Then the spell shifted again, and the shared thought became a single thought. We. Together. Bound together as one, we will accomplish anything we set our mind to. We will learn all we need to know and our strength will be unmatched in all the ages.
And the spell shifted a final time. They floated back to the ground, wrung out and unable to hold themselves up in that moment. The last of the spell fed itself into the arms of light with which it had embraced them as it completed itself. Fay and Tavis both drooped to the ground, their kiss ended but the embrace unbroken. Exhaustion and exultation filled their hearts and minds. It was nearly an hour before either of them moved.
They helped each other to their feet, both still in awe of how much they could feel of each other and sure that it must fade with time. The distraction of it must fade, Fay thought, then wondered if it was his thought. They gathered Swift, who was munching grass contentedly at one side of the camp.
Fay had hardly thought of the question before she felt the answer come into her mind. Lydia and Keari hadn't been able to keep up with Swift, who Tavis had pushed to her limit in his rush to get to Fay. As she considered the answer, she felt shock ripple through Tavis, who had just read in her question the truth about Keari's identity.
"I hope he'll understand that I didn't really tell you," she said with her voice, sighing.
"I- he's been through this himself. I'm sure he'll realize you didn't mean to." He sounded as off-balance as she felt. "We'll have to walk back, at least for now. I don't want to ride Swift until she's had a chance to recover, especially with two of us."
Fay felt amazed and terrible as she relived his memory of riding after her, guided only by a sense that she was in this direction after Marcius had disappeared with her. They started back in the direction he had come from, his passage through the forest easy to follow from the way Swift had trampled everything in her path. They hardly spoke at first, simply drifted between each other's memories. Fay found herself seeing things in whole new ways. How much Tavis had tried to watch over her, how he had tried to convince himself she could never love him before giving in to his own feelings. In turn, he was full of disbelief at how he had affected her from the beginning, and his shock at how much she had wished him to stay the night she had been in her robe rocked them both. She had giggled on realizing he had thought her encouragement and talk of his strength were merely a result of kindness.
Nearly two hours after they had begun their return, they heard hooves galloping through the forest toward them. Tavis halted Swift and stepped in front of Fay, but she pushed him aside after a moment, having let her senses range out ahead. Lydia and Keari stopped and dismounted as soon as they saw Fay and Tavis. She was delighted to see that they had brought Rain with them.
"You got to her," Keari said, his voice harsh with relieved tension.
Tavis nodded and chuckled. "I'm not sure she really needed me though, since she'd just blown him across the camp when I got there."
Keari and Lydia both stared at her, their shock evident. Fay felt embarrassed. "I- He- You were the one who deflected his final spell before it could kill us both."
"Deflection?" Lydia asked sharply, staring at her son. "You deflected an incoming spell?"
"I, well.." He stammered, and Fay could feel through both their linked hands and the bond that he was starting to shake. Shock, she thought, he's reacting to what happened. She dropped his hand and instead slid her arm around his waist, letting her care for him wash through the bond. He relaxed a little and looked down at her, a small, grateful smile telling her as clearly as his thoughts did that he knew what she was doing. She smiled back.
"You will have to start at the beginning. What happened after you disappeared, Fay?" Keari asked, his eyes moving between them.
"Ki," Lydia said, her eyes still on Tavis, "I think we need to find somewhere to sit first."
They found a pair of fallen trees that allowed them to sit across from each other. Lydia set about making a fire and breakfast as Fay told them how Marcius had taken her away in a carriage. They pressed her for details about the other man who had disappeared after the previous night, but she could barely remember his existence. Even the words he had spoken seemed vague and hard to hold on to. She leaned against Tavis as she recounted her dream of him and his arm curled protectively around her as she explained the way Marcius had tried to seduce her. Tavis took the tale up from there, explaining the confrontation, and how he had shielded himself from the worst of the impact with the tree. Keari made him recount his deflection of Marcius' spell twice before shaking his head in amazement. Fay had tried to stop the second telling as Tavis' shakes had worsened, but the prince was relentless about hearing every detail.
As Tavis finished the second telling, he lay his head against hers and said quietly, "I had to do it. You know he would never have let her walk away free. It was the only way she could ever be completely free of him, of the threat he posed to her."
Fay saw how badly the hand in his lap was shaking now. She clasped it in hers, stroking his palm with her thumb. The shaking began to subside slowly.
"This was the first time you've taken someone's life," Keari said and it wasn't exactly a question, but she felt Tavis nod. His mother walked over and sat on his other side. Fay could feel her hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. Keari sighed heavily. "It will pass. The shaking, the feelings about it. You did it for a good reason, at least, which is more than many can say. That was quite a feat, deflecting a spell in motion. An incredible thing to manage."
"For someone untrained like me, you mean." Fay was surprised by the touch of sarcasm in his voice. She felt his doubt that he could ever be good enough and tried to counter it with her own confidence in him.
Keari must have heard some of it too, because he frowned at the younger man. "For anyone, Tavis. I'm not sure that Lydia or I could have done that."
She felt Tavis' head rise at that, and surprise washed through him. She decided to add her own voice. Turning to him, she said, "I might have been able to, though I can't be sure since I've never tried. But I've never met anyone else I was sure could manage that. It's a very difficult thing to do, Tavis."
He had turned to her as she spoke and she felt his quick but thorough probe through the bond. She caught his reaction to her own remembered shock at what he had done and the reasons for that feeling. He really doesn't understand how remarkable he is, she thought and hugged him tighter. The shakes were almost entirely gone now, and wonder was replacing doubt in his mind.
Keari broke the silence. His dark eyes went from one to the other and he raised an eyebrow. "I think that there's a part of this story you haven't explained yet."
Fay smiled. "In spite of my stupidity, my many mistakes and near blindness to the obvious, Tavis has accepted me as his partner. We bound ourselves before we started back. I- We didn't want to wait."
"I didn't want you to reconsider, Faylanna," Tavis said, looking down at her again. She lost herself in his eyes, and found the answer to the question that had been in the back of her mind. The cause of him using her full given name was there, shining clearly in his thoughts. She saw the other side of all her reasons for disliking the use of that name, the positive in all of it that he had seen. Where she had called herself arrogant, he saw her as confident and decisive. He thought she was a little humble, in spite of her father's supposed airs. He had looked at the things she had told him and decided that he loved her for all of who she was, so he used the name that included those aspects of her. Her heart warmed at the thought, which made him smile at her more broadly still.
"I need to go back," Faylanna said into the silence after the wonder of this realization faded and she came back to her senses. "I can't leave my father there, and there's so much to set to rights with the estate. I'm the last of my House, so it falls to me to do it."
"No." The finality in both Tavis and Keari's voices shocked her as they answered together.
"I won't take you back there, Faylann
a," Keari said, holding a hand up to forestall her argument. "Beyond even the laws regarding Legacies, I don't want to take you anywhere near that house or the fields, not after what we saw. I can't say what dangers linger there. Better to take you away from here, perhaps back to Rianza."
She opened her mouth to argue, but Tavis spoke before she could. "Be reasonable. We'll go back eventually, but not alone, not even just the four of us."
He knew she couldn't argue with that, and she knew he was right. Rushing to return to Iondis would not bring her father back. The dead would wait, Calder and all the others too. The estate wasn't hers to do anything with yet either, she knew, not until the Justice Ministry had properly executed her father's Legacy. Because of her family's status as nobility, that would require the involvement of the Emperor.
As if knowing where her thoughts had led her, Keari said quietly, "I can assure you that both I and my father will ensure that the process moves swiftly, and you will have every resource we can give you to put your home right again, Faylanna."
Tavis straightened at the prince's words, and she felt the flash of panic go through him. Faylanna said quickly, "I- Tavis knows, Keari. Just after the bond, it crossed my mind and he saw-"
Keari's laugh cut her off. "I knew what it likely meant when you said you two had bonded. It's virtually impossible to keep secrets from your partner, especially during the first hours after the bond has formed. I can't think of anyone I've ever known who has managed it. But please, Tavis, unless we're in official company, just call me Keari. I'm not one for formality when it can be avoided. In any case, I think it's time we return, to Rianza and my house. Eliar must be just about bursting to find out what's happened by now."
Tavis was embarrassed by the request but nodded. Faylanna smiled. They all rose and Keari put the fire out as Faylanna drew Tavis away a little. "There was something I meant to tell you earlier, and I want to say it out loud, so I know you hear it all. Thank you. You've given me so much, saved me so many times, more even than you know. Everything you did, everything you had offered me, let me see Marcius for what he really was, how little he really offered. Who you are let me see through the illusion he tried to craft for me. I think his last attempt failed because you were all I could think of."
He stared at her for several long moments, and then smiled. "It's nice to know I've been in your thoughts as much as you've been in mine, even before..."
She took a step forward and slid her arms up around his neck. Gently pulling his head down to hers, the same excited heat coursed through them both as their lips met and she kissed him until there was no question in his mind on any subject.
After an while, their lips parted just enough for him to whisper, "I love you."
She opened her eyes to lose herself in his brilliant green ones and whispered back, "As I love you."
The End
About the Author
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Julie Elizabeth Hill exported herself to Vancouver, British Columbia after many years of staring longingly at the map following every snowfall. For as long as she can remember, she's been making up stories, but it wasn't until high school that someone suggested writing them down. Since then, she's been hopelessly in love with story crafting, often forgetting about everything else in the process.
Contact: Twitter - @jlizhill
Blog - http://jelizabethhill.wordpress.com/
Bound Page 25