Page 107 of A Sword of Ice
“Larke,” she called out.
He turned towards her, stumbling. She rushed to catch him before he fell. “Did you find my mate?” he demanded, his voice a whistling whisper.
“Larke, I’m sorry.” She willed the tears to freeze before they fell, but it didn’t work. Fall they did, crystal ice rolling down her cheeks. “We can’t find your mate…”
She watched his expression crumble, and then he was shaking his head back and forth fervently. “No,” he denied. “I feel the bond. I—”
“I’m sorry, Larke.”
“No! It can’t be true!” He crumbled to the ground, and this time Iona wasn’t strong enough to catch him. She fell to the ground with him, holding his fragile body in her arms as he wept, screaming his mate’s name at the sky. Like a blessing. Like a curse.
Iona wanted to do the same. She wanted to shriek her sister’s name across the heavens and maybe then Mana would hear. Maybe then Mana wouldn’t disappoint.
She’d prayed. She’d begged.
And still her wishes were not granted.
“Larke?”
A soft, rasping voice cut through the screams and sobs. Iona and Larke whipped their gazes upward at the figure who spoke.
A figure with skin the color of tourmaline and two horns sheared down to stumps against his forehead. His eyes were red as they stared down at them on the ground, and his palms went to his mouth. Where claws should have been, Iona noticed they’d been ripped off entirely.
“Namir?” Larke extricated himself from Iona, nearly elbowing her in his haste. He jumped to his feet and wobbled towards the Unseelie male. “You’re alive?”
The Unseelie smiled a nearly lipless gesture. He was more animalistic than anything, and yet the love shining in his red eyes was as vivid as magic.
“Idiot,” he whispered. “Couldn’t you feel me down our bond?”
Then they were embracing, kissing in a tangle of weak limbs and tears.
Iona watched from the ground and felt her jaw drop open until Shula appeared next to her. “So, his mate was a male, not a female,” she whispered, as if they should have considered this in the beginning. Which, they should have. They should have asked. They hadn’t, and Iona had caused Larke unnecessary heartache because of it.
Mating bonds were strange and mysterious. It made Iona wonder just how Mana chose the bonds and between who. What other combinations existed out there? Male and male, female and female, Seelie and Unseelie, Unseelie and human. Maybe there were even the possibilities of several bond mates, though that was probably extremely rare.
“Bonds of the heart know no gender or race,” Shula whispered like the words were a revelation of some kind. “Like Orna and Des.” Her gaze pulled away from the mated pair and found Ryker among the fray, a small smile pulling at her mouth. “Like Ryker and I.” There was an ache in those words, a longing for water after so long in an oasis, of a breath of fresh air after being submerged for so long in the waves.
Shula’s feet were weightless against the ground as she all but glided over in Ryker’s direction. Her cloak trailed behind her like a shadow, flittering against cold whips of wind. The crowd seemed to part for her like she was a ghost they were making room for, leading her down a pathway to her mate.
She didn’t throw herself into his arms like Iona half suspected she would. Ryker was speaking with a Fae, his eyes flicking over the bruised male’s figure, assessing the damage. Shula didn’t dare interrupt that, but when she arrived at his side there was a spark of awareness pulsing between the two. Ryker leaned in her direction, their eyes meeting for a fraction of a second before turning back to the Fae.
Iona found herself smiling at the discreet display. She realized that love wasn’t always loud and boisterous. It wasn’t always screaming from sandy shores or throwing your arms around one another even in the midst of the chaos and the dying.
Love was quiet, too. It was alive and vivid even within the simplicities of leaning towards one another. Love whispered between the spaces of firmly clasped hands.
Love existed in the silence of words that went unsaid.
Iona pushed herself up from the ground, dusting off the backs of her pants as she went. Her eyes scanned the growing crowd for Julius. She suddenly needed to be next to her mate. He would understand the toll today had taken on her mental state. He would understand without her saying that her fingers were hurting, cramped. She longed for the feel of his rough pads soothing out the muscles of her hand like he could cure all her aches away with a single touch.
She needed it as desperately as she needed her next breath.
She caught sight of him and took a single step towards him before she was intercepted.
The Fae in front of her was gangly and broken. Wings that looked like torn sheets were folded weakly against his back, the bottom of the sheer, ripped wings dragging against the ground. His whole body was skeletal, his eyes wide and round, and he was staring at Iona like he’d just seen a ghost.
His mouth opened and closed, over and over again like he wanted to speak but couldn’t bring himself to.
Iona’s brows rose. “Is everything alright?” she asked.
