In the end, Zoe had consciously made the choice. It wasn't even a situation where he would have normally died. If she had just continued along her normal path of defiance, he would have been fine, if extremely frustrated.
Instead, she had forced her will onto him. Zoe was able to connect to the bond on a much deeper level than him, but she hadn't just stopped the slight pressure that she felt from his commands like she normally did. As a guardian's master, you were supposed to take their suggestions into account, because they were supposed to be for your own safety, so there was a push in the back of your mind to at least listen to them. Zoe never did, but this was a step farther.
She deliberately and forcefully suppressed his connection, severing him completely from her.
Unfortunately, she hadn't counted on the fact that when a guardian lost their bond, they no longer had any of the benefits of being a guardian. And that included the extended life.
It would still have been fine, though, if she hadn't pushed even further.
Zoe had crushed his insides through willpower.
It wasn't the first life she'd taken. But it was a different first.
The first time she had gagged at the sight of blood.
The thick, red liquid welled up from his mouth, dripping down the corners, and then he had fallen still. Zoe had sat still, watching the body. After a while, the blood flowing out had changed into two streams, one of a clear liquid and the other still blood, just more sluggish.
By the time that she was discovered staring at the body, the blood puddle had nearly reached her. The water, flowing well ahead of it, was soaking her feet.
When it came time to awake, senators were generally not disturbed. That was mostly because they all had strange habits that other people didn't like to witness, especially from their leaders.
Even more so, a master with a guardian was left alone in the mornings. That was because most guardians and masters spent some time alone together, whether bonding or just relaxing in each other's presence or planning out the day ahead or a million other things. No one ever came to disturb Zoe and her guardian when they woke, so she was always forced to listen to a lecture, that more often than not would put her right back to sleep.
However, that also meant that the time when Zoe actually emerged from her room varied wildly from day to day, and was completely unpredictable, even for her herself.
So when she had stayed in there the entire first half of the day, there wasn't even a suspicion. By the time lunch rolled around, people had realized that she was gone, but the other members of Zoe's house were quick to inform them that she generally kept strange hours.
When the sun set and she still had not emerged, then they had gone to investigate.
And they had found her sitting, curled up into a ball, against the wall.
Staring at a corpse.
Zoe herself had been sent to the Senate for that stunt. Nothing had come of it, of course.
That is, nothing was going to have come of it. Until one of the people who had found her, one of the members of her house, she thought, said something that no one had expected, not even Zoe herself.
They said that she had been speaking. Words. In English.
"Wake up.
"Wake up.
"Wake up.
"Wake up."
Over and over again, a mantra.
"Wake up."
Zoe understood death. She had seen it before.
She knew at that moment, something that no one else did.
The Senate knew that she was broken. But it was much worse than that.
Zoe hadn't been talking to her guardian and telling him to wake up as though he were still alive, simply sleeping.
She hadn't been talking to herself as though it was a dream that would be gone in an instant when she woke.
She had been talking to something else. Something that had been in the room with her.
Wake up, dead man. That was what the others had said to tease her.
But it wasn't true.
What she had been trying to wake had been much, much worse than a man. And a whole lot more dead than her former guardian.