let out a deep breath, tapping a finger over his lip as his eyes roamed the room. “Did Jacob teach you anything about the bond?”

“Nothing. He never mentioned bonds or sharing power. Or blending.”

Kammon sat up straight and glared at Ezo. “Who the hell mentioned blending?”

“Alvrey. When I came for you at the last village, she said we were blending.”

Kammon rolled his eyes. “I’d expect that sort of thing from the players, but not a healer. Blending is a myth. A superstition. A story to frighten young elementalists so they don’t link their powers and cause too much trouble. Blending is two people sharing the same magic, bonded but no longer separate.”

“So, tell me about bonds, then.”

“You know that the more power we draw, the more it physically takes from us. Sometimes, an elementalist is powerful enough that the magic tries to buffer them from the effects. If two elementalists of similar power spend enough time together a bond might form. It allows the two to share not just the power but their reserves as well.”

“The drain is distributed between the two. In Mason Creek, I could use your strength, and you shared the burden of it,” Ezo said, remembering the feel of shared potential when Kammon had touched him for the first time.

“Exactly. The same in the fight against the raiders.”

“It was already starting to change, though,” Ezo said.

Kammon stood up and walked around his chair. “This is where it gets confusing, because this isn’t happening how it’s supposed to. Elemental theorists at the university say all elementalists can bond if they find a compatible soul, but most elementalists won’t need one. It’s the strength of the elementalist that determines the need to bond. When it happens, it’s gradual. The bond is easily broken by distance in the beginning if two choose to do so.”

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“So why did ours happen like it did?”

“When I was at the university, they said I’d die without a bond. Even the magic professors I respected believed the need to call too much of the elements to myself would kill me. They think I have an effigy because my magic was protecting me.”

“And there I was in Mason Creek, and I was such a perfect option that we bonded immediately?” Ezo asked. It was incredulous. They might both be strong, but that wasn’t a reasonable basis for a bond.

Kammon’s eyes narrowed as he moved around the chair and leaned over the table. “Ezo, do you realize how rare your strength is? And your flexibility in your use of the elements? Of all the elementalists and War-Sworn I’ve known, only a few would do more than dabble at a second element, let alone mastery of all four.”

“That’s a horrible basis for a lifetime bond.”

“Unfortunately, Cassen may be more correct in his studies than some of our prominent scholars.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it wasn’t just strength alone. You run towards trouble, Ezo. You and I might disagree on specifics, but we both answer that call. We both want the same things. The magic wants us to bond, and it took steps of its own.”

“You talk like it’s alive.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. It’s not, right?” Ezo was intrigued by the idea, though. He’d seen Ember act without orders from Kammon, and she was pure magic. Was it possible?

Kammon hesitated before he answered. “Not in a way we understand it, but it feels and reacts. No matter how much of a pain in the ass you can be, you and I are compatible. We see the world in very different ways, but they are complementary, not necessarily contradicting.”

“So just, what? Accept it? We’re fated for this, and that’s that?”

Kammon sat in his chair again but pulled it around the side, closer to Ezo, and he leaned forward. “Cassen believes that something from my past forced my magic to grow beyond what it would have naturally. The same thing happened when you lost your hand. The magic grew stronger for us, protected us, and from that moment, began looking for a way to save us from the doom that it caused.”

“What doom?”

“Look at the greatest elementalists of our history. What do they all have in common?”

Flase. Mico. Jarva, Rayso, Ligna. Every child in Distria knew the tales. All phenomenal powers who had called on the elements too much or too often and died horrifically for it.

“Oh.”

“You’ve seen my fate, Ezo, wrapped around my soul already and twisting. Maybe this happened to them also, but none of them had a bond. Maybe the magic is as afraid of me as everyone else. Maybe it’s sent you to me to protect the world when I fall.”

“Well then, magic is just as stupid as you are because no one who knows you would believe you’d hurt people.”

Kammon sat back in his chair, shaking his head. “Ezo, I am the greatest killer of our time. The Calamity. The Siege Breaker. I have killed more people than you have ever known.”

“That was war,” Ezo defended. He may not agree with the warmongering of Distria’s history, but Ezo believed in the War-Sworn. “And you carry that pain on your shoulders like a damn yoke.”

Kammon stared at him for a long moment before he sighed deeply. When he looked away, it was to fill his drink. He topped off Ezo’s as well. “To idiots,” he said with a bitter smile. “Because I believe magic sent you to protect the world from me and that you can. And you believe I am actually the something that needs saving.”

He clinked the rim of his mug with Ezo’s and took a drink before Ezo could complain. He watched Kammon, whose eyes never left his own, and decided not to argue.

He would save Kammon from that thing inside him. If magic had set him here, he refused to believe it was to watch Kammon fall. Kammon said Ezo did the impossible when he created his hand as a child. He would do the impossible again then.

He would not save the world from Kammon.

He would save Kammon from the world or fall with him.