Fire and Bone (Otherborn #1)(18)

The king’s gaze follows the woman’s strokes, and when she’s finished, he raises his chin at me in approval but says nothing. What does he see when he looks at me? My wild copper hair? My simple features? The awkward birthmark just above my heart? I’m round of cheek and hips and not much of a beauty. But however I look to him, I will belong to him.

Determination is set in hard lines on his face, and I wonder if the torque on his neck is working properly. I can see his dark energy lifting in silver and black curls over his shoulders now. It should be tight inside his skin, as mine is. The iron shackle should be holding it in place so that we don’t harm each other in the first merging, before we can get used to the feel of each other’s powers.

The female druid moves to the king next and begins painting the woad in circles over his torso. The druid chanting behind me recites the final section of his spell, walking the ram’s-blood circle painted on the floor. He holds a rowan stick aloft, flicking rosewater over the king and then me as he passes by, mumbling, “A price paid, a covenant sealed, in earth and blood and ash, in spirit and flesh and fire.”

The price is my will, my soul, in payment for the life of the human prince that I took.

In the center of the circle, between the king and me, is an altar with two bowls set atop, one full of salt, one full of rye.

The iron union dagger rests between them.

I stare at it, imagining the blade cutting into my flesh. And I can’t help when my gaze moves to the king. I want to blink and make this moment a dream, perhaps find myself in the thicket with Lailoken, among the bluebells in the Caledonian wood.

I should run from this son of Morrígan, deny him, deny our mothers, and let the world burn. But my heart twists at the thought. I was running from duty when fate took my heart from me, when the prince succumbed to my fire’s will. It was the childish notion of freedom that tore him from me.

Now it’s time to accept my punishment for allowing the humans to glimpse our world. Time to atone.

The druid’s voice fills the room again. “When moon gives birth to stars,” he says, in a droning hum, flicking more rosewater over us with the rowan stick, “let this Bond be sealed in blood.”

My skin prickles with fear as the king takes the cue, reaching out to pick up the ceremonial dagger by the leather-wrapped hilt. I focus on not moving, not making a sound, as I watch him bring the blade to his chest, tip pricking his left breast. A drop of crimson pearls up at the spot.

With a slow hiss of breath, he cuts across.

Dark blood slides down his abdomen in a thick swath of red. “My blood with yours,” he says. And he turns the knife, holding out the hilt for me.

My hands clench into fists at my side, and I force my shaking limbs to still.

I breathe in slowly again. Then I reach out, taking the ceremonial dagger from him, careful not to touch his fingers.

I pretend not to care about the cage I’m about to be locked in. About the pain in my soul from loss, from the goddess Brighid abandoning me to this darkness, pain from the reality of everything in front of me.

I press the tip of the blade to the center of my chest, the point breaking the skin. I look into the silver eyes of the king in front of me. And consider my fate.

One deep plunge to the heart and the pain will end.

One plunge.

One.





NINE

FAELAN

I rise from sleep quickly, my new task weighing heavily on my mind. I climb down from the nest in the center of my new room. The dirt floor of the bungalow is cool under my feet. My arm brushes against one of the ropes of ivy hanging from the ceiling, and a few leaves wilt as I unintentionally take in a thread of life. My head is still a mess from earlier. I need to shed this if I’m going to do what Marius wants and assist this new demi with her transition. I need to focus.

Once I got settled in here this morning, I managed to fall into a light sleep for a few hours, but the stillness was fleeting. I kept seeing the fear in the demi’s eyes, kept smelling her shock. The cloud of her misery seemed to follow me after we parted ways, and it’s still sticking to my skin.

I’m not sure how to cleanse myself of it. I consider feeding more, but I already took some energy from the growth around me as I slept, and it hasn’t done any good.

Instead, I make my way into the attached greenhouse and splash water on my face from the small fountain near the entrance. I need to clear my head. Ready myself for the task ahead of me.

I told the demi I’d wake her in four hours, and it’s been five, so I should probably make sure she’s all right with her new living space. We need to get started with this transition.

Damn, I can’t believe I’m the one with my neck in the noose. Marius is a bastard. He’s obviously known all of this time that he would tap me for the task, if this cottage is any indication. It was clearly created in preparation for my arrival. It’s almost an exact replica of my house in upstate New York.

The main room has been converted into a makeshift thicket, with a huge raised nest at the center—a weaving of young, flexible branches, coated in live moss and grasses and vines, and covered in pillows, blankets, and more pillows. As I sleep, I can feed slowly off the life around me. I’ll be awake long enough that the life should be able to rejuvenate itself before my next rest.

The greenhouse will make a good training room for the demi. It has an open grassy area in the center surrounded by heavily packed-in life, all growing from the dirt floor, up the walls, tendrils of plants spilling from the ceiling like leafy stalactites. No cement, no metal, just wood walls around me and mossy river rocks and soil beneath my feet.