CHAPTER FIFTEEN
S he woke on top of his chest, prostrate. His arms were clenched around her, and his eyes squeezed shut. For a moment, Petra could not think what had happened. Her memory felt wiped.
Nevertheless, as she lay there, afraid to move and unable to feel her extremities, it came back to her in fragments. Her hand on the stone and the searing white light that followed. Rand had yelled something. But powers beyond mortal life yanked her from the land of the living and forced her birth again, ripping through the portal of reality as a newborn’s head tears the mother’s labial skin.
At length, she realized her side ached.
Rand groaned and his arms fell away from her. Off him, she slid and knelt beside.
“Fool,” he croaked. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
His voice was colored in hurt. When he turned to look at her, it was done with effort.
Petra flapped her hands. “I’m sure it’s not...not what you said. I did not speak the inscription.”
“Does your side hurt?” he scoffed. “As if I do not know the answer.”
“Y-yes.”
He lifted his arm to point but it fell, heavy, to the ground. “Feel beneath your robes. Between your fourth and fifth rib.”
Pain radiated from his eyes. Regret. And had he not looked at her with such an expression, it would have been stunning, for the umber and rubicund hues glistened with tears.
She did as he instructed. At first, she felt nothing. Her skin should have been brittle and bruised for the magnitude of light that permeated her body. However, everything felt normal. She wanted to tell him there was nothing had it not been for the determined urgency in his gaze.
Then she felt it. Exactly where he had stated.
What have I done?
It felt as though she had been branded from the inside out. The scorching light to flood her had burned seven figure-eights loops, all intersected at the narrowest point. Scabbing had already begun over the damaged skin.
With effort, Rand lifted the hem of his shirt. In the same place, he bore the uneven mystic knot pattern, though his still bled.
“What is this?” she cried, grabbing his arm.
“This, Petra Ondise, is the indelible Ensign of a Sacrifice and his Sacred.”
“What?!”
“From this moment forward, I am your Sacrifice. Whatever danger or peril threatens you, I will strike it down, intercept, or take it to myself. You must be ever in my sight, if I am to breathe without pain. I am bound to you until death I cannot prevent severs us.”
“No, no! This can’t be!”
“Will you believe nothing I say?” he shouted, before looking up at the eternal daylit, star-studded sky. “Show her!”
A force ripped her from him. With a terminal velocity far beyond the technology of their era, she was plunged beneath the surface of the mirror-like pool.
Sucked into the depths, the weight of the water mocked any effort she made to swim towards the surface. It pulled at her ankles, threatening to separate her bones from their joints. The undulating movement of the water unfurled around her, spinning her faster and faster. The surface became a lie. Here, in the depths, she would be wound into a vortex and pulled through the gate of time Rand had said awaited in the nadirs.
Then, like a torch thrown into a cave at the end of the world, a white-hot shape plunged. It cleaved towards her like liquid obsidian marble did not surround them. Human in shape. A man.
Rand!
She felt herself pulled into the light, suddenly warm as if she had dozed in a puddle of midday sun. From beneath the surface, they broke, flying into the air and then landing, gently, on the mossy ground. Water-like crystal droplets, beaded from them, losing no momentum as they rolled back into the strange pond.
“Do you see?” he cried, shoving his hands through his hair. “Do you see what you’ve done? In days, I march from here with a cavalry to Mynydd. But I cannot be separated from you, and I will not live with a woman unmarried. So, I break my vow of celibacy that I spilled blood in this very garden to make! And you must ride with me as my wife and the obligation I have to my men is thwarted now because of you! My men deserve all my devotion! Yet, now,” he grabbed her by the arms, “I am devoted to you!”
His voice shook. Tears spilled from his eyes and his mouth trembled.
What have I done? I didn’t mean to do this. I only wanted the truth for Aldney. I only wanted to know that Rand told me the truth. And then I would go back to being a courier and have peace in my heart. What now? Already, I feel how this Ensign beats for him in a rhythm different than my heart. It resonates within me and suddenly the thought of him not being in my eyesight is...is...a fallacy.
I can never go back.
He can never go back.
“I’m...sorry.” She watched tears streak down his cheeks and fall in mourning off his jawline. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean this. I only wanted to know the truth. I only wanted to know my brother—”
“I shouldn’t have brought you here. I should have let you believe whatever you wanted of me. I...But what’s done is done.”
“And now what?”
He wiped his eyes. “Now...now you lift your chin. I will beg conclave from the emperor, and he shall wed us. Our union will not be met with joy. They will call me a traitor and a blasphemer. You will be accused of being a harlot and a social climber, dissatisfied with your lot in life. But from this moment on,” he bowed, “you are Petra Ondise Tsenturian. You are a lady of the court and the wife of a Shivalry captain. My men will honor you. Any who encounter you will respect you or they will deal with me.” He dropped to one knee. “We are one before eternity.”
All the strength of an ancient incantation radiated from him, but he kowtowed in reverence before her slightness. Dirt from her mother’s farm had never truly left the soles of her feet, yet he was the one to speak as if pearls and golden beads decorated her hair. She should be the one kneeling, prostrate, and begging for forgiveness.
“I...”
“There is no room for fear, Petra.”
“I’m not afraid.”
He stood, looking down at her solemnly. “I believe you. Come. We must get to the emperor.”
Everything was moving so fast. In this timeless place, her entire life had been re-written. All her dreams of the future, stable and meant to honor her brother’s memory and her mother’s hard work, had vanished. Dissipated like morning dew before a sudden sunrise. And, somehow, in this garden where Time stood still, she felt urgency push at her. The life she entered with meant nothing and she must not think of it. She would be selfish to ask to linger.
But I...
“Wait! Before we leave, show me where Aldney is buried. Please.”
Before everything changes beyond my recognition, let me close this part of my life. This part that I thought should be the whole.
Rand nodded and offered his arm. He said her brother’s grave was a secret. It would have been considered sacrilege to bury him here, but he did not see how the death of an innocent could be blasphemous.
The words fell like sweet, boiled candy on a bitter tongue, and she linked her arm around his.
Her brother was an innocent. His crime was refusing to be the plaything of the wealthy. He knew his worth when others did not. And, oddly enough, Rand had known it, too, despite meeting him in the last moments.
Together, they walked slowly, nearing an alcove of stout trees. He directed her attention to a flock of feathery flowers growing on long, slender stems. Their petals were ivory, touched with red, and they swayed like waves across the ocean from a zephyr Petra could not feel.
“I buried your brother among these trees. Flowers did not grow there, then.”
***
I T FELT LIKE THEY WALKED a long time to reach the entrance gate Petra could not see. Yet, at one moment her steps sunk into the dense moss and in the next, she stood on gravel. The two sentries saluted Rand.
His elk rested with its legs folded neatly under its body, large, intelligent eyes watchful of his master’s movements. Absent-mindedly, with her world spinning while she was locked in shock, she wondered if the animal had a name.
In her stupor, though Rand spoke to the guards, she tugged at his sleeve.
“What’s its name?”
“What?”
“Your elk.”
He seemed to accept the abruptness of her question. “Loom.” Rand scooped her up and placed her at the front of the saddle. “And he doesn’t mind passengers.”
Up behind her, he swung, instructing she hold tight to the rounded pommel. Petra felt herself nod and felt the strong, sure arm of her suddenly betrothed wrap around her waist.
Nothing was real. She had ridden through a stone labyrinth, sequestered from society. At its heart was a garden of the ancients. Within that eternal Eden, she had seen colors and daylight long removed from the world. The air there was different, heavier, cooler, and sweeter. Nevertheless, as a penalty for entering, she returned to the mortal world upended. It was as if she had stood beneath the shower of a rainbow and then stepped into a barn. Sheer, crystal colors were impossible here. All around her seemed to have a dull patina.
At the same time, she no longer felt like her hair stood on end or that she would pass out from such an oxygenated atmosphere. Mortal bodies were not meant to withstand eternity. Only the soul was resilient enough to move beneath aeonian sunshine.
As they rode, Rand told her all that needed to happen. The mundane and the extravagant. She needed a full wardrobe for a lady of her standing; he would request Cyprian mandate the Palace of Embroidery to produce it ahead of other orders.
Obligatory witnesses would be present when he took her into matrimony, thereby breaking his vow of celibacy. Those of the royal council and captains of Shivalry. The emperor would sanction their union.
Her rooms at his mansion would be prepared while they were away. Until he led the cavalry out of the city, she would sleep in his bed and have command of his quarters.
News of their union would spread like disease. She’d have countless invitations but few of them would come from sincerity. There would be many to accuse her of shameless behavior—seducing a Shivalry captain, trying to gain nobility. Ugly things would be said of him as well but...
“I know,” she said. “It’s never the man.”
“Which isn’t the truth.”
“But servants are nothing.”
“And you no longer are one.”
“But they will see me that way.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “But I will be beside you and they will curb their tongues.”
The journey to Mynydd would take ten days. She would be the only woman until they reached the fortress. But Rand would decimate any of his soldiers who looked at her without lowered gaze and deference.
And so, suddenly, this is my life. A lady of worth traveling with her husband. It’s a farce and I don’t know how I will ever look my now-peers in the eye and not feel the cool damp of earth on my palms or smell milk freshly pulled from a cow. I walked tall as a courier because I was following in your steps, Aldney. But I’m on my own, now.
Where is my pride, now that my path diverges from yours? I have no time to figure it out. The man beside me handles all this as a military man would, matter-of-factly. I have thrown his life out of alignment, but he received years of training to alter and reconvene. He takes this in stride. Where is my stride? What do I know of sudden change? Seasons do not drop from the sky. They show us their signs of impending arrival.
I was so determined to learn the truth of your death that I ruined my life and the life of the man who buried you. You died but I brought on more casualties.
There’s no time. I see the palace steps now.
Rand dismounted and eased Petra from the saddle.
“Take my arm. Except for Cyprian, do not lower your gaze to anyone.”