Epilogue #2
With reverent care, Eira lifts Wyndren from its silk-lined box. The serpent stone hangs from a delicate silver chain shaped like overlapping scales, catching the firelight as it sways between her fingers.
I forget how to breathe.
Two crystal serpents, pale and translucent as moonlight on ice, coil around each other in a perfect circle.
Their tiny scales are etched so finely they seem almost alive, shifting whenever the light catches them.
Between their entwined bodies drifts a swirl of silver-white mist that never stops moving, twisting and curling within the crystal like a captured storm.
Lurok’s element made into something beautiful.
“Is that for me?” I whisper, unable to take my eyes off the stone. “It’s beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as the female who will wear it.”
The deep rumble of Lurok’s voice wraps around me, and my heart stumbles. I drag my eyes away from the serpent stone. When I look up at him, everything else disappears.
The ceremonial chamber vanishes. The gathered witnesses, and even Eira standing before us. All of it fades until there is only Lurok.
Lurok is watching me with an expression I have never seen before, his silver eyes bright and unguarded, full of so much emotion it steals the breath from my lungs. The hard lines of his face soften as though he has forgotten there is anyone else in the room.
He reaches up, brushing the backs of his clawed fingers against my cheek so gently it makes my chest ache.
Heat rushes into my face. My throat tightens painfully, and suddenly I cannot remember why I had ever doubted him.
The way he is looking at me now, as if I am everything. As if I always have been.
Eira clears her throat softly. The sound shatters the fragile, suspended moment between us. I blink, and the ceremonial chamber rushes back into focus around me.
“Wyndren has spoken,” Eira declares, laying the serpent stone upon the silken plate between us. “It stirs only for the one who wields the element of air, chosen by the Infinity Flame itself.”
The mist trapped inside the crystal pendant swirls faster, silver-white currents chasing each other in endless circles.
Eira lifts a ceremonial dagger. It is slender and elegant, its crescent-shaped blade forged from metal the color of a storm-dark sky. Strange symbols gleam faintly along the edge.
“Second Fang Lurok,” she says, offering it handle-first, “do you come willingly to this binding? Do you accept what the Infinity Flame has chosen for Serin?”
Lurok takes the dagger with deliberate calm.
“I do,” he replies, taking the dagger and scoring his palm.
“I bind for Serin.” Dark blood wells instantly against his silver scales, nearly black in the firelight.
Without hesitation, he holds his hand over the shallow stone basin atop the altar.
Seven blood drops fall with a soft patter into the basin.
The moment the seventh drop lands, Wyndren flashes. The crystal serpents seem to come alive for a heartbeat, and the blood vanishes as though the stone itself has consumed it.
Eira turns toward me, the dagger gleaming between us.
“Serin Isabella Valen of the human world,” she intones solemnly, “do you come willingly to this binding? Do you accept the serpent stone the Flame has given you?”
My pulse pounds so hard I can hear it in my ears. I look at Lurok. His silver eyes are fixed on me, steady and certain. No fear. No hesitation. Only love. I lift the dagger, my fingers trembling only slightly around the hilt.
“I do,” I answer, my voice clear.
I draw the blade across my palm. Bright pain blooms instantly, sharp enough to steal my breath. Scarlet blood spills over my skin, vivid against my pale flesh. I hold my hand over the basin and let seven drops fall. The blood disappears the instant it touches the stone.
The basin begins to glow. A deep crimson light blooms beneath the surface, soft at first, then brighter and brighter until it pulses like a living heart between us.
Eira inclines her head.
“Blood joins blood. Bond forms bond. Thread weaves through thread,” she chants, her voice rising into something older and stranger, the words wrapping around us like a spell.
Then she motions for our hands. Lurok extends his first. His palm is broad and scaled, the cut still glistening darkly across it. I place my hand over his. My breath catches the moment our flesh touches.
Warmth surges through me, swift and overwhelming, racing up my arm and straight into my chest. It feels like standing in the center of a storm and somehow being perfectly safe inside it.
“As your blood entwines, so too do your paths,” Eira intones. “No distance shall sunder it. No discord shall unmake it. Not even death shall sever it.”
She binds our joined palms with a length of pale grey silk. It tightens then dissolves into our flesh, leaving only the sensation of connection. When she withdraws her hands, our wounds have healed into matching crescent scars. Silver on his palm and pink on mine.
“Let the bond be sealed,” Eira pronounces and draws a glowing sigil in the air. “So it is spoken. So it endures.”
When she lowers her hands, the cuts on our palms are gone. In their place is a matching scar. A slender crescent rests in the center of my palm, pale pink and faintly luminous. Its twin gleams silver against Lurok’s scaled palm.
“Present thyself to your bonded mate,” Eira commands.
I lift the aetherveil from my face. The gauzy fabric slips away, falling over my shoulders. Lurok looks at me as though he has never truly seen me before. Wonder fills his expression. Awe. Something fierce and unbearably tender.
Eira lifts Wyndren by its chain and offers it to him. Lurok takes the pendant carefully, almost reverently. The crystal serpents spin slowly around one another as he moves closer.
I hold my breath as he reaches behind me, his claws impossibly gentle as he slides the silver chain around my neck.
His knuckles brush the nape of my neck, sending a shiver racing down my spine.
The pendant settles against my skin just above my heart, warmth spreading instantly through my chest. The mist within the stone stirs, moving faster and brighter until it feels as though the wind itself now lives beneath my skin.
Eira steps back, turning toward the gathered witnesses. “Witnessed by coil and flame, by blood and stone—you are bound for all time.”
Cheers erupt in the chamber. But I hear none of it because Lurok is still looking at me.
Slowly, he lifts one clawed hand to cradle my face.
Then he bends his head and kisses me. The kiss is soft at first, as though he is afraid I might disappear if he touches me too quickly. But then I melt against him.
His other arm slides around my waist, drawing me against the hard strength of his body. I curl my fingers against his chest, feeling the powerful beat of his heart beneath my palm.
The world falls away.
There is only him.
Only us.
His lips move against mine in a kiss full of everything he has never known how to say—the fear, the longing, the regret, and the fierce, impossible love that has always been there beneath it all. When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
“My heart knew you long before my mind was wise enough to understand it,” he murmurs, so quietly only I can hear. “In every life the Ancients grant me, I will find you. And I will choose you.”
I rise onto my toes and press my forehead to his, my fingers curling against his chest.
“Then choose me now,” I whisper, my voice trembling. “Choose me tomorrow. Choose me every day after that.”
A raw, aching sound escapes him, somewhere between a laugh and a broken breath. He gathers me closer, as though he cannot bear even the width of a hand between us.
“Always,” he vows.