Malin – Ceremony
Malin
Ceremony
The opulence of the grand corridor outside the Queen’s throne room did nothing to calm Malin’s racing heart.
With the soaring, silver-veined arches and floating luminescent orbs, the space was less like a palace and more like a suffocating cage.
The air was thick with the cloying scent of exotic perfumes and the ambient heat of a thousand bodies waiting in line for the crowning ceremony.
Every hushed conversation and sidelong glance from the gathered nobility pulled tight around her throat like a physical snare.
The vultures were watching, eager for a single misstep to feed their relentless gossip.
Yet, the most terrifying cage existed inside her chest. To her volatile siphon magic, the host of dignitaries pressing in around her was an absolute feast, begging to be consumed.
Holding the heavy mental vault shut over that predatory urge demanded every ounce of her strength.
She was trapped by the court, and held utterly hostage by the monster living under her own skin.
The decision to bench her from the expedition to retrieve the device that would save her mother was tearing her apart.
Will and her father felt it was too dangerous for her to join them in her pregnant state; Malin would be forced to stay behind and simply wait.
Usually, her grip on her magic was an iron fortress, but the suffocating tension and endless sleepless nights were actively stripping away her defenses, leaving her power raw and impossible to contain.
She was not Elven enough to control the wild magic common to magical women in pregnancy, and far stronger in magic than most human women.
The combination made her an anomaly to the Minsters in Mellyrn and reliant on her focus to keep her powers under control.
Standing beside them in line, she was thankful there were only two more ceremonies left to endure before she could end this misery of protocols. The crowning, followed by the presentation.
The gossip had been a dull roar since they arrived, the weight of a hundred calculating eyes dissecting her.
Whispers trailed her through the halls when the aristocracy thought she couldn’t hear: “She is the human daughter of the great Lord General, playing dress-up in the Elven aristocracy.” “Someone to be looked down upon yet somehow put in a place of honor.” Their words were cruel, like those of the girls in high school back in Media.
She tried to push aside the taunts, but she wanted to hold her place in her family.
When her volatile flame magic accidentally caught the velvet tapestries on fire at the last ceremony, she had wanted the polished amber floor to swallow her whole. But being the daughter of the second in line for the throne didn’t allow for hiding in the shadows.
To make matters worse, Will stood close enough for his familiar scent to wash over her.
He looked devastatingly handsome in the all-black suit that stood out sharply against the sea of pastel Elven silks.
She stared at the stubborn line of his jaw beneath his trimmed beard, her emotions swinging like a pendulum.
She wanted to throttle him for his controlling behavior, but her traitorous body just wanted to run her hands all over him.
With a drought of physical intimacy between them stretching an agonizing month since the first ceremony, she was starved in more ways than one.
It was no wonder her focus was torn. Her husband wouldn’t touch her. If only he would act like a partner instead of a warden, she could be more understanding of his situation. They had been having the same argument for days, but he wouldn’t listen to reason.
But she was not one to give up on what she wanted. And what she wanted was to join them on their mission.
‘I am not staying behind,’ she mentally projected through their soul-bond, her gaze fixed dead ahead on the massive oak doors of the chamber.
‘Look. I know you’ve become quite powerful with your fire and healing,’ Will said back through the bond, his mental voice dropping to that husky register that usually melted her resolve, but every word had a slight static to it.
‘But this is a very dangerous mission. You’re pregnant with my child, and I love you.
It’ll be hard for Aldrik and me to concentrate on the task at hand if we’re worried about you. ’
Malin shot a searing glare at his profile.
The mental bond was glitching under her frustration, so she decided to whisper the words to him and hope the others wouldn’t hear.
“You’re not acting like it. It’s more than that, and you know it.
What about my wild magic, Will? Without you or Aeladar by my side, how am I supposed to stop it?
You are the only two with nullification powers.
” She glanced around the crowded hall, hoping to avoid the gossipy ears of the Elven aristocracy around them.
“There have to be other ways to manage it while we are gone,” Will argued. She worried his whispered tone was not low enough. “Potions. Isolation wards. Anything.”
“There are no other ways. You know the only ways we have found are dangerous to my magic and possibly the baby. I’ll check again with the Minsters tomorrow, but don’t expect any new solutions,” Malin whispered quietly, so only he and Aeladar could hear.
“My magic is too volatile right now. You and my father are the only ones whose nullification can safely ground me, and you know it.”
She held his gaze, refusing to let him look away from the ugly truth. “If you both leave, what’s the palace’s only other option to keep me from siphoning the life out of the people around me? A resistor collar.”
As the stubborn set of his jaw slackened and the blood drained from his face, she knew he remembered the agonizing, magic-choking iron that had been locked around his own throat. He told her that torture still haunted his nightmares yet would condemn her to the exact same torment.
Will turned away, his frustrated gaze landing on her father. Aldrik was staring blankly at the amber-veined marble floor, as if he could see straight through the stone into the sterile suite where her mother lay trapped in a coma.
The microscopic Media nanobots were still multiplying, a technological poison coursing through her veins. The longer they waited to retrieve the EMP device from Fellspire, the further her mother slipped away.
Aldrik blinked hard, pulling himself back from whatever distant, painful memory he was lost in.
The glassy glaze of grief cleared from his violet eyes, instantly freezing into the hardened steel of the Mellyrn General.
He looked at her with little emotion showing.
His gaze swept over the packed corridor of jewel-draped dignitaries and chattering ambassadors, clinically assessing the invisible threat she posed.
“She is right,” Aldrik said. His voice dropped into a low, authoritative rumble that barely cut through the surrounding din of Elven politics.
“Leaving a volatile siphon in the heart of the palace, surrounded by foreign nobility, is a tactical disaster waiting to happen. If she loses control here while we are gone, the casualties... not to mention the political fallout… would be catastrophic. She comes with us.”
Will dragged a calloused hand down his face, the rough sound of palm against stubble audible even over the crowd.
The muscle in his jaw jumped furiously. The heat of his rising panic flared through their bond, but there was no arguing with the General’s cold logic.
He turned back to her, his hazel eyes dark, intense, and terrified.
“Fine. I promised I wouldn’t lock you away, but you have to meet me halfway, Sparks.
If you come to Fellspire, you stay between Aldrik and me.
Please. I need to know you and the baby are safe.
You do not engage, you do not wander off, and you do not leave my line of sight for a single second.
Do you understand me, Sparks? Not a single second. ”
Malin pressed her lips together, tasting the faint metallic tang of adrenaline. His attitude felt like a cage of a different kind, but at least she wasn’t being left behind anymore.
“Understood,” she said, forcing her voice to remain smooth and compliant over the chaotic hum of her blood.
Her mind was already racing. Let him think he’s won.
Once they were out of these stiff silks and actually there, boots crunching on the frozen ground of Fellspire, she would change his rules into something she could actually breathe in.
A sudden, bright burst of laughter from Ellie and Zee pierced the stifling hum of aristocratic chatter, pulling Will’s attention away from the heavy, suffocating tension still hanging between him and Malin.
Malin immediately rose onto the toes of her slippers, but a barricade of iridescent Elven silks and jeweled velvet cloaks blocked her view from all sides.
Knowing those two, they could either be playing nicely or causing chaos.
Either way, whatever they were doing was likely not proper Elven behavior.
Beside her, Will’s massive, six-foot-six frame easily breached the sea of nobles. The rigid, defensive line of his broad shoulders dropped just a fraction as he spotted the children. A heavy exhale deflated his chest.
“They are playing with the Basat Ambassador’s cat.
I’ll stay back with the kids.” His voice had lost its commanding edge, dropping into a quieter, rougher murmur that felt like a tentative olive branch extended across the chasm he just dug between them.
“No need to drag them up to the front row. They’ll behave better away from the spotlight. ”
The sting of his newly minted, overbearing rules still burned in her mind like a fresh scrape, making it impossible to fully accept the peace offering.