16. Vai

The last thing I wanted to do was step off my ship.

In fact, the very last thing I wanted to do was let her go.

And I was about to do both.

The process of severing the bond between a fated mate was a notoriously painful and tortured event.

I had witnessed what it had done directly to M'rora when my uncle came back from his own failed attempt to find his fated mate.

He located her, rescued her, and managed to escape to safety.

Then, unable to take the pressure any longer, his fated mate opted for the surgical procedure.

Unable to convince her otherwise, my uncle underwent the Severing, even though, like all M'rora, it was the very last thing he wished to do.

In our culture, it was akin to having your heart ripped from your chest, leaving you floating in a kind of zombie half-life.

When it was over and he had recovered from the process, he was never again the same jovial and playful M'rora I recalled from my youth.

No one knew if it was directly due to the procedure or his feeling like an outcast as the only member of our family to have failed to bring back his mate.

The problem with Severing the bond was it removed any desire to make a go of the relationship even if things got a little rough.

Without that powerful underlying sensation that told us "this person is perfect for you," it was too easy to let the relationship fail.

Yes, the Severing was among the very last things any M'rora wished to do, but there was one thing far worse, and that was allowing any harm to come to our fated mates.

If by refusing the Severing I risked Emma coming to harm, and despite my best efforts, she got captured and taken back to the Shadow Realm…

I shivered.

Just thinking about it brought me out in hives.

As we worked our way around the flowing fountains of rainbow-colored water, the statues glared at us like angry monsters from the Abyss.

I'd never been a fan of the gargoyles that were meant to scare away evil spirits.

From a young age, they had always scared me.

We came to the steps that led up to the main entrance.

Broad and flat, the steps were ornately carved from a single hunk of lymus rock.

The Surgery had existed since time immemorial, the last bastion of hope when all other doors of opportunity had been slammed in a M'rora's face.

A steady trickle entered its doors over the eons but it wasn't until after the Shadow Wars that such an influx of patients had passed through its doors.

When the Procedure had developed into a viable option, sales and profits exploded.

For a while, it became the preferred method of keeping a mate safe.

Times had changed but it still remained a popular method.

But there were no easy paths in life and the Severing was no different.

The number of fated mates who no longer had access to the bond grew distracted and decided to take a different path, resulting in short-lived romances and high divorce rates.

For that reason alone, it was the last method to secure one's mate.

As we ascended the broad flat steps, two rows of nurses draped in heavy cloth descended the steps to meet us.

A nurse placed herself on the edge of each step, forming a fan.

The Surgeon floated down behind them.

He was a middle-aged M'rora with a thick bushy white mustache in need of a good comb.

His eyes were already pinprick small but with his circular bifocals, they made his eyes appear even smaller.

He always reminded me of a small species of rodent called a "michard" back home.

The Surgeon stopped two yards from us and performed the traditional M'rora welcoming salute.

It was a graceful maneuver, requiring him to bow down on one leg while his other foot swept up behind him and his arms spread out to either side.

His eyes faced down, signifying his deference to someone of higher birth.

That would be me.

I performed the same motion back and did him the honor of lowering my eyes too.

Emma peered between us and, unsure what else to do, did her best to copy the action.

She wobbled and almost lost her feet.

"Welcome to the Surgery. I am the Surgeon and I will be performing your Procedure today."

"You will be our surgeon?" I said, surprised he would be performing it himself. "I didn't expect you to greet us personally."

The Surgeon was very famous and incredibly wealthy.

He had better things to do than take care of us.

The Surgeon performed another bow.

"Anything for the offspring of Issak m'Rigor," he said. "The empire owes your father a huge debt of gratitude. Me more than anyone."

He was referring to my father's leadership during the Shadow Wars.

It was his brilliant leadership that turned a losing position into a winning one.

He'd been the one to force the Shadow back and install the minefield at the Rift.

Emma looked a little lost.

"The Surgeon is the owner of this facility," I said. "He's the best surgeon in the entire empire."

"Oh," Emma said.

She performed a strange action then, extending her hand toward him.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," she said.

The Surgeon peered from her hand to me, and back again.

Not wanting to insult my fated mate, he held out his hand and stopped an inch from hers.

Emma shook it.

The Surgeon blinked in surprise before a wide grin split his face.

He mimicked the motion, shaking Emma's hand.

Emma beamed at me but it faltered when the handshake continued…

And continued.

And continued.

Finally, she yanked her hand away.

The Surgeon peered at his empty hand with curiosity.

"It is a welcoming motion in your home culture?" he said.

Emma nodded.

"How wonderful!" the Surgeon said. "I have met so many creatures from so many species but have never had the fortune to come across a… Now, come to think of it, I have no idea what your species is even called."

"Human," Emma said.

"Human," the Surgeon said, rolling the word around in his broad mouth as if it were candy. "You will be my very first human. I hope you don't mind, but in order to carry out the procedure in a safe and efficient manner, I will need to perform multiple scans on you. The system will work fine but I would like to make it as painless as possible."

According to the rumors, there was nothing painless about the Severing.

"Please follow me," the Surgeon said.

He turned and moved with surprising agility considering his hefty weight.

He floated up the steps, the nurses following us.

They fanned out around the room, each taking a place on either side of the three large archways that splintered from the main waiting room.

Two dozen chairs ornate but uncomfortable-looking chairs sat in the middle of the room in five rows.

Six were occupied with three fated pairs.

I glanced at each of the M'rora in turn.

Two male, one female.

I ensured not to catch their eyes.

None wanted to be reminded they had resorted to this place—the same way I didn't either.

If we happened to come across each other on the street back home, we wouldn't have to recall this event.

It could only conjure painful memories.

None protested when we were ushered past them and through the facility by the Surgeon himself.

If anything, they were probably relieved the Procedure would be delayed a little longer than expected.

After all, there was always the chance their fated mate would change their mind.

"This way to the scanning machines," the Surgeon said in an upbeat tone. "Now, there are some things I need to tell you about the process. First, it's very quick, requiring just a few minutes of your time. I will warn you, the after-effects can be disorientating. It varies from species to species. Sometimes they hop up and leave without barely even noticing anything missing, while others take a full twenty-four hours to recover."

He drew up so fast we almost walked into him.

"May I ask, how strong is the bond between you?" he said.

I wasn't entirely sure how to answer.

After all, I had never been bonded before.

The Surgeon must have noticed the perplexed look on our faces, so he made it easier for us.

"How strong is the bond between you now?" he said. "One being a faint pinprick, two being a dull glow, three being a bright furnace like the surface of the sun."

"Three," I said.

Emma nodded.

A nurse handed the Surgeon a clipboard before he even finished extending his hand.

Another did the same on his other side but with a pen.

"How about distance?" the Surgeon said, directing his question at me. "When you scaled the Wailing Mountain, how far away was your mate?"

"Halfway across the galaxy," I said.

The Surgeon nodded and made a note on the clipboard.

"And how about the bond with the Shadow?" he said, peering over his bifocals with his tiny eyes focused on Emma.

She glanced between the two of us.

"Pretty strong," she said "When he's close. Right now, he's fuzzy with distance."

"A good thing too!" the Surgeon said. "We wouldn't want him showing up here unannounced now, would we? You appear to have a deep connection. It's likely the effects could be quite severe. We'll see what we can do to minimize them."

He handed the clipboard back to one nurse and the pen to the other.

He turned on his heel and continued to march down the hall.

"You mentioned after-effects before," Emma said. "What are they?"

The Surgeon spoke over his shoulder without slowing.

"After the Procedure, it's highly likely you will feel what we refer to as a ‘phantom bond,'" he said. "It's nothing to be afraid of. It's a perfectly natural part of the process. In the hours after the process is complete, you may occasionally feel a slight tingle where you currently have that throbbing pulse in your chest. It's nothing to be alarmed about. It's merely the bond healing itself. It will fade with time and you will come to forget all about it."

And that was what the M'rora feared most of all.

I didn't want to forget the sensation deep in the middle of my chest.

I wanted it to last forever.

Sometimes I wondered if discovering this new surgical procedure was really the best thing.

Then I had to remind myself it wasn't about me.

It was about doing what was best for Emma.

If my Shadow were to claim her, the bond we shared would be torn out by the roots, leaving me with even greater pain than the Surgeon's Procedure.

But for Emma, it would help her avoid the dismal future laid before her if the Shadow got hold of her and dragged her back to the Shadow Realm.

And there was little doubt in my mind he would succeed eventually.

His ship was bigger, faster, and better equipped than mine.

I couldn't outpace him forever.

The Surgeon paused, and for a moment I thought he was coming to another sudden stop, but instead, he turned at a ninety-degree angle and entered a room on the right.

I moved to cut the corner and save time but a nurse blocked me.

She shook her head and nodded to the white line that ran down the center of the hall.

I hadn't realized the surgeon had been following it the entire time.

"Okay…" I said, edging to one side and following the line.

The Surgeon was quite a character, I thought.

But nothing better described him than the room he'd brought us to.

A dozen machines cluttered the broad space.

Strange egg-shaped pods that reminded me of the emergency escape pods on many of our warships and ocean liners.

"If you please," the Surgeon said, nodding to Emma and motioning toward the machine.

She turned to me, fear haunting her eyes.

"It's all right," I said. "It's a scanner. Nothing to be afraid of."

Nothing for her to be afraid of maybe.

Buoyed by my confidence, Emma removed her jacket and handed it to me.

She stepped in the pod and turned around inside it so she was facing me.

"I'm going to shut the door now," the Surgeon said. "Please try not to move."

The door slid shut from the side and thumped into place.

A pair of nurses approached the pod on either side.

They pressed various buttons that flashed on its outer shell while the Surgeon sat at a nearby kiosk, his hands slipping into a pair of rubber gloves inside an empty box.

The pod hummed and bright lights flashed around it first horizontally, then vertically.

It whirred and made a high-pitched noise like feedback from communications equipment.

Emma's holographic image appeared in the box before the Surgeon, one layer at a time.

First, the skin of her body and the smooth contours of her gorgeous frame.

Then the muscles and tendons that strung it all together.

Then the intricate network of nerves and electric pulses.

Right down to her organs and bones.

I watched, fascinated.

The M'rora might be similar to humans but we were not identical.

I noticed strange little bones we didn't possess, including the one at the base of her spine, as if she ought to have a tail.

"Fascinating," the Surgeon said.

And there, beginning dim but growing brighter with each passing moment, a light emerged.

I had to squint against the throbbing ball of intense light.

"There it is," the Surgeon said, flicking lenses down over his bifocals to block out the worst of it.

He turned and smiled over at me.

"The bond you share with your mate," he said.

It was so close to her heart that it might as well have been the same thing.

And soon, the Surgeon would be cutting it out of her chest.

And it would be gone forever.