Benjera let the words sink in.

  For a heartbeat he could do nothing but stare at her. Her eyes still held him fast, still pulled at something deep and unguarded in his chest he assumed was gone. Then his hand moved—without permission, as if the decision had slipped past his mind and gone straight to muscle and nerve.

  His blue interface unfurled in front of him.

  The Divine Integration System spun into place, rings of light rotating and snapping through menus at his unspoken command. He tore his gaze away from the emerald pools he would gladly have drowned in and focused on the hovering symbols instead. He found the option almost immediately. This wasn’t the first time he had used this system prompt.

  “Will you marry me?” he read aloud.

  ! Proposal: fl#210%

  What? Benjera scowled at the message from his DIS. He was trying to understand what his DIS meant.

  “Wh—” Noa jerked back, staring at empty space in front of her. Her eyes snapped to him, then back to whatever only she could see on her own DIS. She lifted a hand and touched the air.

  ! Your status: Engaged

  ! Quest available: Marriage

  ! Nexus present: Activate marriage?

  “We can just get married now?” she asked, alarm sharpening her voice, eyes going wide. “We don’t need a priest or anything?”

  Benjera looked around. “Are you expecting a fight?”

  She blinked, clearly caught in some crossfire between whatever a priest meant in her world and what the Maze understood one to be. Psychic translation tangled sometimes, he didn’t like puzzling over definitions but that was a pretty blatant issue.

  “What do I do?” she asked, forcing her panic down with visible effort.

  “I’ll start it. You hit accept, we’re married,” Benjera said. Noa was struggling so he added more softly, “I can take you home as soon as it’s done.”

  The word landed wrong the moment it left his mouth.

  Noa looked down at her hands. The sadness that crossed her face twisted something inside him. Home did not mean the same thing to her as it did to him. He had known that. But Benjera opened his mouth and the wrong thing always came out.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Was he making the right choice?

  Benjera scoured his mind. He didn’t know all the laws but the ones he did weren’t helpful. Smuggling her into the city illegally was impossible. His reputation couldn’t survive that. The fact that he even considered it sent a cold worry crawling along the back of his spine. He didn’t see another way. Benjera activated the marriage.

  Marry fl#210%?

  Y / N

  Something was wrong with her DIS. She was scowling at the air in front of her, confusion tightening her mouth. Benjera coughed again like his body was reminding him how dead he would be without Noa and selected yes. She reached out and touched the invisible screen.

  ! Status: Married

  Syncing

  “Syncing?” she asked.

  “Linking our DIS,” he said. He had mentioned it, but never actually explained it. “Soul-bound. We share mana and quest points from now on.”

  Noa slowly lifted her head to look at him with a stiff expression. “Soul-bound? That feels kind of important to mention.”

  “Is… there… something wrong with your soul?” Benjera asked—and dread slid cold and sudden through his veins. A chill that had nothing to do with drying in the shade. Why did he never think things through?

  “Noa.”

  “Yes?”

  Benjera swallowed hard. She looked so human. So fragile. So painfully, devastatingly real. “Please tell me you’re human.”

  She laughed, startled and incredulous. “Am I human?”

  Then the color drained from her face. “As opposed to what? God. What is this place?”

  He didn’t feel better. That wasn’t a yes.

  As the syncing dragged on, he felt worse. Agitated, he forced himself to his feet and limped a few paces away on his injured leg. The armor had held, but the memory of the wolf’s jaws still throbbed deep in the muscle as a bruise. He could skill his way past the limp but his DIS remained frozen in front of him, rings stalled mid-rotation. Waiting was straining him, he looked out into the forest, at the dead wolves and the living one's still slinking around in the forest between trunks of calcified trees and their large root structures. He still couldn't believe he had tripped like that into the water. His mind ticked back to his DIS.

  Syncing should not take this long.

  What if it didn’t finish?

  What if he lost access to his skills?

  “Soul bond?” she asked behind him. “Can this be reversed?”

  “No,” he snapped. Then, sharper, more defensive, “What kind of fucked up world do you live in where soul mages undo marriages? You’re a construct, aren’t you? How many souls do you have?”

  “Construct? Souls?” Panic finally broke through her control. “Benjera, up until a couple hours ago I didn’t know magic was real! Give me a break!”

  She shifted, curling protectively inward where she sat, her burned arms fully cradled against her body. Her explanation was impossible.

  Every world had magic.

  …Right?

  He wasn’t Jasreal. He didn’t know these things.

  ! Sync complete

  ! Lazil Nexus

  The screen shifted. The blue lines that made up his DIS sharpened to a crisp, emerald green. That was fitting. He glanced at Noa, her eyes matched. Gods he couldn’t deny it. That was his new favorite color.

  Benjera waved his DIS back to the main display with his throat feeling tight as he searched for a sign her didn’t just ruin his life worse than he thought.

  Mana 130221 / 131072

  He stared at the numbers. Stared and stared and could not make them make sense.

  “What is this?” Noa asked quietly.

  He didn’t answer. Slowly, carefully, he selected the new ring that had appeared in his interface. Everything in circles. He liked circles. Stability. Continuity. He could hold on to that.

  The screen rotated into full view.

  Spouse: Noa Venn

  Race: Human

  Class: Champion – Lostwalker

  Faction: Chrosn

  All the air left his lungs.

  She should have just let him die.