He stared at her; she stared right back. Unyielding, unbreakable. They'd been cut from the same cloth. Aedion loosed a breath and looked at their joined hands - then opened his to examine her scarred palm, crisscrossed with the marks of her vow to Nehemia and the cut she'd made the moment she and Rowan became carranam, their magic joining them in an eternal bond. 'It's hard not to think all of your scars are my fault.' Oh. Oh.