Page 14 of Shadowbound

She touches a sensitive spot and I nearly bolt away from her—I swear it takes all my strength to hold still instead of shaking off her hand and running.

“Alaric?” She comes around to face me, her eyes uncertain. “What are those markings? I can feel your trepidation but I can’t see anything.” She touches the jewel at her temple but this time it doesn’t pulse.

“They are…from my early training,” I mumble, looking away.

“They are burns aren’t they? But you’ve blocked them out so thoroughly, you don’t even remember how you got them.” Sylvanna shakes her head. “It’s all right—I won’t touch them if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t,” I say stiffly. I feel like my whole body is reacting to her words…her touch. I’m not used to this kind of stimulation or this level of scrutiny. It’s fucking uncomfortable.

“It’s all right,” she murmurs, petting my arm the same way I might pet a skittish horse. “Be calm, my Paladin. Let’s forget about the past and look to the future. For now I must bathe you so that you may take your oath.”

“I bathed just before our battle,” I tell her.

“Yes, I know—I watched you,” is her reply. “But now I am going to bathe you with my own hands. It’s part of the ritual—the Oath of Submission—which you’ll be taking. By bathing you, I am claiming you as my own.”

I don’t know how I feel about “belonging” to her, but it’s pretty clear this is my only path to The Heart of the Eclipse. So I have little choice.

“Come,” she says and leads me through another doorway into the bathing chamber.

7

Sylvanna

I watch as Alaric looks around my chamber, his eyes wide. I can finally see their color—they are as blue as the cloudless, sunny sky in Solaris. Quite beautiful, actually. They don’t glow like mine of course—he has no need of the special magic we NightBorn have developed to see in the dark of our continuous night. But they are still lovely.

“What’s that?” he asks, nodding at the sunken bathing pool I have in the center of the room. It’s large enough for two—even if one of them is as big as my new Blood-servant.

“That is where I shall bathe you,” I tell him.

Leaning down, I tap the metal faucet and murmur a spell. At once, warm water comes gushing out and begins to fill the round stone enclosure. This was one of my mother’s greatest achievements when she built this tower and it was copied in the City of Night in the Queen’s own palace.

Alaric’s eyes grow even wider as he watches the pool fill.

“How is this achieved? What witchcraft calls the water?”

“No witchcraft—this is what we call ‘indoor plumbing,’” I tell him. “I do use some magic to heat the water, but the rest is purely mechanical. My mother, who was a great inventor as well as a great sorceress, devised the system.”

“It’s amazing,” he murmurs.

“It’s extremely soothing—especially after a long day and a hard battle,” I assure him.

He scowls.

“I didn’t even get a chance to battle you before your fucking shadow magic overcame me.”

“Language please,” I say, raising an eyebrow at him. “And you need not feel bad about being bested by me—your magic is uncontrolled and chaotic while I’ve had a lifetime to hone my craft. Until you can learn to control and channel your power, you haven’t a hope of defeating someone who can.”

He frowns and I’m waiting for him to claim again that he doesn’t have “magic”—that he’s just powerful because he’s “God-touched.” But instead he says,

“So…you’re going to teach me to control it? To channel it?”

“That will be part of your training, yes.” I nod. The bath is almost full now so I tap the faucet and whisper the word for “off” in the Arcane Tongue.

“What’s that language you’re speaking?” Alaric asks me. “Something only sorcerers know?”

“It’s the Arcane Tongue—the language of magic,” I tell him. “During your training, I will teach you a few words of it. Though I don’t know about teaching you the entire language—I have been studying it all my life and I’m still learning.”

“You must be very wise…Mistress,” he says and this time he doesn’t sound quite so sarcastic.

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