Page 221 of Golden Queen
He dipped the sharp point of a long silver stylus in the mixture. "Your hand, my dear," he said.
When I gave it to him, he poked the tip of the stylus deeply into the flesh of my palm.
I flinched, drawing back my hand.
No blood welled up. There was only a blackened dot in the center of my life line.
"What now?" I asked as Cassius did the same with Io's palm.
"Now you wait," he said, a tremulous smile on his face.
"For what?"
"The mating mark," Io said. "It will spread out from the dot and be permanent proof of our bond.”
"And what if it doesn't?"
"It will," he said.
It did not. We sat in several minutes of tense silence. I glanced up to see Aben studying Io's face expectantly.
"Amon," Master Cassius began, his tone full of sorrow and regret.
"Do it again," Io said. "You did something wrong."
"My boy, there is nothing to do wrong. It is natural, earth magic—"
"I said do it again," Io snapped, holding out his wrist and angrily slashing his skin.
The master lurched forward to grab another basin to catch the blood as I reached for Io's forearm. "Io—"
He smiled reassuringly, taking my hand. His eyes were full of apology. "I'm sorry to do this again, Sera."
"It's okay," I said, turning my arm over and offering him my wrist.
He cut me—much more gingerly than he had cut himself. He laced his fingers in mine and held our wrists over the bowl, letting our blood run down together into the basin.
"Don't hesitate so long this time. I think you went too slow. The blood clotted or...something." He spoke calmly, but I thought evenhedid not believe what he was saying.
Aben stared at Io as though ready for a storm, his body tensed and his eyes full of sympathy, just as mine were.
But I was not surprised. How could I be when I already knew it? I had known it deep down—in my bones. I loved him desperately, more than I imagined any fucking mating bond could account for, but I knew it was not true.
He had been wrong—horribly, terribly mistaken. Repeating the test would not change that.
I would gladly oblige him as many times as he needed me to, though.
I knew he loved me, and I thought he probably felt precisely what I felt—deep, impossibly endless love. Along with his newfound seer’s abilities, he had mistaken that for the mating bond. It was his mind and heart’s desperate attempt to change the cards those fucking fickle bitches, the fates, had dealt us.
Or maybe...maybehefelt it, but something was broken in me that made it impossible for me to form the other half of the bond. Maybe I had been the one to let him down—to ruin his chances at being happy.
If not for the circumstances, I wouldn't have cared. No magical or natural mating mark could have made me love him more or less than I already did. But we needed it. We needed the safety of the mark as a refuge against the path we had strayed from to be together.
And now that the hope of it was gone, the reality of my future crashed down on me with a crushing ferocity.
Would the king strip Io of Darkwatch? Would he send his armies to claim the territory?
The second test went exactly as the first had. We waited in silence, staring down at our palms with their twin dark, sooty marks for a quarter hour before Io pushed up from the table. "Let's go, Sera," he said coldly.
