Chapter 103 : Paths Diverging

Chapter 103 : Paths Diverging
Nadya POV

San is wound tight.

I can feel it through the bond – all the questions milling around in his head, his heart, churning like wolves circling a kill. He’s doing work on the watchtower with almost religious intensity, but under that exterior I can feel him – his thoughts aren’t slowing.

“You’re thinking about Kieran’s offer,” I say at last one evening. We’re in his room, me painting in one corner while he’s drawing in a little book, designs of towers and walls he’ll never be allowed to build.

“I can’t stop thinking about it.” He drops the pencil. “Half of me wants to say no, thanks. Stay here. Build. Live a normal life. But the other half of me feels so guilty. Wasteful, even. All that training. All those years. I can’t just let it go unused.”

“It’s not going unused. You design better defenses than anyone else I know. Thornton says every building you design or upgrade has your tactical mind at work making everyone safer.”

“That’s not the same as teaching at the Ancient Court. Teaching warriors who might actually use that knowledge.”

“What if there’s no next war? What if the Void was the last big threat and now… now we just… live.”

San laughs, but it doesn’t sound like true amusement. “When has that ever been the case? There’s always a next war. A next threat. If not the Void, then something. And if that happens, won’t I always regret not training people to fight?”

“You can’t take the burden of every next war on yourself. That’s not fair.”

“Nothing about my life has ever been fair.” He says it like a statement of fact, not as a complaint. “I was born a prophecy. Raised as one. Became a general at seven. Fairness stopped being part of my life a long time ago.”

I set down my brush, moving to sit beside him on his bed.

“You get to make your life fair now. You get to decide what San wants instead of what the world needs San to do.”

“What if what I want is to train?”

“Then train. But do it because you want to, not because you feel you have to. There’s a difference.”

Through the bond, I can tell he’s thinking hard over that difference. Wanting and obligation are tangled up so tightly in him that he can’t tell them apart anymore.

“What do you want?” he asks me all of a sudden. “Really want. If you could have anything.”

I think hard about it, really considering before I answer. “I want to become a master healer. Not just adequate, but good. I want people to come from outside of this territory to get healed by me, because they know I can treat things that other healers can’t.”

“That’s a big want.”

“I spent my entire life being big about destruction. Might as well be big about creation, too.” I smile a little. “And I want to paint. Get better at it. Make something good enough that maybe other people will see it besides me.”

“What else?”

“I want to understand the trinity bond better. How it works. Why it formed. Mama, Papa Luca, Papa Rafe. They’re still trying to figure out how to balance three souls in one connection. I want to help them do that. I want to be part of their healing, not just a witness to it.”

“Those are good wants. Wants you can see clearly.”

“San’s turn. What does San want?”

He’s quiet for a long time after that, and when he does answer his voice is small and hesitant.

“I want to not feel guilty for being alive. I want to build things that will outlast me. I want to understand who I am when I’m not San the weapon or San the pack leader or San the symbol.” He hesitates. “And I want to travel. To see places outside of our pack territory. Learn about other cultures. See if the world is as big as war or if it goes beyond that.”

“Then go do that. All of it.”

“I can’t do all of it. Some things are in conflict. Teaching at Ancient Court and traveling. Building here and exploring outside. I can’t do everything.”

“You can’t do everything at once. Choose one path. Follow it for a while. If it’s the wrong path, choose a new one. You’re seven, San. You have decades to try things.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“Living sounds exhausting when all you’ve ever known is surviving.” I press against his shoulder. “But I suspect being alive is less exhausting than always being ready to die.”

He huffs out a laugh. “When did you get so wise?”

“Around the same time you started getting so… unsure. We balance each other out.”

We sit in companionable silence. Two roads diverging—not splitting, just angling away from each other. Him the road of questions. Me the road of answers. Him the road of exploration. Me the road of depth.

“I think I need to tell Kieran no.” San says, at last. “Not because teaching is a bad choice. But because I don’t want that right now. I might want it later. I might never want it. But right now I want to finish this watchtower. And then, after that. Maybe I’ll go traveling. Visit ruins. Learn more about the world I stopped a war without really knowing.”

“That’s scary. To choose what you want.”

“Terrifying.” He takes my hand. “But less terrifying with you on my side of it.”

“Always. Even when we go different ways. Even when we make different choices.” I squeeze his fingers. “The bond doesn’t ask us to be the same person. Only to support each other in being ourselves.”

“I’m going to miss you. When I go traveling. When I leave.”

“I’ll miss you too. But missing is not the same as losing. We can miss each other and still be okay.”

I feel something shift inside him at my words. A resolution hardening. A choice finally made.

He writes to Kieran that night:

Thank you for thinking so highly of what I learned from you. But I need to decline. I have a lot to learn about building instead of destroying, exploring instead of defending, following my own path instead of being a pawn for prophecy. Maybe I will teach in the future. But not now. Not when I still have so much to learn about who I am beyond war.

I’ll send your regards to the Ancient Court. Tell them the shadow general is learning to walk in the sun instead of the shadows.

He shows me before he sends it, and I read it over twice.

“It’s perfect,” I tell him, when I’m done. “It’s honest, and brave, and all you.”

“It feels selfish.”

“Good. You’ve earned the right to be selfish.”

He sends it.

And for the first time since the war ended, I can feel him truly relax through the bond.

Peace, no. But the beginning of it.

The first steps to choosing himself.