11. The point of no tangible return #3
“Jasper?” Maksym didn’t bother to respond to me before he sat on the edge of the table again and glanced over at his mage. “Can you note Miss Wynn is tentative for, and also possibly experienced in, polyamorous relations?”
The mage made an undoubtedly disappointed tsk but kept scribbling away. Meanwhile, my blouse had stuck to my back from just how hot the room had become.
“Anything else to add?” Maksym asked as he glanced back at me.
I shook my head.
Surely, there had been other things I’d dreamed up, but they had long since vacated my mind, and I was desperately hoping the entire notion of a threesome involving the man I was being forced to marry would vacate with them.
“Very well then.” The king extended a hand toward me and beckoned with his fingers. “I accept your terms, Miss Wynn. Let us seal our bargain for your life properly.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, but Maksym motioned me over again.
“What?” he chuckled. “If you thought we’d just shake hands and be done with it, you’re sorely mistaken. Call it a safety measure if you want, but I’d like to ensure we are both fully committed to seeing this agreement through, and that requires a proper vow of blood.”
Of course, I’d heard of the bargains, or vows, or blood oaths, that dark fae were fond of, though the practices were outlawed in Odessa.
We had a high enough population of citizens from mixed backgrounds, and even refugees from the Wastes, that it would have been impossible not to learn little fragments of the practice.
They involved the connection to dark magic Odessans—and even high fae—did not possess, and they could have fatal repercussions if their terms were broken.
I was really regretting having never asked more questions about them.
“What exactly are the terms of our bargain?” I asked.
Maksym slid off the end of the table with a smile. “I’m so glad you asked. Done with this, Jasper?”
“Everything is there for you, my liege,” the mage said, his voice a little more gravely than I thought it had been, as he passed over the parchment he had been scrawling the terms on.
It had far more than just those details above it, though, in ink long since dried. As if the king had just been waiting for me to come and accept his offer all along.
Maksym set it in front of me and, as I scanned it, he said, “The terms are fairly straightforward. It outlines that I, Maksym Blackspire, invoke the law of servitus and will claim you, Enora Wynn, as my wife to spare you from execution or exile as punishment for your crimes against my kingdom. We will marry through traditional Grimmorian means soon after the Agōn Ferr has completed, which you will take part in to prove your worth as our future queen. For the duration of our bargain, which can only be broken in the event of one of our deaths or by the dark hand of Mina herself, we will not bring any knowing harm upon each other by our direct or indirect knowledge.”
Goddess.
Just as I thought I was coming to terms with everything, how quickly I was proven wrong.
As Maksym spoke, his arm brushing against mine as he trailed a finger down the page, my hands started shaking enough that I had to clasp them behind me.
Thankfully, the king didn’t seem to notice.
“Those are the core tenets of our bargain, enforced through a vow of blood,” he finished. “Do they satisfy you, Miss Wynn?”
The inside of my mouth didn’t have an ounce of moisture left in it, and a lump building in my throat made it impossible to swallow. If those were because the gravity of my situation was making itself fully known again, or simply the low way the king uttered satisfy, I wasn’t sure.
Still, I rasped out a quiet, “They do.”
“Good.” He grabbed a stray quill from the table, gave it a rough dip in ink, and handed it to me. “I would appreciate a mark of your signature as well. For good measure.”
I tried, and failed, to move quickly enough to stop the ink from blotching as I signed my name to the spot Maksym pointed at beneath the terms. Maybe I should have thought for any amount of time before I did it, but the moment had passed, and Maksym was signing his name beside mine.
He motioned towards his mage next, who produced a small blade carved with runes from a box set atop the war table. Jasper passed it, silver handle first, to the king before walking over to the spread of glass and wood cabinets lining the far wall.
“Now, unfortunately, a bit of blood is required from both of us.”
The king flashed me a faintly apologetic smile before extending his hand. “I realize you’ve been shaking like a leaf in a windstorm, but I need that lovely left palm of yours for a few quick moments.”
I was so out of my goddess-damned element, I was setting my hand in Maksym’s before I’d even processed his words. At the last second, I yanked it back, holding it to my chest. “My palm? Why my palm? Surely there is somewhere else you can get my blood from.”
The last thing I needed was to have a wound straight across my hand that would take ages to heal while I was staring down trials and training. I was all too familiar with how brutal torn blisters and rope burns were in the early days of my service, with far less than my life hanging in the balance.
A wry smile tugged at Maksym’s mouth.
“I assure you, there’s a purpose to everything.” At his expectant look, I ceded and set my palm back in his, which had no business being as soft or as warm as it was. “And I promise you, Miss Wynn, you’ll leave here just as you came. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” I scoffed, but the king didn’t give me the benefit of acknowledgement.
He was already poised to slice into me, the silver blade in his grip a remarkable compliment to his pale gray skin.
He traced a horizontal line once, twice, a third time across the base of my palm.
The blade was so sharp, I hadn’t realized he’d cut me on that third pass until bright red blood welled up on my skin.
“Jasper?” he called out without looking away from my palm.
The mage was beside him, setting a dark stone bowl on top of a small mirror carved with runes between us on the table before he busied himself with a plethora of other papers. Maksym guided my hand over the bowl, tipping it so my blood rolled into the vessel.
“Hold that there for a moment, please, Miss Wynn.” He turned the blade on himself, slicing an identical line across the base of his left palm.
I hadn’t known that dark fae—or Umbrites, specifically—bled a different color.
But a dark blue, almost black, blood welled up along the surface of his skin, and when he tipped his hand beside mine over the bowl, my crimson offering took on spatters that turned deep purple.
I followed his lead when Maksym righted his palm and kept my plethora of questions to myself as he stirred our blood with the tip of the blade.
It elicited an awful shirring scrape against the stone bowl and overtook the muttering pouring from the king’s lips. Certainly not our common tongue, but I was too transfixed by the slow shimmer spreading through our blood to bother asking.
In my youth, displays of basic amplification magic by my blessed peers were common, practicing away after their lessons.
But in the last more than a decade? Since, one by one, most of those blessed peers absconded from Odessa or died in their service to my father?
I’d seen so few displays of frivolity, I was awestruck.
And while I watched on, Maksym set the blade aside and swept his finger through the thickening, iridescent purple mixture.
He took my left hand again and painted a large circle over my palm as he murmured, “This component of the oath mark represents our binding union. And these,” he painted two short, vertical lines intersecting vertically at the top of the circle, “are you and I. Finally,” next came a long, horizontal line right over top of the weeping cut he had made, sweeping across the bottom of the circle, “we have Mina’s dark blessing as the foundation. ”
Maksym cast a lingering glance at me, his black and amber eyes assessing, before he released my hand and drew a matching mark in our blood on his own left hand.
I hadn’t realized how long I’d been holding my breath until he looked away, and air came rushing out of my lungs in an inelegant, shaky sigh.
“Almost done, Miss Wynn,” the king chuckled. He turned his attention back to me after dipping his finger in the shimmery blood mixture again. “Last and most important step.”
I stiffened as he reached for me and cradled my chin.
Maksym tipped my face up like he wanted to get a better look before he smeared our blood across my bottom lip.
A protest was clawing its way up the desert of my throat, but it died when the king kissed me. He moved so fast, I hadn’t even processed why he was pulling me closer and angling his face until his lips were pressed against mine.
Why was everything about this dreadful man soft and warm?