Chapter 15
Lys.
His hair clung to his wet, blood-streaked forehead, his lips cracked from the heat. He looked at me in shock, words slipping from his tongue that even he didn’t seem to understand. His gaze didn’t quite settle, as if something in him was still somewhere else.
My heart pounded in my chest as confusion twisted through my mind. No. There’s no way that’s him. My Lys left with the crowd. This isn’t him.
I shook my head and closed my mouth.
A breath left my chest as I lowered my brows. My face shifted into the one I had trained for years to wear. The one void of emotion, void of desire.
I stepped closer to the kneeling knight, who still watched my every movement with those same soft eyes. There was a delay in his reactions, a fraction too slow, like he was hearing me from far away.
Lifting my head, I glanced around me.
Everyone who remained stood in silence, watching what I would do next.
My gaze shifted to the royal balcony. My father leaned against the railing, watching me.
His face was cold, his expression empty.
My mother stood behind him, unable to look at the bloodshed before her, her head lowered as she stared into nothing.
I turned slightly.
Sando’s sad eyes lingered on the dead horses and broken bodies near his feet. When he felt my gaze, he looked back at me and offered a faint smile that lacked any familiar warmth
“Do you, knight, accept me as your princess? Are you willing to be my shadow and guard my secrets as if they were your own?” I spoke the words every princess before me had spoken in this place.
“Yes,” he answered. The word came automatically, almost too quickly, as if it had formed before he truly heard the question.
“Are you willing to be my blade and my quill, to be my hand and every breath I take?”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to give your life for me?” For a moment, he hesitated, not out of doubt, but like he was trying to catch up with the meaning of the words.
“Yes,” he said again, quieter this time.
There was no applause. No celebration.
“Rise, knight, and tell us your name.”
With a grunt and the creak of cheap metal, he stood. His movements were stiff, almost mechanical, like his body was moving without him. “I am Lysande from the village of Druska,” he said, his voice steady now, as if the shock had finally left his body, though his eyes still hadn’t.
“From this moment on, you become Lysande of Isolde, her blood and her shadow,” the speaker declared.
I took the knife from my waist, the one Sando had given me, and placed it in my palm. I looked toward the king, waiting for his signal. When he nodded, I clenched my teeth and cut into my skin.
Blood began to drip down my hand, but I said nothing, even as tears gathered in my eyes.
I turned the handle of the knife toward him.
Only then did I notice he no longer wore the metal sleeves, likely removed while we descended. With an unsteady, exhausted hand, he took the knife from mine, his fingers brushing softly against my skin. His touch lingered for a second too long, like he needed something real to hold onto.
He looked into my eyes, then extended his palm and, without hesitation, cut into it. “I, Isolde of Celesta, accept you as my Blood Knight,” I said, extending my wounded hand toward him. He took it in his.
“I accept to be your shadow, my princess.” His voice was calm, but distant, almost like it belonged to someone else entirely.
Our wounds pressed together.
“From dust we are made, and by blood we are bound,” the speaker proclaimed as our hands tightened.
The pain erased every lingering trace of warmth that had sparked across my skin, and for a moment I nearly pulled my hand away.
Lys, my Lys, said nothing.
He only watched me, blinking slowly, as if trying to stay present. The speaker wrapped our hands in a white ribbon, which instantly soaked with our blood, letting it hang before stepping back and gesturing toward the king and queen.
Everyone moved aside as we turned to face them and bowed deeply.
As tradition demanded, the king spread his arms and spoke his blessings, while the speaker removed the ribbon and placed it carefully into a carved wooden box adorned with gold and rubies.
“Now, it is time to celebrate,” he announced, as a path opened before us.
I stepped forward as he followed ten steps behind.
In dead silence, walking past the bodies of those who had died for the chance to stand where he now stood, with blood still dripping from our elbows, we moved toward the saddest celebration of the century.