Page 156 of To Touch A Silent Fury
Lang took the knife and shakily raised it to my face. My breath quickened and the beads at my face quivered. He gave me a reassuring look, not realising my fear had nothing to do with the knife itself, nor its wielder, but of his reaction when this all ended.
Simply, with no flair nor pomp, he lifted the thread from the bridge of my nose and sliced through it. The beads scattered onto the floor, rolling and bouncing down the marble stairs and finding themselves under skirts and scattered into the crevices beneath the wooden benches. Already some of the more eager congregation reached to claim a bead, a token of their attendance they might thread into their own furniture or tapestries at home.
Lang said the words, as he pressed the knife edge into the centre of his palm. “I see you.”
He had already seen me without the beads countless times, and yet the words sank deep under my skin. He reached for my hand, and I offered it, dazed. Lang pressed the knife into my palm, quickly, then pulled it away.
Dots of blood became a swelling line, and all I could see was the red smearing our palms and the red of his endearing expression. This was it.
My head pounded, and darkness touched the edge of my vision as the nerves of the moment rendered me weak.
“With this, you become one blood and seal your everlasting bond. Five points meet five points.” The priest gestured to us, and even knowing the final moves, I hesitated. Lang raised his hand, and with my blood thick in my ears, I raised mine to meetit. Our fingertips touched, five points meeting five points, as our dripping blood fell from our wrists.
Lang’s emotions nearly made me sob as he studied me with an adoration I had rarely felt. “I’m in love with you.”
“Forgive me.” My mouth quivered.
Then I pressed my palm forwards to meet his. Our warm blood met as the priest said the final words.
“Your bond is sealed,” he announced. “May your lives encompass many spans to come.”
A stabbing sensation pricked at my hand, and then my whole body was on fire. I burnt with it and gasped out as the heat clawed through every vein in my body. My back arched. I fell to my knees and pulled my eyes shut as I bit my tongue to keep from screaming.
The Brothers had said nothing of this. Nothing of the searing pain branding my entire being. Arms tried pulling me up, but I couldn’t think, couldn’t hear the words filtering around me. There was nothing but the hot pain.
And then it was gone, and in its place something cold, something flooding through me like the feeling of cool metal against skin.
I gasped as my body convulsed, and then stilled.
The feeling was gone. I could not say if it had been seconds or minutes. Only that I blinked, and the first thing I saw, heard, smelt, felt, and tasted was Lang, hovering over me. His face was so close that his breath and mine may as well have been one. I could read him, the same as ever, as he stared at some point above my eyes, and then picked up a lock of my hair.
Moon-white hair.
40
Tani
Lang’s brows pulled tight, and his confusion began to shift into something worse. Fear, and a hint of betrayal.
Without thinking, without comprehending what I was doing, I pushed back, flooding his mind with peace and reassurance. It was a desperate act. I couldn't let everything fall apart.There is nothing wrong. There is nothing to fear.He blinked, and his brows unknotted,
He helped me to my feet, a placid expression on his face.
It had worked. I breathed out heavily, my free hand shaking like a leaf.
I had done that, I realised, with a mixture of relief and surprise. I had made him stop worrying somehow, pushing my feelings into him. The wedding was done, and I was transformed, and there would be a lot of questions. Questions I wanted to run from, questions I needed time to prepare for. He deserved the truth, but not now. Not here.
For the first time since the beads fell, I acknowledged the congregation. My heart skittered, my face surely betraying my utter terror. Some stood, whilst others sat, confused and uncertain. They were all waiting for a cue, for someone to tell them how to act. But one pair of yellow eyes drew my gaze more keenly than the rest, like a siren’s call. I would not give Derynallis the discredit of saying she looked shocked, for that had been long schooled from her. So there was no surprise there to cloud her rage, and no one to shield me from the fear of it. While the bards postulated on whether looks could kill, Derynallis was putting it into firm practice.
I leaned up and whispered in Lang’s ear. “Please free my dragon.”
A flare of something below the peace came through our touch. Hurt and confusion.I’m so sorry,I thought. I knew Lang couldn’t understand, but there wasn’t time to explain, and I couldn’t let them have Hanindred. I squeezed his hand and pushed acceptance through our touch. Manipulating him again, doing the one thing everyone had always done to him.
Lang looked over to my now father-in-law.
Braxthorn stood, his face entirely horrified as his sapphire eyes met mine with abject hate, though still less fearsome than his sister’s. He looked on the verge of calling Kallamont down on our heads.
“Father, do you have the key to this beast’s collar?”
