Dax's POV
I don't ask her opinion before I decide. I think, if I did, she'd try to talk me into letting her go first instead, the same way she's tried to carry every risk in this story as though it belongs to her alone, and I'm done letting her shoulder that by herself.
"I'll go first," I say.
"Dax—"
"You don't have to agree with the decision," I say. "You just have to let me make it."
She goes quiet, and I watch something complicated move through her expression—fear for me, I think, and underneath it, a flicker of the old instinct to argue that I'm giving away too much without knowing what it costs.
She doesn't argue, though. She simply reaches for my hand one more time, holds it a moment, and lets go.
I close my eyes.
I don't know exactly what accepting a bond completely, alone,
