Chapter 22 Kailia #2
Niara did the same thing, dumping the rest of the water on their other hands. “As the moon illuminates the dark, she marks you as each other’s.”
“Breathe, Kailia,” Cethin whispered, and she didn’t understand what he meant.
But then the cord around their wrists erupted in bright light, bathing them in a white glow.
That warm and heady thing in her soul erupted too.
She could feel it everywhere—from her toes to the crown of her head.
But on her left palm, there was a stinging sensation, sharp and biting, as if tiny shards of glass were being pressed into her flesh.
She tried to yank her hands back, but the cords at her wrists held them there.
More than that, Cethin interlocked their fingers, keeping their palms joined tightly together.
She couldn’t see anything, all of it too bright and blinding, but she could feel the icy touch of his power wrapping around her as if to comfort her.
There was a pulsing in her soul. An erratic heartbeat thrumming in her ears that drowned out everything else.
She didn’t know how long they stood there, but everything slowly faded.
The light. The stinging on her palm. She was trembling, suddenly feeling the iciness of the lake as the sound of the waterfall rushed over her again, the pulsing sound waning.
Niara was gone, and the cord that had wound around their wrists was now in the water, floating between them.
“Breathe, Kailia,” Cethin said again, a soft order. “Look at me and breathe.”
She lifted her gaze, finding Cethin’s eyes glowing as bright as the stars. The warmth in her soul stirred, her racing heartbeat slowing and her breathing evening out as seconds ticked by.
“What was that?” she finally asked.
Cethin didn’t answer, but he did release her hands. He bent to retrieve the cord from the water, looping it around his neck. When he stood again, he reached for her hand, turning the left one face up. A Mark was there. Not black like union Marks, but silvery-white. Pale as moonlight.
She immediately looked at her other hand, finding it bare. Studying the new Mark, she asked, “This is a union Mark?”
“It is a Moon Mark,” he replied. “They are only visible at night.”
Moon Marks? She’d never heard of such a thing.
“I’ve seen plenty of people in the kingdom with Union Marks,” she said, her trembling intensifying as the adrenaline of what she’d done waned.
“I mentioned some choose something different,” he went on, gesturing to the shore. He didn’t touch her, but she felt his hand hovering along her lower back as she moved. The long dress had become heavy, laden down with the lake water. “By some, I meant those I descend from.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, her teeth beginning to chatter.
“I’ll explain at home…wife,” he replied, holding out his hand once more. His bare hand. There was no Mark adorning his palm.
“Where is your Mark then?”
“At home. I’ll explain at home,” he said again, worry flickering in his eyes. “When you’re warm.”
She looked from Cethin to the waterfall to the full moon, feeling like she’d just participated in something far bigger than a simple marriage.
Feeling as if once again, she’d thought she was the cat in this game they were playing when she was really the mouse.
Sliding her arms into the plush robe, she cinched the sash.
She was freezing, so it was rather ridiculous that she’d put on one of the silk nightdresses that Cethin procured for her.
They were just so godsdamn comfortable and easy to move in.
Actually, they’d be great for hunting in if they had a little more support in the chest. Or any support, really.
Wandering down the hall to the sitting room, she went still at the fire in the hearth on the other side of the room.
Cethin was standing before it, his back to her with one hand in his pocket.
He’d lost his jacket, the garment tossed over a nearby armchair, and he’d pulled the band from his hair, letting the strands brush his shoulders.
He’d rolled back the sleeves of his tunic, the material tight around his biceps.
She wasn’t sure where the cord for the union went.
Clearing her throat lightly, she took a few more steps into the room, and he turned, smiling softly. Plucking up wineglasses from a nearby side table, he crossed the space, passing one to her.
“Come warm up by the fire,” he said, already halfway back across the room.
“I’m warming up already,” she replied, keeping her distance. Instead of going to the sofa in front of the hearth, she lowered into an armchair farther back, tucking her feet beneath her.
He studied her, clearly trying to decide why she’d refuse such a thing, but she didn’t offer any explanations. Instead, she said, “Tell me what I just committed to. Why do I bear a Mark and you do not?”
“I do. And you committed to a marriage,” Cethin answered, abandoning the hearth and moving to the chair across from her.
With his legs spread wide, he propped his temple on his fist while his wineglass dangled from the fingers of his other hand.
He’d undone several buttons at the top of the tunic, revealing the pale skin of his chest. “That is what the Bargain was.”
“Yes, but I assumed that meant a standard union with a standard Union Mark,” she countered, taking a sip of her wine. The sweet and crisp notes danced across her tongue.
He shrugged. “It was not specified when the Bargain was made.”
“How convenient,” she deadpanned.
He smirked, bringing his glass to his lips and holding her stare while he took a drink.
“Since this wasn’t a standard union, what did I commit to?” Kailia pushed. “You said it was something your family chooses. What does that mean? And where is your Mark?”
He reached for his shirt, pulling it open wider to show her the left side of his chest. Sure enough, a pale silvery-white Mark was there, glimmering like moonlight, but his sat atop another Mark, this one black.
“Why is yours there? And why does it look different?” she demanded.
He smirked, letting his shirt fall back along his skin. “Because that is where I decided I wanted my Mark to go. You chose your hand.”
“I didn’t—” But she snapped her mouth shut when he arched a brow. “You could have told me…”
But he had. He’d said she needed to pick the place.
She’d assumed he’d pick his hand so it was visible to everyone.
A public claiming. She hadn’t expected him to put his Mark in a place few would see unless he was shirtless, even if they’d only be visible at night.
It made her feel as if she were some kind of secret.
Something he didn’t want to claim in public, and it made no sense.
She didn’t care, but he’d sure made it seem like he’d cared these last few months.
Instead, he’d opted to place his Mark directly atop another one, as if it didn’t matter to him at all.
As if she wasn’t deserving of her own place on his flesh.
Something in her chest made a weird twisting motion at the thought, and she took another healthy drink of her wine before she said, “How is this different from any other union ceremony?”
Something like concern flickered across his features, gone in the next breath.
“My bloodline has traditions of its own. Celestial Rites are one of them. Many of them have been adopted by Avonleya. Our Farewells and unions taking place on full moons, for example. But a Lunar Bond is a sacred rite that is kept closer. More private. Not all choose it, but some do.”
Kailia turned her hand over, studying the shimmering Mark on her palm. “It will just…disappear during the day.”
He nodded.
“Why would someone choose a Union Mark over this? If it is so much more sacred?” she asked.
“Union Marks are similar to mortal marriages. Simple and beautiful in their own right. But a Lunar Marriage is something more, and it can only be invoked by certain lineages.”
“Let me guess,” she all but drawled. “The royal ones?”
“Not always,” he answered with a small smirk.
She hummed, running the pads of her fingers along the Mark. “So, in essence, it’s simply a shinier version of a Union Mark.”
“No,” Cethin growled, and she straightened at the tone. At the utter fury simmering in that one syllable.
“Still your favorite word, I see,” she murmured, draining her wine.
“Union Marks can be dissolved,” he said tightly. “A Lunar Marriage cannot. It is eternal.”
“So you’ve said.”
She was still bothered by…all of it. He’d used this as a means to tie her to himself, but he didn’t want that claim visible. If this rite was so much more than a union, if he was one of the few who could invoke it, why keep it hidden? The logical explanation was that it was because of her.
“Refill?”
She startled in the chair at finding him standing before her. Then she realized she hadn’t heard him move. She always knew where everyone in the room was at all times. She was always observing and anticipating, but this male was…
She was becoming far too comfortable. Too lost in errant thoughts and notions that didn’t matter. None of this mattered. She was a means to an end for him, and he was the same for her.
“No, thank you,” she replied, moving to set the glass aside, but he took it from her before she could get too far.
Setting everything on a nearby table, he returned, slipping his hand into his pocket and pulling out something small and onyx.
Her arrowhead.
He held it out, the thing seeming almost small in his large palm. Bare large palm, but whatever.
“I am a male of my word,” he said with another smirk.
“You’re a male forced by a Bargain,” she retorted, staring at the arrowhead and longing to take it. Instead, she looked up at him and said, “I don’t want it back simply because of this Bargain.”
His brows crashed together. “What do you mean? You’ve been fighting me for this from the very beginning.”
“Yes, and you’ve been very annoying in all of it,” she replied.
“I don’t understand what has changed.”
“A lot has changed in a short amount of time, and that is unsettling. A lot has changed and nothing at all.”
He shoved a hand through his hair, pushing out a harsh breath. “Is this what it’s like inside that head of yours all the time?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, staring over the top of her for a moment before bringing his gaze back to hers. “While I think I understand your intention here, I would like to make sure. You feel as if you shouldn’t have this back because you need to…earn it. To prove your loyalty?”
“Maybe?”
He rolled his lips in clear irritation before releasing another breath.
Pinching the arrowhead in his fingers, he held it up between them.
“The whole purpose of this was for you to help me protect the people of this kingdom. We need your weapons and your skill. We need you, Kailia. And you need this back to help. What better way to prove that loyalty?”
She dropped her gaze to her lap, smoothing the soft material of her robe with her fingers. “I don’t want everyone to know that this is how it started. That I was… I don’t want these people I’m supposed to help rule over to think I once was going to walk away and leave them to their curses.”
Cethin lowered to a crouch before her, one of his hands resting on the armrest. “Our story is just that, Kailia. It’s ours. No one needs to know. Our secrets can stay in the shadows between us for the rest of time if we wish.”
She found herself leaning closer, her heart thumping to an odd beat in her chest. “And what of the secrets we keep from each other?”
His smile was as dark as his magic, and he leaned in a fraction closer too.
Close enough, she could feel his words dance across her lips.
Her mind was screaming that he was too close, but every other part of her…
She’d never wanted to pull someone nearer and shove them away at the same time. She didn’t understand any of it.
“It will be my greatest pleasure to uncover every single one, wife. Even the ones you don’t know you carry,” he said, his cadence low, and the words seemed to skitter along her skin, pebbled flesh left in their wake.
Then he stood, dropping the arrowhead in her lap before he grabbed his jacket off the chair and headed down the hall to the bedchamber.
She loosed a shaky breath, feeling the Bargain Mark on her skin lift as the Bargain was completed. A marriage, and, in exchange, her arrow and protection.
A means to an end for both of them. Nothing more.
Picking up the arrowhead, she twisted it between her fingers. The weight of it was comfortable. Familiar. Everything that this situation wasn’t.
Closing her fist tightly around it, she squeezed, feeling the edges slice her flesh and the blood well.
This had never been about the arrowhead.
She didn’t need it to create more weapons.
That had been a lie. She lost them all the time, and it had never been an issue.
Which meant having it back now would not fix whatever was wrong with her power.
It wasn’t going to resolve why she couldn’t move through the smoke and ashes that called to her.
No, this had never been about the arrow. Not entirely anyway.
Opening her hand, she looked down, shifting the arrowhead to the side. The moon Mark shimmered among the red, as if anointed by a blood moon rather than pale moonlight.
Maybe that would have been more fitting in the end.