62. The Bond’s Echo
The Bond's Echo
Auryn sat on the edge of the bed, the carved box heavy in her lap. Her fingers worried the lid until the wood felt smooth beneath her thumb. Every time her courage faltered, she almost hid it away again. But tonight, with Kailorien leaving so soon, there could be no more hiding.
The chamber was too quiet. Polis-light spilled across the walls in pale flickers, catching at the ruby inside the box. She stared at it, willing her hands to still.
The door opened. His footsteps were unmistakable—heavy, certain, filling the room before his body did.
“Auryn?” His voice was softer than his stride, roughened by drills and command.
She lifted her head. Her throat was dry. “Kail… I have something for you.”
His eyes narrowed at the box in her lap, but he approached, every line of his frame taut with hesitation. Her heart beat so hard it hurt, and she pulled back her thoughts so he could couldn't sense her distress.
Don’t let him see it. Don’t let him know what you’re afraid of.
She opened the box.
A pair of bracelets within caught the light: silver delicate as spun frost, a ruby set at their hearts with the faint trace of a rune glowing deep inside.
Her Weaving. Weeks of vanishing into the Umbral Archives, into work, into secrecy.
Not avoidance, not truly—though it had felt that way to him. It was this. It was always this.
"The Bond has been our salvation for years. It made us stronger, allowed us to find safety in each other. But once you leave, its absence will cut too deep." She lifted one of the bracelets with steady hands. “You know I have been studying Krystopolis' portal magic for some time."
He nodded.
"I call this the Echoveil. It carries voice and breath, even across distance. If you are gone, I can still reach you.”
If I am too weak to hold you here, at least I will not vanish when you leave.
His breath left him in a shudder. He sat beside her, staring as though it were something holy. “You forged this?”
She nodded. The smile on her lips felt fragile, painted.
“It binds with blood,” she whispered.
He did not hesitate. Steel nicked his palm, red welling bright. She mirrored the motion, her own blood silver in the light. They let the drops fall together onto the rune.
The ruby drank deep. A pulse. Then the band rippled like water, reshaping until it slid perfect against his wrist, snug as if it had always belonged there.
His hand trembled as he touched it.
“It knows me,” he murmured, awed. “It bends for me.”
She forced her smile wider. “Because I told it to. Because you’re mine.”
And because I wasn’t strong enough to keep you, I’ve made this instead. A way to tie you to me, even as you go.
His hand closed around hers, lips brushing her wrist where her own ruby gleamed. His voice broke. “Little one…you forge me vows, and I give you nothing but chains.”
Tears stung, but she kept them hidden.
“We should test it,” she whispered.
He agreed, and together, they walked to the balcony.
She flinched when he cut his forearm with the dagger at his waist and opened a portal, the air splitting into a crimson oval-shaped magical gate.
The air shifted around them, the curtains on the balcony flapping wildly in the current of disturbed mana.
Auryn stepped towards it and lifted her hand, her palm hovering just short of touching the tear.
"These portals have always fascinated me, but for a long time I have felt they are unnatural.
Even as I studied them. At first, I thought I could improve them.
Bind them somehow to the natural leylines of the earth.
That would stabilize them, make the magic less like violation," she glanced at the cut on Kailorien's forearm.
"I wanted to find a way to sever its dependency to blood magic. "
"You said there wasn't a way," Kailorien frowned. "Auryn, did you—"
"No," she shook her head. "The solution still eludes me, but in the search…
" She took a steadying breath. "Especially after Vargrún possessed you that one night…
I made a choice. That if this world would violate my heart in taking you from me…
I would violate this magic to keep you. At least a piece of you. " Her voice wavered.
Kailorien took her hand in his. The bracelets on their wrists shimmered in the magic's light.
"Our Bond has always failed with distance," Auryn said. "But with portals, distance is irrelevant. I thought, if I could mimic that, remove the dependency on distance and create a portal between two points, bound in blood, then we could hear one another. At least that much…"
He pulled her into an embrace, his awe pulsing through the Bond.
Auryn…you truly are…unknowable. Wondrous. Terrifying.
…and mine. Always.
"Yours," she confirmed. "As you are mine—to love, to protect, even to covet at times."
He leaned back to look at her, a smirk playing at his mouth. "Covet?"
She gave him a playful push towards the portal. "Do not look so smug. Go now. Let us see if I've succeeded in this foolish attempt at defying our fate."
He stepped into the portal, letting his fingers linger against hers for as long as the magic would allow.
Then he was gone, the portal closing with his departure.
Auryn clutched her hand to her chest. Aching.
Forcing her heart to steady and her breath to slow.
Their Bond had never been able to reach past the Shields.
But with the Echoveil—as long as it worked past the borders of the city, it would work anywhere.
That is my hope. My prayer.
Time passed in silence, and when she could wait no longer, she pressed her hand to the ruby. “Kailorien?”
A pause. Then, faint but clear as if at her ear, “Starlight.”
Her knees wobbled. Relief hit so sharp she almost sobbed. “Kail…you can hear me?”
“Every breath.” His voice trembled with wonder. “I’ve gone past the Shields to the Aethermirror. To the Veinroads even. Sweetfire, this is incredible.”
Her hand tightened against the stone.
Then at least I won’t be forgotten.
She forced brightness into her tone. “Then it works.”
He laughed—unsteady, ragged. “Works? Auryn, it binds me to you. You’ve given me more than I deserve. This will be my treasure.”
She smiled for him though he could not see. Outwardly, radiant. Inwardly, breaking.
Take this piece of me with you. Since I wasn’t strong enough to make you stay.
He returned through a new portal, but Auryn didn’t look at him when he arrived.
She sat curled up in the crook of the balcony window, knees pulled to her chest, cheek pressed to the glass as if it might hold her together.
The red glow of the bracelet pulsed at her wrist. Her breath shook as tears slid down her face—silent and unguarded.
He stopped, the Bond sending wave after wave of emotion through his chest.
Kailorien had seen her weep before. In pain. In fury. In fear.
But this…this was grief unraveling her. A pall of mourning.
He crossed the chamber and dropped to his knees before her, wordless. His hands reached for hers. When she didn’t pull away, he lifted them to his lips and kissed her palms—one after the other—like she’d just given him the world.
She blinked at him through tears. “It worked,” she whispered, her voice cracking on the second word. “I heard you.”
“I know,” he murmured, his voice a rough edge. “Little one, I heard you, too.”
He kissed her wrist where the bracelet glowed.
Then her knee.
Then the curve of her calf.
“You’ve made a miracle,” he said, voice low, awed, almost a prayer. “No one else in Krystopolis could have done this. Nor the world. I am certain of it.”
She started to cry again—quiet, hiccupping sobs this time—and he reached up, tugging her into his arms. She slid from the window and melted into his chest.
“I was so afraid,” she admitted, curling her fingers around the fabric at his shoulder. “Afraid I’d built hope into something that would fall apart. That I’d be left here...waiting alone again in the dark.”
His lips brushed her hair. “With this gift, you will hear my voice across the stars.”
Neither of them could be certain of it, but they allowed no doubt near their hearts. Not when both of them were already brittle with the coming departure. Her arms tightened around him, their bracelets warm between them.
"Auryn, I have no intention of leaving you here like I have on past Campaigns."
She blinked at him, confused. "But…Shu'Khan…"
"I bargained for a temporary reprieve. I must leave to subdue Vargrún, but I do not intend to be gone more than a year. Two at most."
Her back straightened, a light blooming in her eyes that wasn't there before. "You cannot return so soon. The Resh'Agar must—"
"Trust me."
That was all he said. All he could reveal in this moment. The last thing he wanted was to make promises he could not keep.
"Auryn, I breathe for you as your Silari.
Neither of us knows the cost of using this magic, but we know the price of its absence.
I will not leave you without my breath, without my warmth.
" He hugged her close, kissing her cheek then her shoulder.
"I will find what I need to appease Shu'Khan's greed.
He seeks an artifact in the Ebon Sanctuary, and I have sworn to burn across the continent and claim it so that I might return to you.
" His lips moved down to her chest. Right over her heart.
"A few Cycles," he swore. "If you can wait for me… "
She held his face between her hands and tugged his gaze to hers. "Through Ice, through Fire, through all the Darkness this world can throw at my feet—I will wait."
He paused. Pulled back just enough to touch one of the emerald earrings that had accompanied him for centuries. Auryn's eyes widened as he tugged the loop free.
"Kail, what are you—"
He brushed his thumb along her earlobe then unclasped her earring. A tiny pearl he'd gifted her some Cycles past. He replaced it with the emerald teardrop.
"I've never removed them," he said at length, meeting her eyes.
"I always felt that, if I did, I would lose the small fragment that made me…
human." He took a breath. "It is not a piece of me, Auryn.
Void knows, you already carry all of me inside of you.
But it is a vow. That I will return. To claim you.
Hold you. And never let you feel the sting of loneliness again. "
Longing took them, then, piece by piece. Unraveling one knot after the other, stripping them of all the grief, the fear, the heartbreak of the events of the Tribunal and the coming Campaign. Lips met, entangling in a language borne of healing pain and banished sorrow.
He took her to the bed, laid her down on the silken coverlet. Her robe fell open as his hands found her. Not to claim, but to remember. To make a rune of the curving lines of her and etch them into his skin.
His palm smoothed over her shoulder, traced the slope of her arm, brushed the inside of her wrist where her pulse fluttered fast. He pressed his mouth there. Then her ribs. Then her collarbone. The place where she always tensed first. Where her body betrayed her nerves even when her voice did not.
Then his mouth found the brand—not with heat, but with grief.
He kissed it. Pressed his cheek to the scarred flesh.
Don’t look, she whispered through the Bond. Please.
This place is where they tried to silence your breath. To snuff out what you are. You prevailed. Survived. Avenged your honor. There is no shame in that save for my failure in stopping them.
She took a shuddering breath as he kissed lower.
Then lower.
And lower.
He caressed her thighs, enthralled as she opened for him like something wild and blooming. His mouth moved upward, lips brushing sensitive skin, his hands holding her open to his worship.
I want to remember this. He kissed the tender flesh above her knee, his stubble dragging just enough to make her shiver. Every breath. Every sound you make.
You’ll forget. You’ll be gone for so long…
Kailorien looked up at her, his eyes dark with ancient promise.
“No,” he said. “You will live in every heartbeat I carry.”
He loved her with intent, with purpose, making a memory of it that could never be erased.
Not with magic, not with time. When they joined in body, breath, and soul, each union stripped them further from their mortal forms. Trappings, the voice inside of Auryn had called it.
Gods wearing mortal skin. Yet mortality had never felt so exquisite, so agonizing, so incredible.
Their bodies rocked together in a drawn-out primal rhythm. His arms trembled with restraint, lips never far from hers. Every motion was an echo—a devotion—a fealty.
I am yours.
I will return.
You are not forgotten.
My sweet girl. My starlight.
Her fingers clutched at his back, pulling him deeper as she arched into him.
“Breathe for me…” she begged. “Until I know no other taste but yours.”
Once, then again, he took her to ruin and beyond.
Nearly asleep, her eyes fluttered closed, then opened, dazed and shining.
You won’t be gone forever, will you?
He kissed her.
No, sweetfire. I will carve a warpath through the land until Astenos himself begs me to rest…but I will find what I seek, and I will return to claim you…and our freedom.
“Do you swear it?"
“I do. Now hush. Fall into me. I want to know how many times your soul can call my name before the sun returns.”