Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
It must be organic. I cannot funnel power into that which holds no life.
—Correspondence from Lelyth to Enya. Date preceding Sultiran Calendrical System.
Nerissa’s dark silhouette stood out against the deep blue of the sea in the early hours of the morning.
The salty breeze pulled away the whisper of lilac wind still lingering in my nostrils.
Carina had sworn the air oath the night before, Astraeus performing the spell while Kresida watched carefully.
I paused at the top of the stairs, catching sight of Nerissa and Aquila at the prow of the Hydra.
I held my hand out to halt Vulcan, who came up behind me.
Nerissa’s face didn’t leave Aquila’s as I approached the two, who seemed to be truly communicating, speaking mind-to-mind, for the first time in the hundred-plus years she’d been alive.
I stepped up to the two, sending a wave of warmth to them both. Aquila ruffled his large feathers in return but kept his eyes on Nerissa. I glanced at the elf and stifled a gasp, noting the long streaks of silver sliding down her cheeks.
I reached a tentative hand to hers and clasped it within my own. She didn’t look up, but she gripped it back, squeezing tightly. I let her hold it, silently waiting for her to drop it when she was ready. After several minutes, her hand slackened, and she turned to me.
“Aquila was there,” she said, her voice soft against the lapping surf. “He was Kyson’s caeluma over a thousand years ago.”
My jaw slackened as I turned to the great bird and I opened my mouth.
Nerissa shook her head. “He doesn’t remember most of it. The blast that broke the Vael… It changed him, shattered most of his memories. He’s known enough to stay close to our bloodline. It’s all he’s needed, really.”
She turned back to Aquila, a softness appearing on her features I’d never seen before.
“Well then,” I said, smiling up at the giant hawk, “welcome back, Aquila.” A surge of joy washed over me, and I bowed deeply before backing away to join Vulcan at the stern.
Vienah’s arm wrapped around my shoulder as we stood at the prow of the ship, a broad smile plastered on my face as a black form took shape in the clear skies in the distance.
“They made it,” she said, giving my shoulder a squeeze.
My heart sang in response.
Three months. Far, far too long. Never again would I let it go this long. And Bayne… There was so much we needed to discuss. I needed to see him.
Took you long enough, I teased Tiberius as his massive wings became visible. The agrippa scoffed into my mind.
If you were carrying two on your back, you wouldn’t be moving as fast as usual, either.
My grin widened as butterflies flapped in my stomach. My heart squeezed, the anticipation of seeing any of my friends enough for a burning sensation to form in the corners of my eyes.
Aquila’s massive form rose into the skies as he flew to greet Tiberius. An elated whinny filled the air as Tiberius took in Aquila’s changed form, and the massive hawk soared in circles around him.
Tiberius banked, circling around the back of the Hydra, and slowed his flight as he came in for a running landing. I sprinted around the foremast and skidded to a stop as Tiberius thundered down the deck.
Ti’s velvety wings stretched high above his head as he gained his footing and finally stopped. They flapped as they fell to his sides. Drystan’s weary blue eyes met mine as he slid off Ti with shaky legs and reached a hand up to help Marian off his back.
A lump formed in my throat as I took a step toward the three newcomers.
Safe. Marian and Drystan were now safe. A wave of relief at seeing my friends warred with a surge of shock at not finding Bayne among them.
I stared at Ti’s dark eyes for a moment before I noticed the long, recently healed slice down the center of his chest.
What’s happened?
We need to talk.
The winter wine Raek procured from Astraeus’s private stash did little to quell the unease crawling over my body.
“So, the dark king has begun his conquest,” Lord Astraeus mused, swirling the dark wine in a silver goblet. He reclined in his chair, ankles crossed, and black leather boots propped on the edge of the table.
“His forces must be stretched thin if he’s dispatched three legions of Nivis soldiers and multiple hordes of ashen. Death Dunes, Sultira, Lotrennia…” Carina’s brows furrowed as she studied the large map draped across the table in the room below deck.
“We don’t really know much about his forces, other than the ashen you saw on Kayj,” Ronan interjected, nodding toward the crew members of the Evecta.
Marian looked toward me with hesitant eyes, but I couldn’t meet them.
“We have a general sense of ashen numbers, but not a full look,” Nerissa answered.
“We have a solution for the ashen, don’t we?” Raek cut in, his sea green eyes shooting toward me and Nerissa.
I signed a quick translation for Drystan, though he probably didn’t need it with his ability to read lips. Astraeus, surprisingly, was the only pirate on board the Hydra who knew the language.
“Have you made a successful transformation?” Drystan responded with quiet shock.
My chin dipped in confirmation, thinking of the ashen I’d changed in Rhashtai during the attack. Had they even survived the battle?
“Once,” I replied. “It took twice the energy as killing thousands of them, though.”
“Either way, we have two weapons. Three, if you count the king,” Kresida interjected, my stomach pitching at the title she used to refer to Bayne. “They can destroy them by the dozens.”
“I don’t think we rule out Lyvia’s ability to save them just yet,” Carina countered.
“What of the king and queen and their elven forces?” Vienah’s tentative question filled the void. Her recently learned hand movements were slow and tentative. “Will the rest of the Rising forces return to Sultira?”
Drystan heaved a sigh before taking a swig of wine. “The queen swore to Bayne she’d send our forces back to Sultira by the end of the year. We were allowed to leave to communicate the message.”
“What about the bone?” Carina asked, eyes wide.
“She’s agreed to send them and the elven forces without it,” Drystan signed, his brows pinched.
“Why would she do that?” I asked, forcing the tremors from my hands.
Drystan’s eyes dropped to his copper hands. “A trade…”
Vulcan paused his dagger above the whetting stone.
“For what?” Nerissa’s words were broken against her whisper.
Drystan scratched at the stubble on his chin as he shot a cautionary glance toward me. “A soulbinding with Bayne,” Drystan answered, his moon-blue eyes heavy with pity as he signed the words.
Silence cleaved the room. My blood stilled in my veins as my heart took a moment to continue its necessary rhythm. Nerissa had gone rigid. Even Astraeus’s arrogant demeanor shifted into something more lethal.
Khato thought that if I saw the soulbinding thread, Bayne would bind himself to me, and it would prevent Antares from getting her claws in him. My inner voice wavered as I spoke to Ti.
But he didn’t believe you, Ti replied, grief and anger weeping down our mental connection.
“I don’t believe it.” Nerissa’s head shook with her reply.
“It’s true,” I breathed, all too aware the eyes in the room hadn’t left my face.
“How would you know that?” Nerissa snapped, turning toward me, but I could no longer speak.
My breath lodged in my throat.
“Khato suspected a soulbinding thread existed between Lyv and Bayne. If it did, she would have felt it break…” Drystan answered, eyes pinching in apology for confirming what I already knew.
Numbness stretched its claws through me, and my vision started to tunnel. But instead of the usual panic that arrived, the slow, freezing burn of fury spread. Bayne was soulbound.
It didn’t matter that we were human and elfkind. Fuck the rules and whatever shitty gods made them up. I’d felt it all along, and whatever magic the twin eclipse released upon the world during the Sending, it unlocked some door between us as Bellators and as a pair.
And he didn’t fucking believe me because I was a na?ve human. His doubt cost him his soul.
My heart picked up its pace, pushing against the taut skin along the scar on my neck.
Powers rose beneath my skin. The Obscura bucked beneath my palms with its usual demand, the darkness writhing in raven swirls along my arms and hands.
I blinked slowly, as a warm, golden power twined alongside it, the song of the Transcindiel rising in my mind’s ear in powerful, outraged beats.
Tiberius’s emotions flooded down our connection, a rage dwarfing his own slice of betrayal. You cannot be forced into a soulbinding. Those compatible for it must make the choice, he barked into my mind, fueling my powers and my emotions.
A crack ripped through my chest, as if a hammer had driven a nail through the thin layer of ice freezing over my soul, cooling it from the simmering darkness beneath.
Why would he do this?
Nerissa voiced the question aloud.
“Bayne wed the queen to keep the people of Lotrennia from choosing between the two of them, to prevent a civil war. He would do anything for his kingdom,” Vulcan murmured, his hazel eyes focused on the dagger in his lap.
“And there is only one reason to soulbind with someone who’s not a love match. ”
“Power,” Nerissa breathed. “That was the trade. An oath, only breakable upon death… His soul for more power.”
Power. Had he done this because of his vision in the Waters of Ascendiel?
Drystan’s blue eyes caught mine, his knowing, sympathetic gaze fueling the growing beast of fury soon to slip its leash. Nerissa shifted, and a sliver of rage pulsed through the cracks in her bond’s barrier.
Breakable upon death… I mused to Tiberius. When you created the whip in Lotrennia during your training with the queen… When the Obscura and Transcindiel powers merged, you created a weapon of death. That blast, when you cut the air between you and Antares… You severed the air oath, didn’t you?
Tiberius’s affirming stomp banged from above. The eyes in the room looked up at the sound before landing on me. The scar on Astraeus’s lower lip whitened as his lips drew a thin line.
If you were able to cut the air oath, we might be able to sever a soulbinding.
Yes, but does he even want it broken? Ti challenged. And at what cost? Soulbinding bonds are the strongest of all magical bonds. If cutting a mere air oath left a mark on all of us…
My hand drifted to the straight, fresh scar running down the center of my chest. A perfect match to Tiberius’s.
Antares has a matching injury? I asked.
Yes.
Mumbled talking continued in the room below deck, and my mind slowed as my thoughts narrowed to a focused sort of precision.
It could kill them, my mind’s voice shook. Breaking their bond could kill Bayne. Antares knows we’d figure that out. And she thinks because of the risk, we wouldn’t try to break it.
She could be baiting us with their bond. She wants your powers. She wants me, Ti’s words rang with finality.
She will not have you.
A drip of sweat slid down my neck and between my breasts, following the long scar, where it stopped. Distantly, the conversation in the room grew. The little bead of sweat tickled my chest, and the air below deck stuck to my throat, thick and stifling as I focused on filling and emptying my lungs.
My world had become a treacherous sea I struggled to stay afloat in.
Every moment I broke through the surface, a storm crashed against my face and a hand shoved me back down.
Yet each time, I dared another breath, another surge through the waves for one thing.
The ones I loved. I loved Tiberius. And Bayne…
Could he have really done this for power?
I still loved him, despite the growing cracks in our relationship, didn’t I? She dared take them from me?
You need to get above deck, Lyvia. You need an outlet.
Darkness and golden light joined hands in dance beneath my skin. Winding and twirling together, as if in some strange, foreign waltz, my human mind couldn’t understand.
Get above deck. NOW!
Somewhere, people argued. There was panic. And shouting. A rough hand gripped my forearm, tugging me up. I didn’t see them. I only sensed that growing waltz of death and darkness, transformation and rebirth, swarming inside.
Another hand on my shoulder, shaking it…
The Obscura and Transcindiel paused briefly in their dance, as if noticing a stranger walk through the door. I blinked as Astraeus’s dark eyes flashed before my own.
“You need to get the hell off my ship,” he breathed, his face inches from my own. “Up. Now.”
My powers ignored his command, returning to their frenzy, and then, I felt it. A building pressure, bigger than anything I’d ever experienced. Bile rose to my throat as I realized I was about to explode.
Calloused fingers, covered in thick rings laced through mine, pressing a scarred palm to the eight-pointed star on my own.
A spark, and that pressure eased enough for Astraeus to haul me up the stairs, clearing the way and ordering his men below deck.
Tiberius stomped toward me, and Astraeus gripped me behind the thigh and below the knee, hoisting me onto Ti’s back.
We launched into the night sky, suddenly blanketed with thick, dark clouds. Tiberius pumped his massive wings, soaring higher and higher as the air around us thinned. I threw my hands above my head and erupted.