35. To All That Comes After
To All That Comes After
SERAPHAE
Behind the dark sky somewhere was the full moon, bearing witness to the bond-breaking ritual.
We stood in a field at the base of the cliffs. The estate loomed above on one side and nothing but knee-high brush stretched on the other. We had left the horses at the road and walked the rest of the way in. Caelan had looked ready to give up halfway through.
I had asked why it needed to be out here.
Maerith had answered with unwarranted cheer.
“Because if it goes wrong, the detonation won't kill anyone innocent.”
That was when we decided to leave Riven at the road.
She walked a small circle through the clearing, eyes to the sky. “This will do.” And sat down on the ground.
Caelan and I looked at her.
She glanced up, amber eyes glowing unnaturally. “Sit.” She patted the ground.
We sat.
She rubbed her hands together casually like she was warming them. As if this was not a ritual that might level a field if it went wrong.
“The items.”
Caelan produced a parcel wrapped in cloth and set it in the grass.
Maerith opened it carefully. The mirror shard. The vial of veil ash. The bundle of glassroot vine.
She raised her palm, and all three lifted to hover around us. The rune etchings along her arms glowed the same amber as her eyes. The air folded inward, and I was suddenly enveloped in a sinking feeling of impending doom that made every instinct I had want to run.
I inhaled sharply.
Caelan reached for my hand and squeezed it once.
Maerith spoke in something ancient before her voice layered. Others beneath her own, speaking in the same cadence.
I had seen many things in my life. And this was utterly terrifying.
The vial unstopped itself, and the veil ash drifted out and hung in the air. The glassroot untied. The mirror shard split into pieces so small it looked like scattered stars. All three drifted toward each other and caught in bright white flame that felt cold instead of hot.
She opened her palms toward us.
We laid our arms into them, palms up. The serpent ink flared red the moment our skin met hers.
The white flame rounded into a smooth sphere, then began to melt. Light bled downward in strands, directly into the ink. I fought the urge to pull away. It felt like ice water kissing the skin first, then cold needles pressing slowly into bone. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t pleasant either.
It kept going until the sphere was gone and Maerith's chanting had dropped to a whisper.
Then nothing but the sound of crickets and the wind through the brush.
Maerith closed her eyes and waited.
The red glow faded from the ink. The ink, however, was still present.
She opened her eyes. Looked at us, then at our arms before laughing loudly, her hand coming up to muffle it.
Cold traveled down my spine, and I looked at Caelan, who only stared at Maerith.
“Well,” she said. “This is embarrassing.”
“What do you mean?” Caelan and I said it simultaneously.
“I can't break the bond.” She winced. “Not safely, anyway.”
The words cut clean through the night air.
“What do you mean?” I asked again.
She shrugged. “I did what I could. The rest is entirely both of your fault.” Her eyes moved between us. “The bond won't break because one of you, or both of you, is unwilling.” The usual humor she wore on her face turned grave. “I can forcibly break it, but that would collapse something else.”
I opened my mouth. Then closed it.
The bond won't break.
Air seized somewhere in my chest. It won't break, and it was my fault. I had been having second thoughts for weeks and hadn't admitted it clearly enough to call it what it was. And now we were tethered because I wouldn't let him go.
“It's not your fault,” Caelan said quietly.
I turned to him. He was watching me, jaw tight.
“Until you are both willing, the bond stays.” Maerith looked at Caelan. “And the longer it stays, the deeper it etches into bone.”
The wind moved through the brush.
The crickets kept going.
And we were what Maelor would call comprehensively screwed.
We walked back to the main road in silence.
The failed ritual felt like sandbags tied to my legs. Every step I took was an effort. As if a part of me did not want to leave the ritual site, and returning to it could change the outcome. Leaving here meant accepting the fact that the bond would not break, and I wasn’t ready for that.
The bond did not care if we were ready.
Caelan’s hand found mine in the darkness. His fingers were cold from the night air. He looked at me and said nothing because there were no words to soften this.
When we got back to where we had left Riven, he took one look at the ink still on our wrists and saved us the explanation.
Even Maerith lost her sense of humor and kept quiet. She didn’t say anything as she left us to head back into the city. I appreciated that.
We returned to the estate just after sixth bell.
All five of us sat there in the dining room, absorbing it all with wine and the loud crackle of fire from the hearth.
Brie didn't comment and handed me a glass of wine. I drank it in one go.
Maelor was less careful. “So all you have to do is be willing,” he said. “How hard is that?”
Brie elbowed him in the ribs.
He shrugged. “I’m just saying. Willing. Right here. But no one asked me. An abundance of willingness.”
No one answered him.
The first bottle went quickly. Passed between hands and poured without either of us initiating a conversation.
Maelor, once again, was first to speak.
“I’m going to need significantly more wine before I have anything useful to say. Has anyone tried significantly more wine?”
We opened a second bottle.
By the time we were halfway through that, acceptance started to settle in.
I was tracing the rim of the glass with my fingers, focusing on that and nothing else. The smoothness of it, the sound it made when I angled my finger just right.
When I looked up, Caelan was watching me.
He searched my face for something. I wasn’t sure if he found what he was looking for, but he peeled his gaze off me and let it settle on the center of the table instead.
“We keep moving forward.” He didn’t say it to anyone in particular, but the words landed anyway.
My attention caught on Riven across the table. His eyes were already on me as if they had been there for a while now. No one seemed to notice how his fingers had tightened around his glass. Sympathy moved through them as he held my gaze. His jaw clenched once before he finally looked away.
I looked at Caelan, hope clear on his face. The wine must have had a liquid form of optimism. Though I had yet to feel its effect, I raised my glass anyway.
“To the continued poor decisions that we will no doubt make.”
Brie raised hers. “And the consequences we will bear together.” She nodded once and smiled at me from across the table.
I looked around the table at the four of them. Xander had been the only person who mattered to me for a very long time. He was the only person that I had allowed to matter. I hadn’t planned for more.
Now I was sitting here surrounded by people I would kill to protect. It was very inconvenient, and it made me smile.
Maelor was mid-pour and raised the bottle instead. “And the helpful commentary that I will forever supply.”
We did not expect Riven to say anything when he raised his glass.
“To all that comes after,” he said.
Everyone looked at him, each with different forms of surprise.
He was only looking at me before he let his gaze drop to the glass and drank.
It took us a moment to recover before we followed his lead.
Maelor narrowed his eyes at Riven. “When did you develop a personality?”
Riven looked at him with flat eyes and a relaxed jaw. The look was supposed to be neutral, but felt more intimidating than it had any reason to be. He held Maelor’s gaze and said nothing.
“There he is.” Maelor smiled and pressed a hand to his chest, relieved.
Brie released a soft chuckle, and I my lip pulled into a smile despite it all.
Caelan was grinning into his glass.
We finished the rest of the second bottle with significantly more optimism than we had with the first one.
And it had nothing to do with the wine but everything to do with who it was shared with.