Chapter 12 Lyra #3
This is the Gloam, then. I pause, struck by the way the stormy sky above reflects on the water, creating an illusion of color.
Duskbane heads toward the small crowd—a few dozen, perhaps—waiting beside the bank closest to us.
I recognize a handful—the Darkwielder who argued for my torture at the Council meeting meets my eye with a sneer, turning to whisper something to the silent older wielder who had sat beside him.
That one regards me with an empty expression.
The queen has not come, but Darian catches my eye and winks, his color restored from our earlier interaction.
The rest watch me with a combination of fear, anger and revulsion. All of them wear the shoddy dark leathers of the Darkwielder fighting forces. The silence feels thick as Duskbane leads me through the scattered crowd and down to the water.
Eres.
“He’s been here for hours,” Duskbane murmurs. “Offerings are always made to Erevan before a Binding. You must wait for the moonlight before entering.”
Erevan, the corrupted Darkwielder god. Unease snakes down my spine as I nod in acknowledgment.
Water gently laps at Eres’s waist where he stands a few feet into the river, his back turned to us.
As I watch, he places his palms down against the water.
Darkness flows from where he touches, spreading into the river and creating a void of shadow that surrounds him in an expanding circle.
“What do you call the shadow marks you wear?”
Across his pale back are more of those black lines, carved into his skin like cracks from a broken pane of glass.
“Riftlines.” Duskbane leans forward, a frown dusting his forehead as he watches Eres. “We receive them as a gift from Erevan on our thirteenth anniversary of birth, along with our erevas. Many of our ceremonies can add to them.”
“What happens if Erevan doesn’t accept a Binding?”
He looks down at me then. “Let’s hope we don’t find out. He risks much for you, witch.”
Both of us fall silent, watching the male in the water. Eres bows his head as the water stills, and I look up to where the Umbraxis moon appears overhead. I’ve never seen one before.
It’s… beautiful. Silver, and spherical, it casts a light across the water that the darkness surrounding Eres seems to absorb.
His shoulders raise, then fall. And then he turns.
Duskbane turns to me. “I’ll take the cloak now. It’s time. Do as he says.”
I slip it from my shoulders, handing it to him. But my eyes are on Eres as I move forward. I’m trembling—the cold, perhaps, or something else.
I was never permitted to attend the Lightbringer ceremonies that glorified our own god, Aedryn.
I watched some, where I could, from the Sunspire.
Gleaming displays of wealth and light and jewels paraded in the streets.
There was music, and noise, and singing that often lasted until the final rays of the sun disappeared. But never past then.
Those lavish displays were nothing like this. And yet I never felt the weight of expectation that hangs in the air now, pressing down on me as I wade into the icy depths of the river, my breath catching.
Eres doesn’t move. His blue eyes look almost black—a deep, midnight blue as he watches me approach.
When I come to a stop just beyond the ring of darkness surrounding him, he holds out his hand without saying anything.
But his face is soft, and his fingers gentle as they wrap around my own swollen hands and carefully pull me through the ring.
It parts around me, only to enclose us both in together. There’s barely an inch separating us, and I lean into the warmth emanating from his skin.
“Don’t be afraid.” His rumble is low, and husky, and I look up at him. He didn’t seem so tall back in the castle, nor so broad, but he surrounds me now.
I’m at eye-level with his bare chest, and I fix my gaze there rather than looking up. Bands of muscle ripple as his arms close around me. “Lyra. Look at me.”
I cannot lie here.
Not here, in this circle of shadow, with Erevan watching. So I look up, our eyes locking, and I pray that this will not force me to reveal anything I would rather keep private. Licking my lips, I force the words out. “I did not expect this to be so… intimate.”
Eres’s cheeks flush at that, and I feel a responding heat in my own face.
His hands are warm on my back, the dress Duskbane provided barely enough to cover essential areas.
Although given Eres’s state of undress I’m inclined to blame the ceremony rather than any nefarious thought on his part. “I don’t know what to do.”
His eyes flicker, as if he’d look to the shore, but he leans forward. My lips part as our foreheads press together. Eres speaks quietly. “Repeat the vows after me. Think about them if you must. This cannot be reversed, Lyra.”
Irreversible.
My throat threatens to close. “And after the vows?”
His hands tighten on my back. He is… everywhere. “If Erevan accepts the Binding, the riftlines can hurt. I won’t let you fall.”
I’m not trembling anymore. I can’t feel the cold anymore, not from the water or the air. “All right.”
“Those on the shore stand as witness to Erevan’s will. There can be no trickery, no falsehood. Do you understand?”
His thumb strokes the bare skin at the base of my back. “I understand.”
“Good.” One hand wraps around the back of my neck, beneath my braid. The other wraps around my waist, pulling me closer to him, pressing us together. With our foreheads still connected, I can feel every part of him. And he can feel me. The trembling starts again.
His thumb rubs gently at my neck. “Mirror my position.”
I lift my bandaged hand to his neck, wrap the other around his waist.
We could not be any closer. Our breathing syncs. “Look at me. Do not look away.”
Our eyes meet. “Repeat what I say, word for word. I open my shadow to you. Let no falsehood live between us.”
I take a breath. “I open my shadow to you. Let no… falsehood, live between us.”
“I will stand in your shadow,” he breathes. “By truth, I will remain there.”
I choke on the words. More, repeating every line, not looking away. That heaviness in my core grows, expands, until it feels as if his hands are the only thing holding me upright at all.
My fate is bound to yours.
I stand where you stand.
My step shall not betray your path.
If I betray you, let my heart fall silent.
If you betray me, let my heart fall still.
We ask for this Binding from Erevan.
And may the darkness not find us wanting.
It feels as though the river attempts to drag me down. It wraps around my legs, tugging, and Eres holds me tighter. “I have you. Bound in shadow.”
“Bound in shadow.” There’s wet on my face. On my cheeks.
“Bound in life.” He whispers it against my lips.
“Bound in life.”
His mouth presses to mine. “Bound in death.”
I give him the words back, speak them directly into his mouth through shuddering, sobbing breaths—
And then there is nothing.
The current vanishes. The heaviness, gone. I sag against Eres, my muscles shaking badly. “What—,”
Agony.
It strikes without warning, a thousand lightning strikes shattering against my skin, breaking against my bones as I arch, my head snapping back and breaking the connection with Eres. He grips me tightly, panic lacing his words. “Lyra. Lyra!”
I cannot answer him. I can’t breathe. My ruined hands scrabble at my neck, my chest, trying to claw away the searing flame that races through my body.
Erevan.
Their god has rejected the Binding. Rejected me.
I can hear Eres shouting, hear shouting from the shore, but it sounds as if they are far away. I sink down beneath the water, rushing into my mouth and down my throat before hands wrap around me once more—
“I have you.” Eres cradles me as I gasp for air, wading through the river. “It’s alright, Lyra. It’s the riftlines.”
Blindly, I shake my head. “It didn’t work—”
“It did.” He pulls me closer still, until I can hear the unsteady sound of his heartbeat thumping. “Listen.”
I don’t know what I’m listening for. But as my own breathing steadies, I hear it.
His heartbeat and mine are… the same. Perfectly synced.
“It worked,” he says again. And his midnight eyes are gleaming. “We are Bound, Lyra.”
Bound.
Eres carries my shaking body from the water, laying me down in the mud on the banks before he collapses to his knees beside me. It’s only then that I realize that he’s trembling too. Instinctively, I reach for him—
His hand wraps around mine. “I feel it.”
I don’t know how to describe it, aside from a… need. A need to be closer, to feel as much of him against me as I can. My teeth chatter, any warmth from his touch fading beneath the shock of the Binding. “What is this?”
“It’ll fade.” He leans over me, his hand still wrapped around mine as he cups my cheek, turning it. “It’s an initial reaction. Strong, but short-lived.”
Footsteps thump heavily behind us. “Can I approach?”
Eres glances down at me. His lips thin, but he nods before looking back to Duskbane. “You’ve been keeping things from me.”
I look between them where I lay sprawled on the ground, but Duskbane says nothing. He turns from Eres to me, holding out a thick cloth. “Here. Wrap up in this. I sent the crowd away, now it’s done.”
“I’ll do that.” Eres snatches it from him. “She needs to get warm. Did you get what I asked for?”
I wait for the argument, but Duskbane only nods. To my surprise, he turns and walks away.
“The Binding is in place now,” Eres murmurs, but his eyes follow Duskbane.
“He’s still insistent that you sleep in the prison for the time being, but since you can’t hurt me without killing yourself, he’ll be less argumentative about it.
And he knows that the aftermath of the ceremony is…
difficult, for both of us. He’s respecting that. ”
I can’t imagine Kaelen Duskbane respecting much of anything. The crowd has dispersed when Eres stands. He scoops me up despite my weak protestations. “Your body has been through a lot in the last few days. I’m carrying you.”