59. Chapter 59 #3
I could hear it—distant, muffled, like sound traveling through water. The King was speaking again. Something about unity. Something about healing. Something about the glorious future their prince would build with his new bride. The King's voice faded to noise.
Our little dog wriggled under the table and planted itself on my feet like a small, caped sentinel. Every time the crowd cheered, it growled.
Maxx glanced down. "Bold stance from someone who was licking royal boots this morning."
The dog ignored him. Kept growling.
"Fair enough," Maxx said. "Carry on."
I smiled and plucked her off the ground to settle her on my lap. I buried my face in her fur for just a moment. Enjoying the only honest thing in the room. But then the air changed.
Something was watching. I lifted my head.
The twins.
They stood at the edge of the crowd.
The Seer Twins—veiled, silent, their pale faces turned away from the altar where everyone else was looking. They weren't watching the King. Weren't watching Eryndor or the princess or the ceremonial preparations.
They were staring at our table.
At Serenya.
I turned.
Serenya wasn't holding me anymore.
She was hunched over the table, her body rigid, her hands writing in the Codex with frantic, jerking motions. Scratching. Carving words into it with movements that weren't quite her own.
"Serenya?" Maxx reached for her arm. "Serenya, what are you—"
She didn't respond.
The quill ran dry. She kept writing anyway—dragging the metal nib across pages, tearing it. When that wasn't enough, her fingernails took over. Scratching. Digging. Drawing blood.
"Serenya!"
I grabbed her wrists. Tried to stop her. Her head snapped up.
Her eyes were wrong. Filmed over. Distant. Looking at something none of us could see.
And when she spoke, it wasn't her voice.
"The Sundered Soul walks two roads."
The words came from everywhere. From Serenya's mouth, yes—but also from the walls, the floor, the air itself. A chorus of voices layered over each other. Ancient. Vast. The Collective Voice of magic older than kingdoms.
"One of shadow. One of light."
The scratches on the Codex began to glow.
A luminescence that hurt to look at, that crawled across the ruined pages like living ink.
"Apart, they are the wound."
The glow lifted from the table.
It rose into the air, forming shapes. Images. I saw—
My Marks.
They were rendered in light and darkness, hovering above our table like a vision from another world. The crowd was still focused on the altar, on the King, on the wedding that was already in progress. No one noticed the miracle happening in the corner.
No one except the twins.
"Together, they are the thread."
A new element appeared in the vision.
Red.
A thread of crimson light, weaving between the marks, wrapping around them, binding them. I recognized that magic. Knew it in my bones even though I could no longer feel it in my soul.
Soulbinding.
Eryndor's magic.
Maxx made a strangled sound. "That's—"
"Him," I breathed. "That's him."
"Do you, Prince Eryndor..."
The Priest's voice floated from the altar, distant but terribly clear.
"...take Princess Vivienne to be your bonded wife..."
Serenya’s head snapped back. Her voice rose, cracking into a scream that layered over the Priest's drone.
"But the soul cannot mend alone. Not by division. Not by might,” Serenya continued.
"...united in soul and duty..." The priest.
The vision above the table shifted. The thread tightened around the Marks. Drew them together. Closer. Closer. Until they began to merge—light and shadow becoming one, the boundary between them dissolving.
"Only when the lost thread binds hand to heart—" Serenya.
"...from this day until your last?" The priest.
The entire court held its breath.
The merged Marks burst into flame over the table.
Silver and black fire, consuming the vision, spreading outward until the thread itself caught. Burned. Turned to ash that drifted through the air like snow.
"—and heart to hand." Serenya.
"I do."
Eryndor’s answer was a whisper, but it hit with the force of an executioner's axe.
"And do you, Princess Vivienne, take Prince Eryndor to be your bonded husband?"
The fire over our table blazed brighter.
And in its center, I saw us.
Eryndor and me. Burning together. Our bodies dissolving into light, our souls merging with the Veil itself, stitching reality back together with our unity.
"Will the Veil remember its name." Serenya finished.
"I do." The princess’s voice rang triumphant.
Serenya collapsed.
She hit the table, then almost hit the floor, her body convulsing once before going still. Maxx caught her—barely—cradling her against his chest, his face contorted in terror.
"Serenya! Serenya, stay with me," he gasped.
But I couldn't move.
I was staring at the space where the vision had been. At the afterimage of two souls burning. At the prophecy spoken by a girl whose broken mind had finally become a perfect channel for the Veil itself.
Not by division.
The Soul-Rend was wrong. We were never supposed to be severed.
Only when the lost thread binds...
The bond is required to heal the Veil.
And I just destroyed it.
My knees hit the floor. The wound on my chest was screaming now, a white-hot line of absence that radiated outward into my arms, my spine, the desolate space behind my sternum where his warmth used to live. I desperately clawed at it and felt nothing. Not even my own heartbeat.
I looked toward the altar.
The priest raised his hands.
"Then by the power vested in me, I declare you bound. Husband and wife. Two souls, one purpose. May your union bring peace to this realm."
Light bloomed between them. Their Marks reaching, merging, settling into a silver glow that pulsed in perfect, steady rhythm. He was now tethered to Princess Vivienne, permanently.
The court erupted in applause.
I looked at the twins.
They were still watching. Still silent. But as I met their veiled gazes, they moved.
Slowly. Deliberately.
They bowed.
Not to me. Not to the King. Not to the newlywed couple basking in hollow celebration.
To Serenya. To the broken girl on the floor who had just channeled the truth of the realm through her shattered mind.
The Memory-Weaver. The one who saw what no one else could see.