Chapter Five
Vonetta
The spring water is so cold on my scrubbed, raw skin, it burns through every nerve end. Each barb on the bone comb that the veiled sister runs through my wet hair scrapes my scalp, and I am half convinced I am on fire. Every sensation is visceral and overwhelming.
When I am cleaned to their satisfaction, I am wrapped in a silken fur and sat by the fire. The flames have died to embers, but the coals are a hotbed of glowing red. I seek their warmth in my limbs, and after a time, the chill of the cold pool leaves my bones.
When I am sufficiently dry, rich, scented oils are rubbed into my skin. Hands move over my arms and legs like a deafening balm to my senses. My muscles tentatively ease from the torture of the day.
Someone, perhaps Vestera, braids two small strands of hair to the back of my neck and pins them there.
The rest of my long, jet black hair trails down my back to the space where my waist narrows.
I breathe steadily in and out with intent, hoping to release the tension that has built up in every part of my body this day.
I am ready. Physically. Mentally? Emotionally? I am a tempest.
After I am dressed in a thin cream tunic, I relax back into the fur nest and continue to try to control my breathing.
Any moment, the veiled sisters will return and walk me to the Rite.
I try to maintain my composure, breathing deeply into my belly and holding it there, one beat, two, three…
I try to breathe out, but the air remains caught in my chest, sputtering out of me in short jagged exhalations.
I am here for an eternity, adrift between consciousness and the chaos of my body.
Images dance across the ceiling of the cavern.
My dreams, the visions in the mirror, the eyes, both blue and brown, that have plagued my thoughts these last weeks.
When the sisters come, they arrive on the beats of a drum just beyond the stone walls.
…
I must walk the winding path up to the shrine by feel, because when the attendants arrive, they cover my eyes with a silken cloth and tie it tight behind my head.
Their presence remains beside me and their hands at my elbows steady me.
More than that, I have an intuition that many sisters have walked this path before me, and my mind is quieted.
The drums beat in time with my heart. Heavy and resonant strikes alter our consciousness.
The excited whispers draw nearer, and a slight pressure on my shoulders instructs me to my knees. I rest back onto my bare feet behind me, hands clasped at the small of my back as the drums slow.
Those gathered have quieted, too. Elated whispers ebb to a quiet murmur as the energy melts from excitement to anticipation.
The sound of footfalls from the left and right of where I am kneeling grows closer.
The drum shifts again, a crescendo with their approach.
Them. My heartbeat quickens, but I remain still.
They kneel in front of me, facing inward but not close enough that we are touching.
The heat of the pyre and scent of smoke and incense wafting to us makes me heady.
The ascent of the drums grows and breaks. The silence they leave behind is deafening. If not for the two warm bodies in front of me, I could believe I am completely alone here. Time passes, but I have no concept of how much in the darkness.
The Lady speaks. Her voice projects through the shrine and straight into my mind. She tells the same story she told me that first day in the sanctuary, but now the images that appear behind my eyelids are clear.
I am witness to the beginning of everything. Naedra, Caelestis, and Nerine kneel between tall standing stones, a sacred circle. A holy clearing.
“The Land below us,” Naedra speaks, her voice earthen and low. “No lies between us.” They respond in unison.
“The sea before us”
“No betrayal among us.”
“The sky above us”
“No division between three.”
“For Elemyr, We are One.”
The light that shines between the sovereign Three is blinding and ethereal. Someone unties the blindfold, but I do not see anything through the haze of smoke and incense. We are each lifted to our feet, and we rise unsteadily as the drums begin again.
When my vision returns, it is distorted and mercurial.
The Lady is near, and she places our hands together, one atop another.
One set soft and tentative, a hand formed of clay.
The other is calloused and steady, stronger than I expect.
The smells of the sea and the forest waft to me, mixing with the fragrant air of the ritual space.
Bindings wrap each of my wrists now, twining between us and pinning our hands together. They are tight, but the effect is comforting. Warmth creeps through me, and the effect is sublime. The hand in my right grows clammy and warm, but I do not mind it.
The men in front of me come into focus. To the left, sandy brown hair and soft features, eyes like the sea. To the right, loamy and like liquid amber at the center. I see dark hair and a firmly set jaw. They both face me with expressions of composed serenity.
When the Lady speaks again, her tone contains gravity, the authority of the Gods.
“The Trinity stands at the center of this land.
Not apart—bound. Balanced. Their vow holds us in harmony.”
The bindings tighten around us, affirming her declaration. When the Lady next speaks, it is softer now, but I feel with certainty it carries to every witness at the shrine.
“This night, we recommit this vow in their honor. Each element is represented among you. The Trinity for a new age. Vonetta Sage, the representative of the Land.” Her voice warms,
“Wren Ashyr, of Sky.” The bindings solidify. “Chiron Grey Daciana, of the Sea.”
The Lady’s delicate fingers lift my chin, and I gaze back into the eyes of those I am joined to.
The Lady speaks in low tones, a vow that I answer instinctively.
My voice is my own and yet otherworldly and strange on my tongue.
In turn, each man before me does the same.
The slight hand of the Lady lifts each chin forward.
Their eyes focus, and the sacred words flow from their lips as if we had always known them.
Quietly living in our bones for this day.
Guided by a force I do not comprehend, we lean forward in unison, our foreheads pressed together at the temple. I feel an energy surrounding us, and I realize the ritual bindings have fallen away from our skin. I feel them, still connecting us all the same. The quiet is heady and tranquil now.
When the Lady calls out, her voice is filled with reverence and joy, inspiring the same in each witness.
“The Trinity is sealed this night. Go now and seek its delight.”
I suck in a breath, and my lungs fill with rich and euphoric incense from the fire.
Bodies start to move around us, at first slowly.
I remain as their presence hovers at the edges of my consciousness, then blurs.
Music vibrates, and the space around us fills with heat and sound.
The energy of the space changes as the gathering draws closer.
When we rise, we become the fluid center of an ever-growing crowd.
The drumming reverberates in my chest, and the vibrations soothe the mass into a gentle sway. We are unmoored from the soft grass beneath us but held in collective warmth.
I am just beyond the edge of consciousness when the energy builds to freneticism. So I let it go, my will. Swaying and stepping in time with the drums. There is no clear image here, just light and shadow, arms and hands moving like waves.
We brush together without friction; we are the beginning of something alive and changing.
The fluidity ripples, like the surface of the mirror, and the energy shifts.
Instead of a soft impermeable body, we become something else.
Cohesive, a moving spiral. Where skin connects, there is no inhibition, only contact.
I have a gentle knowing that one of my bonded is at my back, close but tentative, calming.
One is at my chest, tethering me in my skin so I do not blow away.
The spiral moves us outward, slowly. Methodically.
When the night breeze touches my damp skin, it contrasts starkly with the heat of the two bodies surrounding me.
The cool air in my lungs heightens my senses.
Hands pass between us, a gentle pressure as the spiral moves us farther from the fire. We are deeper into the night, and without knowing it, we are delivered back to the mouth of the cave. We step into the darkness unbidden.
The scents of rich, deep earth emanate from the dirt walls of the entrance.
The sounds of the gathering fall away. The guiding strikes of the drums remain the deeper we walk, penetrating earth and stone.
The chamber is small when the walls change from soil to rock.
The small fire has been maintained, and I can make out the familiar nest of furs from my cloistering.
The proximity of the bodies next to me in the darkness is close.
We are so close. When a hand presses to my shoulder, it is heated and inviting; it is asking me something.
So I press forward slightly. The presence behind me grows closer, faintly touching but not pressing. It is a question, too, in its own way.
My hands move instinctively; there is a calm rightness to this moment.
The invisible bonds of this union carry us closer to one another.
My hand touches a lightly stubbled jaw in front of me.
It leans into my palm, exhaling, then breathing me in.
A nose skates lightly across my neck, and the sensation is…
divine. Delicate fingers trail to my shoulder, a ghost's touch.
Hands larger and more firm, land gently at my waist. There is ecstasy here in the deepness of the earth, if we so choose it.
A quiet pressure is growing inside me. Building from my core and sparking its way across my exposed skin. When lips graze my jaw, I close my eyes and lean into the form behind me. He is tense. I can taste his uncertainty. But his curious touches at my neck and shoulders continue.
The first brush of lips on my own is so soft, a whisper on my skin. My left hand reaches back to the stone wall behind us, and the cold surface grounds me into my body with dizzying clarity. I can feel…something. Markings.
“Wait,” I whisper, using my voice for the first time since the vow. “Wait,” I say louder now, clearer. Everyone becomes still. Slowly, the man in front steps back, and I step forward. The man behind me slides away from the wall.
We remain this way for a long moment, the first time we’ve been truly present and in our bodies together.
My eyes adjust to the darkness of the cave, and I move slowly, still finding my footing on its uneven ground.
A small torch sits beside the fire, and I place it deep into the flame.
After a moment, they overtake it, and more light enters the small space.
When I walk back to the wall, the two men follow me with tentative steps.
The wall is filled with faint etchings. The closer I am, the more of it I can read. My eyes adjust to the flame near me, and I focus on the wall. These are names. Some wore away to nearly nothing at the top. The newest ones toward the bottom are familiar.
Aris, Saint, Kellen
Elias, Solace, Jude
Ander, Kiaan, Leilani
Rian, Brennus, Bo
Emyr, Adrien, Isla
Connor, Arianelle,
Adira.
My breath catches in my chest. These names, these are the Trinities.
Each name, a king or queen, when they left this chasm.
The weight of reality hangs heavy in the air between us.
The weight of destiny, too. I turn to the right, and the dark-haired man is there. He looks…haunted by what we’ve found.
“Chiron,” The name slips out in a whisper, and his eyes flick to me and away in an instant.
He turns his back to the wall. I know that Adira was the representative of the land, and she died before Chiron was born.
The Lost Queen. His parents haven’t been a Trinity for nearly all of their reign.
His grief is a tangible thing. As one without a mother, I understand this feeling well.
The gaping hole in me that never truly heals.
I move back to the wall and to the other person in the cave. Wren. His arms are folded across his chest, and he is stony, perceptive.
The energy of the Rite and the revelry has drained from our encounter and our quiet revelations on the wall.
“We should sleep,” I whisper, and they both nod their agreement.
In silence, we make ourselves ready for sleep and slip into our own space in the nest of furs, each careful to avoid touching one another.
The tentative and curious nature of this ordeal is cooled.
I lie awake in the center of them, these strangers.
My bonded. My thoughts slowly dissolve into the shadows of the cave.