Page 251 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

My hand closed around Raihn’s limp, bloody fingers. “I know. We would face them.”

It almost surprised me, how easily this answer came to me. It wasn’t a platitude, wasn’t a performance. It was the truth.

Acaeja stared at me for a long moment. A shiver ran up my spine—the uncomfortable feeling that my past and future were being rifled through like pages in a record log.

Then she let out a soft chuckle. “Humans,” she said softly. “Such hope.”

I waited, not breathing.

At last, she said, “If I grant this request, do you swear that to me? That you both will use the power I am granting you to fight for what is Right in this world and the next, even against great opposition?”

My heart leapt.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes. I do.”

“You will be under my protection as an offspring of my acolyte, and that protection will extend to him, as your heart-bonded. But understand that my cousin will not be happy about this development. She will not act against you. Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday soon, Oraya of the Nightborn, there will come a day when Nyaxia brings a great reckoning. And when that day comes, you must be prepared to face her displeasure.”

Goddess fucking help us.

And maybe I was a fool for it, but I still didn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” I said. “I understand.”

“I see your truth. I see the possibility in both your futures. I see that there is still much to come. And for that reason, I will grant you a Coriatis bond.”

The words were so unbelievable. At first, I couldn’t even grasp them.

“Thank you,” I tried to say, but it drowned in a sob.

“Quickly,” Acaeja said. “He fades.”

My eyes fell to Raihn’s face—motionless, battered, covered in blood, features broken beyond recognition. And yet, for some reason, the image of that same face on our wedding night came to my mind. The night he had promised himself to me, and I couldn’t offer him the same.

“This will be painful,” Acaeja warned.

She touched my chest, right over my heart.

“Painful” was not the right word for it. I gasped at the bolt of agony—like someone was spearing me straight through, hooking my heart and dragging it through my ribcage.

Still, I didn’t flinch, didn’t close my eyes. I looked only at Raihn’s face. Through the haze of pain, I heard our wedding vows:

I give you my body.

I give you my blood.

I give you my soul.

Acaeja drew her hand from my chest, slowly, as if pulling a great weight, and then pressed it to Raihn’s. A blinding white light engulfed us.

The pain intensified.

From this night until the end of nights.

I doubled over, my forehead leaning against Raihn’s.

From daybreak until our days are broken.

Acaeja drew her hands back, a thread of light between them.

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