Ramu nodded graciously to this and shifted his attention to Alyneri. “And here then would be Alyneri, Princess-Heir of Kandori, scion of my brother’s line, of whom I have heard so many tales of bravery.”
Alyneri pressed her palms together and bowed in the Kandori fashion. She lifted a smile to him as she straightened. “Thank you for coming here for us, my lord.”
“I can think of no better interlude to my duties.”
Knowing what those duties entailed, Alyneri felt all the more honored—and awed—by his officiating presence.
Ramu motioned the others into a circle and had Alyneri and Trell stand before him, holding each other’s hands. “Tonight we attend and bear witness to the mortal binding of Trell val Lorian and Alyneri Haxamanis.” He looked between the two of them before settling his intense gaze on Alyneri. “Alyneri, daughter of Jair, do you consent to be bound to this man, who is no Adept, but whose path you would walk as though your own?”
Alyneri’s heart did a little leap. She gazed at Trell—wonderingly, still hardly believing the moment was real, that this was truly happening—and somehow found breath to respond. “Yes, I do.”
Ramu shifted his attention to Trell. “Trell val Lorian, Prince of Dannym, brother-bound of Björn van Gelderan, do you consent to be bound to this woman, with full knowledge of what this entails? Do you willingly, of your own determinism, choose to walk this woman’s path as though your own, until Cephrael parts you?”
Trell’s gaze, holding Alyneri’s, made her heart dance. “I do.”
Ramu nodded to both of them. “So intended, so let it be. Trell,” and he motioned for Trell to turn to him. They stood for a moment facing each other, regarding each other, and then Ramu smiled. “It is my honor to awaken elae to your awareness. If you will permit me the truthreader’s hold…”
Trell stepped closer, and Ramu placed his hand over Trell’s forehead—thumb to temple, first and middle fingers to the pressure-points at the bridge of the nose, and ring and little finger pressing into the opposite temple.
Seeing Ramu’s hand splayed so, Alyneri immediately thought of Tanis. How she wished the lad might’ve been there to witness this moment in her life—this astonishing, impossible moment—when she and Trell joined their hearts and paths, and Trell was awakened to elae! How Tanis would’ve smiled upon them!
Trell’s eyes were closed, his lips set with an almost contemplative smile, as if he was mentally observing the drachwyr’s efforts and was intrigued by them. Knowing Trell, the fiery awakening of elae—a moment described by so many na’turna as a most terrifying experience, like unto standing in Divinity’s reckoning light—would simply be another marker on the ever-lengthening road of his past, a moment to ponder, or not, as and when life required; possibly a chance for learning, certainly a topic of introspection, yet no more than these unless circumstance bore it necessary.
‘Life comes at you, and you…handle it, Alyneri.’ This was the sum of his wisdom shared with her once. Yet so wise it seemed to her now, having wept and worried and despaired over his welfare for so many long weeks, able to do little more than hope, casting prayers into the heavens doubting anyone heard or cared; utterly isolated in her fear—at times her own life even seeming imperiled by it—with nothing else to do but tremble in the shadows of the unknown. Yet Trell, the while, had simply taken each moment, each day, at it came, and handled whatever life threw at him.
Alyneri had never known anyone who faced his mortal existence with such simplicity of expectation, yet who, by this very view, placed life so effortlessly under his control.
Moments passed and no one spoke, yet the world was hardly silent. That gathering of immortals drew the currents as sparrows to a newly seeded field. Elae swarmed them on excited wings, and no Adept within miles could’ve missed its song. Alyneri stood as though within the buffeting wind, feeling the currents fluttering around her. The Lord of the Heavens threaded Trell’s awareness with every strand of the lifeforce, waking him to elae’s melody, until—
Trell started, the barest captured breath, whereupon Ramu released him.
Trell opened his eyes with a powerful exhale and stared at Ramu. Then he looked fast to Alyneri and held out his hand to her, his gaze growing wider by the moment. She took his hand with joyous tears in her eyes.
“A mutual binding is woven by each wielder.” Ramu looked to the others. “Who works the pattern for Alyneri?”
Jaya stepped forward with a smile as glowing as the citrine gemstones dangling across her brow. “I will wield the threads on her behalf.”
“Very good, Jaya. Take your place at her side.” Ramu again looked to the others. “Who stands for Trell?”
“I do.” Náiir moved forward and placed a hand on Trell’s shoulder. Trell turned him a grateful smile.
Ramu nodded to his brother, then opened his palms and took a step back. “Prepare your workings.”
Jaya took Alyneri’s hand, whereupon she felt the drachwyr’s polite mental inquiry, a lady standing on the doorstep requesting admittance to the privacy of her mind. Alyneri welcomed Jaya into the intimacy of her thoughts with gratitude and open arms, and with her breath caught on the joy constricting her throat.
Jaya’s awareness flowed as a warm and glowing elixir into the goblet of Alyneri’s mind. She saw brilliance and felt sunlight and knew kindness in the grace of heat. She barely heard Ramu’s next words for the extraordinary sensation of Jaya’s mind melding with—no, overcoming, hers.
“What is to be the form of this binding?”
Trell had hold of Alyneri’s other hand and squeezed it. He angled her a captivating smile. “A kiss.”
Then he pulled her close and his mouth was on hers, and Jaya started Patterning, and Alyneri’s world exploded with light and color and the heady sensation of twirling—spiraling—through space, feeling strings of herself growing, becoming…intertwining as vines of connection took root. She knew little more than these sensations beneath blinding light and the dizzying wonder of Trell kissing her, until—
He appeared.
Suddenly she cradled his mind in hers, felt hers embraced in his. They knew each other as the daylight knows the sky, their minds made permeable to each other’s truths. It took Alyneri a dazed minute to extract her thoughts from Trell’s, and she really only managed it when he released her from his kiss.
Trell pressed his forehead against hers and let a sigh escape his lips. “And I thought you were beautiful on the outside.”
Alyneri’s breath caught. Then she threw her arms around him and hugged him while he laughed against her ear.
Someone—probably the pirate—let out a jubilant whoop.
The last light of the sun passed beneath the curve of the world.
And the drachwyr made an offering of fire to the stars.
Alyneri watched over Trell’s shoulder as Náiir opened his hands and sent tiny glowing stars floating upwards to illumine the night high over their heads. The other drachwyr followed suit, and soon dozens of glowing lights hovered above them, an extension of the heavens.
Ramu opened his palms. “So intended,” two orbs of golden fire appeared and floated upwards to join the others, “thus is it so.”
As she gazed at the drachwyr’s floating stars, Alyneri reflected on the miracle of that moment. To have been joined in binding with Trell val Lorian by immortal Sundragons in a ceremony so ancient and holy, and so purely beautiful in its intent! She felt so graced to have this man as her partner, and these friends as the enablers and witnesses of their troth. Could she truly be deserving of such happiness?
Then Jaya took her by the shoulders and was smiling and kissing her on both cheeks. “Sweet Alyneri, may Epiphany bless your union.” She moved to Trell and kissed him, even as Mithaiya came to bless Alyneri in like manner. By the time Balaji, Náiir, Rhakar and Vaile had all given their graces, Alyneri felt her face must surely be glowing as brightly as the drachwyr’s stars.
But when Ramu offered his blessing…it
might’ve been a trick of the tears filling her eyes, but it seemed for an instant as if all the stars in the heavens burned twice as brightly and then fell in cascading silver veils, as of diamonds thrown across their path.
Finally Fynn and Carian came sauntering up. Fynn extended his goblet with a wave of his arm and gave her a surprisingly debonair bow. “Welcome to the family, Your Grace.”
Alyneri took his hand and accepted his kiss on her cheek. “Thank you, Lord Fynnlar. I trust you won’t make me regret becoming related to you.”
Fynn arched a brow. “I wouldn’t trust that at all, Your Grace.”
Carian clasped wrists with Trell wearing a grin. “Who’d have thought when we made our accord in Olivine we’d wind up together here, eh my handsome?”
Trell held his hand and his gaze. “A few times, I was fairly sure that if we wound up anywhere together, it would be on the doorstep of the Returning.”
Carian replied with a wink, “Nah, I told you, the ladies have a thing for me.”
Alyneri slipped an arm around Trell’s waist. “The ladies…?”
“The goddesses of Fortune and Luck,” Trell advised.
“Yeah, about that,” Fynn nudged Carian with his empty goblet and then waved them all to follow after the drachwyr, who were heading back to the sa’reyth, “you promised to put in a good word with them for me.”
Carian hitched up his britches and ambled into the lead. “Just as soon as you pay me the money you owe me, mate.”
“That sounds very much like a bribe,” Fynn followed after him, looking aggravated, “and you know my moral index requires me to steer clear of bribery unless I’m the one being offered the money…”
Trell held Alyneri back to let the vagabond pair disappear over the rise. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her close. She saw her own happiness mirrored in his eyes, her thoughts mirrored in his, both of them very much enjoying sharing the space of their minds.
“We’re bound, you and I.”
Gazing up at him with happiness flooding into her, Alyneri simply nodded.
“This…connection is wondrous, Alyneri, yet I’m bound to you even more by gratitude. I wouldn’t be standing here to know this moment, this miraculous experience, if not for you.”
His words resonated as sound in her ears, warmth in her heart and truth across the bond they now shared. “We are become each other’s light.”
He tucked her head beneath his chin and exhaled a contented sigh that drew a chord of joy through her. “You have long been mine.”
***
Trell sat beside Alyneri at the head of Balaji’s banquet table enjoying the merriment taking place around him. More drachwyr flame-lights hovered beneath the peaked roof of the violet tent, shedding their sparkling light on those who’d gathered to celebrate Trell and Alyneri’s union.
Beyond those well known to him, he saw many Adepts from the Nodefinder Rebellion, whose compound occupied the next valley. Trell knew a few by name: the thief Kardashian, who he’d first encountered on his adventures with Carian; Gannon Bair, one of the few truthreaders Trell had met who hadn’t an ounce of innocence about him; the Bemothi Nodefinder Devangshu Vita, in whom Trell acknowledged a solid intellect and competent air; and the ebony-skinned Whisper Lord Ledio Jeroen, who had a quiet demeanor that reminded him greatly of Loghain, another Whisper Lord, whose sensibility and solicitousness stood much at odds with his countenance. Even the oft-bickering drachwyr were in solidarity that evening as they gathered in celebration.
But no matter how engaging the conversation elsewhere, his attention always strayed back to Alyneri, seated at his side. She was laughing now with Jaya and Vaile, the three of them as sisters in their devotion to each other. Alyneri’s brown eyes were lambent with her laughter, while her thoughts felt quiet in his mind, peaceful. Happiness permeated them.
From the first moment he’d laid eyes upon her after dragging her from Naiadithine’s flood with a broken arm, all covered in mud, Trell had felt an uncommon connection to her. As his admiration and respect for Alyneri had grown, of course that connection had strengthened as well, but what he felt now was exponentially so much more.
It was heady, this feeling. Being bound to Alyneri, sharing the space of her mind, this offered amazement enough. But Ramu’s awakening of him to elae—this experience, Trell could barely breathe through, even so many hours later.
The lifeforce consumed his awareness, and through it, he kenned a powerful connectedness to the living world. Surely that connection had always existed, but he’d never known it so intimately, so potently. Now, suddenly, to have it materialized in a way that was perceptible…
It was astonishing and humbling.
While part of him basked in the warmth of Alyneri’s admiration and pondered their later evening together with glorious expectation, another part of him perched between wonder and reverence. To be surrounded by so many Adepts, each of whom felt this connection every day—oh, Trell recognized they’d likely become inured to the sensation, but to know it at all! To live with it and somehow become at peace with this constant and overwhelming feeling of expansion!
The understanding even gave him a new respect for Taliah—not merely that she could sense this power but that she used it. That any Adept would dare to channel it somehow…that they found the hubris in themselves to command it…the entire thing inspired his awe.
As the night lengthened, Trell found himself gazing at Alyneri for lengthening spans of time. He loved watching her, loved how his gaze alone could bring a flush to her cheeks. Even her lips seem to swell beneath his inspection, as if in preparation to receive his.
He’d meant what he’d said earlier. During his imprisonment, Alyneri had been the light that promised a dawn to pain’s endless darkness. Even before he’d known her well, she’d brought a lightness to his heart.
He’d endured months of watching the way her silk dresses clung and shifted and hugged her form. Now, on the night he would finally have her, he found himself oddly treasuring those last few minutes of wanting, even though he doubted he would ever lose his desire to claim her. Something in Alyneri called to a part of him in a way he still didn’t entirely understand.
When he finally extracted her from the gaiety, he didn’t feel rushed, yet an urgency underscored his motions. He took her hand and drew her from her chair and they waved their goodbyes to the accompaniment of expected jests, laughter, and well wishes; and then they were walking back down the hill to the sa’reyth and Trell’s tent, and knew only the silence of the night and the quietude of each other’s anticipation.
Trell understood he would not be merely claiming Alyneri for himself that evening but also her maidenhood, which for some reason, women treasured like little boys their wooden swords or a noble his favorite hawk; gods help the man who tried to part any of them from the other.
“Did you just compare my virginity to a bird of prey?” Alyneri’s frosty tone only partially concealed her amusement.
Trell turned her a grin. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” As he was sweeping aside the drapes to enter the sa’reyth, a thought occurred to him, and he turned beneath the parting to bar her entrance. “Have you been listening to my thoughts all night?”
Alyneri clasped her hands behind her back and smiled quietly at him. Never had innocence looked so culpable.
Trell shook his head admiringly. “No wonder you were blushing.” He grabbed her close to the tune of her laughter and gazed down at her, wondering if he might take her there and then.
Alyneri caught a fingernail between her teeth. “I think Jaya at least might take slight offense.”
Trell growled an oath and swept her up into his arms. He carried her off while she laughingly claimed innocence, blaming him entirely for thinking too loudly into the shared space of their minds.
Gaining his rooms, Trell set Alyneri down on the edge of his bed and then propped his hands to either side of her, pinning her body as he captured her gaze, and
thought deliberately, I cannot think quietly when thinking of you. To this, he added a host of images, his intentions for the rest of the evening, and was rewarded when a furious blush overcame her expression.
Trell let the hint of a smile manifest, but he didn’t release her from his gaze. “I fear you have me at a disadvantage, Your Grace.”
Alyneri’s brown eyes looked liquid in the lamplight, her lips flushed. Her mind, shared with his, fairly hummed with expectation. “How so, Your Highness?”
Trell leaned closer. She fell to her elbows on the bed. “It appears there is much to be learned about managing this binding, Your Grace. You’ll have to instruct me.”
Alyneri searched his gaze, seeking deeper meaning to his intent. “Of…of course.”
Trell smiled. “Good.” He straightened and walked to the sideboard and a decanter of mulled wine. He could feel her startled gaze following him. Clearly she’d expected him to simply throw her on the bed. He threw her a half-smile instead.
With wine in hand, he returned and sat down beside her. “It appears I know how to share my thoughts with you.” He extended a goblet to her. “Instruct me in how to keep them to myself.”
Still braced on her elbows, Alyneri blinked at him. “You mean…now?”
He smiled and drank his wine.
Alyneri pushed herself upright. Then she took the wine from him, looking confused.
So their courtship found a new channel. Sitting at one end of the couch while Alyneri claimed the other, Trell put meaning behind his gaze but made no advance. They drank wine and ate fruit from the platter Balaji had left for them, and beneath Alyneri’s somewhat bemused tutelage, Trell learned how to guard his thoughts.
It wasn’t that he wanted to hide things from her, but context framed understanding, and there were still too many of his own experiences for which Alyneri would lack that context. He dared not join with her when he couldn’t stop his thoughts and memories from flooding out. Above all else, he needed to protect her from those.
When at last he knew himself capable of withholding what he willed, Trell set down his wine, settled his gaze on Alyneri, and let his mind fill with thoughts of her—of his admiration and respect, his adoration, and his desire to protect and provide for her. When Alyneri’s eyes grew glassy, he filled his mind with other thoughts, those darkened by the midnight colors of desire, of longing, and of a languorous yielding upon passion’s boundless shore.
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