32. Gemira #2
I pull away because if I stay, I won’t be able to stop myself, and the truth will take him from me for good.
“I’ll be right back.”
He searches my face, and whatever he finds makes his brow furrow deeper, but he doesn’t push. He just lifts his hand and brushes his knuckles against my cheek, so tender I almost break.
Grier offers me his arm and guides me away.
I look back and immediately know I shouldn’t have. The hurt on his face is raw, and underneath it is the quiet fracturing of a man watching something slip through his fingers. My body tries to turn back before my mind catches up, and I have to force myself forward.
Grier guides me through the hall and out a set of glass doors onto a wide stone terrace.
The night air hits my face. Below us, the ceremony grounds spread out in the moonlight.
The altar is a masterwork of magic, with pale stone shaped into flowing curves that catch the torchlight. A display of power as much as devotion.
Grier stops at the terrace railing, hand sliding from my arm to my wrist, holding there a breath before he lets me go. He settles beside me, steady and patient, the way he always is when I need him most.
“That bad?” I try for a smile, but it doesn’t land.
He holds my gaze like an anchor holds a ship.
“You don’t have to be fine, Gemma. Not with me.”
The words land somewhere deep, and I let them. Because he means it. He’s always meant it.
“I know,” I say, exhaling slowly.
He nods and lets the silence sit. He just waits, the way he always does, until I’m ready.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “For all of this. For—”
“Don’t,” he says quietly. “You don’t owe me an apology.”
I owe him so much more than an apology. I owe him a version of me that isn’t in love with someone else.
“The ceremony,” he says, his voice shifting, still soft but practical now. “Don’t worry about the protocol, just stay next to me. Every time I tug your arm—” He demonstrates with a light pull at my elbow. “Kneel with me. That’s it.”
It’s simple, something I can hold onto.
“Thank you, Grier.”
His eyes flicker with something he won’t let himself say.
“Come on.” He tilts his head toward the stairs leading down to the grounds. “Before he loses his mind.”
We descend the terrace stairs and weave through the crowd toward Ryewood. He spots me immediately, and the tension in his shoulders eases the moment our eyes meet. But not completely. There’s still a furrow between his brows, still questions he’s holding back.
His hand finds the small of my back the instant I’m close enough. Like he was counting the breaths until he could touch me again.
“I’m right here,” he murmurs as a reminder and a promise.
And somehow that makes it worse. Because he means it, he’s not going anywhere. But I am.
I spot Finn and Rosie near a cluster of lesser nobles on the opposite side of the altar. Finn catches my eye, one eyebrow lifting, checking on me from across the grounds.
I give him the smallest nod. He doesn’t look convinced, but his eyes stay on mine, warm in a way that means he’s got me regardless, before turning his attention back to Rosie.
“It’s starting,” Grier says quietly.
The crowd falls silent as the officiant takes his place at the altar.
Lord and Lady Willowmere step forward together. She’s dressed in pale green silk, and he in formal black. They move in unison, with their hands already intertwined with the ease of two people who’ve spent a lifetime learning each other.
The officiant raises his arms, and his voice carries across the grounds.
“We gather to witness the tethering of two souls, two hearts, two magics becoming one.”
A tethering. Not the simple vows commoners exchange, but real magic. The awakened are the only ones who can do it because they’re the only ones with magic to give. Another thing I’ll never have with him. Don’t. Don’t think about it.
“I wonder what their display will be,” a noblewoman murmurs nearby. “My sister’s tethering grew the most beautiful Sycamore. Took root right there at the altar.”
Her companion hums. “Lord Ashford’s was a rosebush that still blooms every spring.”
The magic mirrors the connection, or so they say. The greater the love, the more powerfully the magic answers.
The couple turns to face each other with hands clasped and foreheads touching, so close they’re breathing the same air.
“In the tradition of our ancestors,” the officiant continues, “you will speak the sacred vows. And then you will open your magic to one another, letting it flow between you freely, tethering your souls for all the days of your lives.”
Grier’s hand tugs gently at my elbow, and I kneel with him on the cold stone as the crowd does the same around us.
Lady Willowmere speaks first, her voice steady and sure, the voice of a woman who has loved the same man for decades and would choose him again in a heartbeat.
“I offer you my magic, my heart, my life. From this moment until my last breath, I am yours.”
Ryewood’s hand shifts from my back to the nape of my neck, where his thumb makes a featherlight touch that makes my skin hum. I glance at him; he’s watching the altar, his expression soft and wanting. Then his gaze shifts to me. And the look in his eyes—
Don’t. Don’t read into it—
I force my attention back to the ceremony. Lord Willowmere’s voice is rougher, thick with emotion.
“I offer you my magic, my heart, my life. From this moment until my last breath, I am yours.”
My throat tightens, the heat behind my eyes builds, and I have to push back the tears and lock every muscle in my face to keep it from showing. The most beautiful words I’ve ever heard, and I’ll never get to say them to the man beside me.
Grier tugs my arm again, and the contact grounds me enough that my lungs unlock. We rise with the crowd. For a moment, nothing happens. Then the ground hums beneath my feet, faint at first, like the earth is stirring from its sleep.
The couple’s hands tighten around each other. Their eyes are closed, foreheads still pressed together, opening themselves to each other.
The vibration grows. Tiny cracks spider across the flagstones, and small green shoots push through, delicate and tender, reaching toward the moonlight. The crowd murmurs in appreciation.
“Beautiful,” someone whispers.
The shoots become vines, and the vines become saplings. Flowers bloom at the couple’s feet, cream and violet, spreading outward in a gentle wave. Gold spores drift upward, glinting in the night sky. This is what a tethering looks like. This is what love looks like when magic gives it form.