Page 37 of Ties of Starlight

She hurried up the first few steps, throwing over her shoulder, “I have to go start the dance.”

Asa didn’t try to delay her or say anything more. Idonea faced ahead, forcing herself to slow down before shetripped and made a fool of herself. No one above had noticed her approach yet.

The Constella stood next to Nyrunn, and his eyes landed on Idonea first, knowing the exact moment she was supposed to climb the stairs. The final rays of the sun were disappearing as the stars came out fully. The Constella gave her a nod, and Nyrunn turned to face her.

Her hands were in her skirts, giving them a slight lift as she went up the stairs but she wished she could instead use one of them to cover her deathmark.

But he wasn't looking at that. Or, well, he wasn't focusing on it. His eyes traced over all of her, and she shivered, but that was because there was a breeze and her shoulders were bare. He was only looking at her to find fault. His eyes dragged up her skirts, then her bodice, then her neck to her face. He was taking stock of all the ways she didn't look like an elf. She was serving as a reminder to him of what she was.

If her violent human blood rose to the surface again, he would be on guard, ready to put her down just like his uncle had.

He frightened her, so much so it was often his face that she saw out of the corner of her eye in her nightmares as the blade cut through her heart and not Bror’s. However, she could not truly blame him.

She waited for the disgust to flicker, for him to swallow and brace himself for being forced to be so close to the wife he was rightfully repulsed by.

It never came.

She reached the top of the stairs, stars hanging in the air and lighting up the stone platform. Broken columns that had once held up an arch framed the space around them. These ruins had been ruins ever since Idonea’s first life, but they’d certainly eroded bit by bit ever sincethen.

Nyrunn's lips parted as she stepped into the light and his breath hitched. Something flared distantly on the other side of her wall.

Her wall wasn’t as strong as it could be. Her memories and nightmares had been slamming into it, sending cracks and fissures through it she had not had time to repair.

Idonea had lived a long time. She'd experienced a lot of looks. She'd never had someone look at her like that.

It wasn't repulsion. It certainly wasn't desire. While she most often experienced the first, she'd been married six times to her soulmate. She'd experienced the second enough to know what it looked like.

Then Nyrunn lowered his gaze as she continued her approach, reaching him and the Constella, and he was staring at the ground. His hair fell into his face so she could not see what was in his eyes. Maybe he was trying to hide his repulsion that way.

“Agnarr's chosen, Gytha's chosen, your hands.”

Idonea extended hers and Nyrunn finally looked up, but directly at the Constella as he extended his. The Constella took their hands, the ones with the starry lines marking this bond, and joined them together. His magic flared and more starlight wrapped around them, joining them. More starlight went up, painting a pattern through the air, the white nearly blinding.

“Agnarr's chosen, Gytha's chosen, as Agnarr and Gytha once danced together, sealing their magic beneath the stars, now you will follow in their footsteps and seal your magic together.”

The Constella backed away, stepping off the platform as the music started up. Idonea held her breath when Nyrunn's grip on her hand tightened before he looked at her again. But before she could look at him, the dance began. He spun her back to his front, and they were dancingbetween the lines of starlight both pinning them in and outlining their path.

Idonea threw herself into the dance. This at least she did not believe she could mess up if she tried.

She knew the steps of the dance by heart. The man she was dancing with, however, she did not.

Nor did he know the dance by heart. As his arm slid around her waist as he turned her to face him, as their feet kept moving and winding along their destined path, but he stepped too far, and she quickly sank her other hand into the back of his cape and jerked herself closer to avoid stumbling into the strand of starlight. The misstep was hidden, and she was spinning again before being lifted into the air, heart in her throat. Nyrunn set her back on her feet, but when he hesitated, she whispered, “You come forward, now.”

So much for the claims Nyrunn was the best dancer in the court.

He immediately did so, and she shifted back in time; his hands held hers, bracing her as she dipped back, bending over and beneath the starlight. So they went—any time he hesitated, she whispered the right move and he executed it.

He wasn’t awful, and she couldn’t fault him too much since it was likely the first time he was actually dancing it with a partner. With that in mind, he was doing better than anyone had any right to.

While Idonea had never seen it from the exterior, she’d always heard the Heava Dance was a breathtaking sight. It was part performance, part bonding ritual.

Nyrunn’s magic did the majority of the work, moving the stars and creating the lines that boxed them in and took them along an ever-changing path, but Idonea’s magic was drawn to it to respond.

The dance was usually Idonea’s favorite part of the journey.

The music kept on, filling the air, but Idonea’s mind was torn in a thousand different directions. She needed to ensure Nyrunn didn’t mess up, but at the same time, every time she blinked, he was no longer the elf in her arms. Her hands were no longer plain and pale but slick and stained.

Nyrunn’s emotions on the other side of her wall kept flaring and crashing against the other side while her memories and the horror and guilt that came with them slammed into her side.

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