Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Two Years Earlier
Gently twining his fingers through mine, he lifted our hands to his lips. His breath was hot against my knuckles as he whispered, “We spoke the Words ages ago, Phel. It’s time.”
The Warrior’s Words.
The declaration of commitment we had proclaimed privately to each other on my sixteenth birthday, before war broke out and the Curse had tilted our lives toward madness.
We had been naive then, tangled in our blissful promise of the future, and as I stood among the ruined city of Palerman, I longed for that innocence again.
His eyes sparkled with the excitement of childhood, bringing me back to the many days we spent chasing each other through our city.
His jet-black hair had reflected the sunlight above Palerman, like a beacon calling to me among those crowded streets.
He would duck between shops or into narrow alleys in the center of the city where the buildings were stacked closely together—and I would always find him.
The freckles across his nose had wrinkled when he teased me, and even now I remembered the fluttering that motion drew into my stomach.
Back when I didn’t even know I loved him.
I brought my hand to his cheek, his jaw much more angular than it had been in childhood, and leaned up to gently press my lips against his.
He smelled of the jasmine and honeysuckle that marked the entrance to our secret clearing, where we had spent the winter afternoon rolling through the lush grasses.
I pulled a stray petal from his hair, smiling at the intimate memory that landed it there. The war may have destroyed so much, but I would still hold on to the good.
“You’re right, Augustus.” He had many names: Malakai Augustus Blastwood, Mali, Destined Warrior Child, Future Revered of the Mystique Warriors—but Augustus was mine.
“Tonight?” I asked. Bliss gripped my heart as I gazed back into his forest eyes. They deepened with my agreement.
He nodded, our lips brushing together. “We’ll meet at the parlor.”
His free hand grazed my jaw, calluses rough against my skin, and slid into my hair. My toes curled in my boots. I gasped at the energy that coursed through my body, at the heat pooling low in my stomach.
Augustus leaned closer, coiling the long blonde strands around his hand and pulling my head back slightly to claim my lips with his own. His movements were urgent yet gentle, as he always was each long night we spent tangled up in each other beneath the stars.
“I’ll see you then,” I whispered against his mouth, breaking apart before either of us could go too far in the public square of Palerman.
There were always eyes on us, children of the two most powerful Mystique bloodlines.
Augustus, the son of our current Revered, and me, firstborn daughter of Bacaran Alabath.
We were the most promising future of our people, a symbol of hope and strength among the death and pain.
The heart of the city was emptier since the war had ended last month, but restoration efforts had begun, meaning there were plenty of onlookers today.
Though most of the fighting had been contained to the Wild Plains north of Palerman, enemy warriors swept through every large Mystique city.
Pillaging what they could. Killing who they could.
It didn’t help that in the denser part of Palerman, many families lived in old, apartment-style buildings above shops. It only made the target easier. Some days, I thought I could still see rust-colored stains on the worn stone streets.
It was easy to forget about that when it was just Augustus and me, his hands on my waist, the shadows masking us.
White bricks and debris surrounded our feet, but when I looked at him, everything felt okay.
We were rebuilding. The Curse was gone. Soon, we would complete the Undertaking, and all would be right.
“I love you,” I whispered as I left him.
“Until the stars stop shining,” he responded.
Mystique Warriors had three causes for tattoos.
Each was etched by ink imbued with minerals of the Mystique Mountains, giving life to nearly unbreakable promises.
The Bond was the first to be received, given after completing the Undertaking.
A mountainous symbol printed into the skin at the back of the neck to mark success and everlasting commitment to our cause.
The Band came next, a design that declared rank to the world.
Different forces received variations of entwined florals and vines.
The highest bore a delicate band of budding peonies connected by a thin strand.
This was the rendition Augustus and I would one day receive.
As you traveled lower in the ranks, the flowers became less rare, the vines more brutish, but the tattoos equally as beautiful.
The Bind was the last a warrior was supposed to receive. The artwork was personal, decided between you and the partner you chose to speak the Words to. An irrevocable symbol of the commitment that was to be the final step in that agreement.
Though illegal, it was the Bind that Augustus and I received that night.
I settled into the rickety wooden chair in the parlor, my forearm clasped firmly in the artist’s grasp, a light angled at my skin. I locked eyes with Augustus, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth as I smiled in anticipation. He grasped my free hand between his.
“Squeeze if it hurts,” he whispered.
Marxian, the lone remaining tattoo artist in Palerman, dipped the needle into the ink. A low buzzing bounced off the boarded-up windows, the parlor not officially reopened since the end of the war.
I smiled at Augustus, leaning toward him for a kiss, but Marxian pressed my arm to the table. “No moving, Ophelia.” His voice was stern, but there was a hint of a smile behind his black beard.
He was young by warrior standards—in his forties.
His family had inked the promises of our clan for generations in both Damenal and Palerman.
After the war, he settled back in our city, hoping to reopen the parlor in honor of his brother, who fell during battle.
I had a feeling that he was willing to twist the rules for our tattoos due to that loss.
We had all suffered so vastly; any opportunity for a little bit of shared joy was cherished.
“Right. I’m sorry.” I grinned at the artist, and he shook his head.
“Ready?” Marxian asked.
“More than ever.”
My heart jumped when he pressed the tip of the needle to the skin below the inner elbow of my left arm.
Reflexively, I squeezed Augustus’s hand, relaxing when he smiled at me in encouragement.
It didn’t hurt exactly—or, at least, I did not mind the slight pinching feeling as the fine needle bit into my flesh.
The sensation was odd as it printed a prickling promise into my skin.
The ink merely lay on the surface, but this substance was more than that.
It contained the essence of the Mystique Mountains, and it was that very magic that I felt entering my bloodstream, weaving itself through my bones and being.
I bit my lips, doing my best to remain still as that power poured into me and the pain deepened.
The ink worked its way through me like pins driving into my bones.
They stabbed into the marrow, and I nearly cried out, squeezing Augustus’s hand.
His gentle words were drowned out by the magic embedding itself in my life.
But once the pins found their roots, they stilled, and a soothing warmth spread through my body.
It wiped away any hint of discomfort, a radiance taking its place like an invisible string, now as much a part of me as my blood and bones.
It was the most intimate experience of my life, but it felt incomplete, waiting for its other half to join it.
It only took a few minutes to complete, the design simple but significant.
“This will heal it within hours,” Marxian explained. He wiped a special ointment across my arm. “It will be a little sensitive.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
I looked at the new artwork on my body and smiled. Something fluttered through me, twisting, searching for the other string to twine itself around.
It was Augustus’s turn.
He unbuttoned his linen shirt and tossed it across the back of the chair. Marxian instructed him to lie on a low wooden table and fetched a fresh needle. The lights reflected off the tan skin of Augustus’s pectorals where the twin Bind would be inked, locking us together from this day forward.
I pulled my chair over to the table, settling down and grasping Augustus’s hand.
His head rolled toward me, and there was something in his eyes I didn’t recognize.
A fleeting impression of wistfulness that had me wrinkling my brow in uncertainty.
Without saying a word, he reached up and ran a thumb across my forehead to smooth away the worries.
“Let’s do this,” he said, turning back to Marxian.
Buzzing filled the room once again, and I watched our futures be tied together through ancient magic and thin lines of black ink.
With each stroke of the needle against his skin, warmth spread through me.
The dancing string within my own blood was mated with its match, the two spiraling together, a pair promised for eternity.
We crept through the city afterward, our partnership forever sealed between us. Shops and homes were closed up, mystlights in windows extinguished as Palermanians settled in for the night. We wandered down the cobblestone path between ivy-coated apartment buildings.
Overhead, bright orbs of light sprinkled a deep sheet of black streaked with violet. The stillness of the air wrapped itself around us in our state of bliss, and though it was much later than my father requested his seventeen-year-old daughter return home, I did not care.
Not that night.
I extended my arm between us to appreciate the beauty of the artwork in the moonlight.
It was a small symbol, something understated to the outside world but a constant in our lives.
A simple recreation of a star, with four large points and smaller ones blinking out between them, complete with tiny detailing that made the star appear to twinkle like those above us.
As I slowly rotated my arm, the ink absorbed the starlight from above and reflected it back to me, the tattoo shimmering silver. A celestial acknowledgment of the significance of this decision. A promise between Augustus and me to guide each other home, no matter the bleakness of the night.
“It’s perfect,” I whispered.
Augustus grazed his thumb over the tender symbol, still red around the edges. My gaze traveled up his chest to where he bore the twin, larger than mine and beneath his left collarbone, hovering slightly over his heart.
I met his eyes and imagined the smile on my face matched the one he flashed at me, every soft curve of our lips full of a love so powerful it threatened to break us.
“My North Star,” Augustus whispered, bending to brush his lips over the freshly inked spot on my arm and sending shivers down my spine. “So that we may always come back to each other.”