Chapter 25
I Belong To You
She knocked once, but the sound was swallowed by the thick wood, without even an echo.
She knocked again, harder this time.
A faint rap sounded in reply, flat and impatient, as though she had interrupted him instead of him quite literally pulling her from her dressing room on the morning of her wedding.
Eiko opened the door and stepped inside, activating her second sight.
The room was smaller than she expected, and far less grand than most rooms within Brightfort.
It was high-ceilinged, with a long window that poured pale light across a bare table and two chairs, the air smelling faintly of clean stone and metal. It was only an antechamber.
Chasin stood by the window. He was dressed for the ceremony.
Formal black fitted close through his shoulders and waist, the fabric matte and severe, cut so precisely it looked poured onto him.
A sash of deep gold crossed his chest, fastened at his shoulder with a clasp that caught the light.
His gloves were still on. Of course they were.
And yet, somehow, the gloves seemed like the least guarded part of him.
He didn’t turn to acknowledge her.
Eiko shut the door behind her, the click of it making her skin crawl.
“I was summoned,” she said coolly.
He turned, then. His guarded dark gaze travelled, clinical and unsparing, from her veil to her bodice to the skirt of her gown, before travelling up again and pausing on the bruising along her jaw. Something in his face tightened—so small she almost missed it.
He took one step closer, and Hymn immediately fled to her ankle, circling fretfully.
“Turn,” Chasin ordered, that fractal voice slicing along her skin.
Her spine went rigid. “What?”
Turn. He signed it directly into her bruised skin this time, his finger gentle as a whisper, delivering deft strokes against the bruises mottling her collarbone, leather against skin. Let me see the damage.
Heat flashed up her neck, spearing from his touch. “I didn’t come here for an inspection, Commander. The queen wants my bruising dealt with.”
Turn, he signed again, the order chilling in its calm.
Hymn curled tight around her ankle, tense as a drawn wire, threatening to cut off circulation to her foot.
Eiko forced herself to pivot slowly, the gown whispering around her legs.
She felt the drag of the skirt. The weight of the embroidery.
The way the boning held her in place no matter how much her body wanted to slump with exhaustion and defeat.
She looked like she was gaining the world in the palm of her hand, but she had been defeated. The King of All had gotten his way in the laziest form possible, which either made him terrifying or it made her pathetic. She wasn’t sure which. Maybe it was both.
Behind her, Chasin was silent. He moved closer, close enough that she could feel his presence threatening to swallow up the whole room. His gloved hand lifted, ghosting near her shoulder.
The mirror across the room captured them both: her in white and gold, him in black and gold, a matched set in opposing colours.
Chasin finished surveying her back before his hand finally lowered to her shoulder, gently turning her to face him again.
His eyes flicked to her neckline, to the exposed skin above the bodice where bruises still shadowed her collarbone.
His attention often drifted there, and it seemed to be his preferred spot to sign.
Probably because when she was wearing her uniform, it was the only spot on her chest wrapped by the thinner mesh of her undershirt, with the thicker layer of leather beginning below, around her breastbone.
He made a short sound through his nose—half disgust, half decision—and then he stalked to the table, which housed a narrow, rectangular case of black leather. He flipped it open, extracting a delicate necklace that had her brows eager to jump up in surprise.
Until she realised it wasn’t so much a necklace as it was … a collar.
Her stomach dropped.
It wasn’t crude by any measure—it was so finely made, it could have passed as ceremonial regalia—but it was unmistakably a collar.
A broad band that would sit high at the base of the throat, articulated with tiny hinges so it could curve perfectly to the wearer.
The front was wrought into a filigree panel, dense with goldwork and pale stones, cut and set to catch light with every movement.
Chasin didn’t even look up as he lifted it from the case. He brought it to her and lifted her hand to trace the ring of gold.
Her mouth went dry. “Absolutely not.”
“This is not optional,” he rasped.
“Like dark it isn’t,” she growled.
“It’s a wedding present, Eiko.” Her name in that broken voice had her struck silent for a moment. He had never used her name before. It distracted her just long enough for her to really notice the stones on the collar.
Diamonds.
They were cut small and disciplined, each stone seated deep into the gold so that none of them rose proud of the surface.
The band itself was wide, nearly the breadth of two fingers, and shaped to sit high against the throat, following the natural curve beneath the jaw.
The dense filigree at the front was layered with repeating patterns worked so finely they read as lace from a distance and ironwork up close.
It was … stunning.
More beautiful than any piece of jewellery she had seen the queen wear.
More beautiful than any jewellery she might have hoped Ceran would send her.
We should keep it, Hymn whispered reverently, reminding her that she never used to be one to obsess over jewellery.
She lifted her hand again, tracing the gold that had been beaten thin, folded, reinforced, and then overlaid again until the design had raised edges and recessed channels, with shadows caught between.
She traced them, learning the shape through touch.
The diamonds were spaced with unnerving precision, each one anchoring a point in the pattern as though the entire piece had been built around them.
Chasin stepped closer, and the diamonds caught the pale light from the window, throwing it back in sharp, white flashes that had her mouth salivating. She was, quite simply, struck dumb.
Chasin turned her to face the mirror and moved behind her, ducking his dark head, onyx gaze fixing directly to hers, seizing her so that she was unable to look away.
Oops.
His rasped voice fell against her ear.
“Keep your sight open.”
Eiko’s stomach dropped. “W-what?”
He lifted the collar, and as the gold touched her skin, it was like a door opening inside her chest. A sudden, sweeping awareness rolled outward from her sternum, down her arms, up her spine, blooming behind her eyes.
Her second sight sharpened violently. The room snapped into unbearable clarity: every breath, every shift of cloth, the pulse in Chasin’s throat.
She could see the microscopic seams in the gold, the faint abrasions where tools had touched metal, the way the diamonds fractured light inward.
Chasin watched every moment of her reaction in the mirror.
Hymn recoiled hard, skittering from her ankle to her calf in alarm, reacting to the sharpening of her power, even though she was still holding the colours of the second sight at bay.
Chasin’s hands were steady as he fastened the collar, gloved fingers moving with practised ease. The clasp sealed with a soft, final click.
She stared at herself in the mirror, her heart hammering, Hymn trembling. The collar sat perfectly flush against her throat.
“What did you do to me?” she whispered. And how did you know about the second sight? She didn’t dare utter those words. Maybe if she pretended she hadn’t heard him, she could keep pretending that she couldn’t see him.
Chasin leaned closer again, his face appearing beside hers in the glass. His eyes held hers directly, seizing her once again and refusing to let her avert her gaze.
How long has he known? she yelped inwardly.
I think you mean how long has he been pretending not to know, Hymn squeaked back.
“Gemstones are …” His hand drifted down from her shoulder to her chest, signing a word against her bruised skin. Forbidden. “They amplify power,” he murmured roughly. “Recruits aren’t at the stage to handle that, yet.”
“Then why am I wearing this?” she asked, her fingers fluttering up to the collar as she turned to face him.
He straightened, signing his answer openly in the space between them.
I warned you not to trust a Goldmoor. Do not close your sight today.
Not for a second. The collar will amplify the power your monster is lending you, allowing you to use it for longer.
His gaze slid to the bruises along her jaw and throat. Now ask me to heal you.
Eiko’s fingers hovered at her throat, just brushing the edge of the collar. The diamonds pulsed faintly beneath her touch, alive in a way that made her teeth ache.
What new game is this?
He’s hunting again, Hymn warned quietly. I feel his hunger from here. It’s overwhelming.
With shaking fingers, she managed to meet Chasin’s eyes and sign, Heal me.
His gaze lingered on her face, slow and assessing, his pupils attempting to swallow his irises—she had noticed that detail previously, but it seemed to get worse the closer he stood to her.
No, he signed.
Her jaw tightened, her fingers jerky with irritation, confusion, and fear. You just told me to ask.
Hymn bristled, a sharp ripple of unease skimming her skin.
You know how this works. He made a gesture she had never seen before—not on his hands, anyone else’s hands, or in any of the books in the library. She frowned at it, at its similarity to the names of the monster classes: Rustling. Whistling. Murmuring. Whispering.
Echo, she realised.
He had created a gesture for her name.
If you want something from me, he continued. You must give me something.