Page 18 of Antiletum
“This is why you attempted necromancing in secret? To try to speak to Rainah and learn why she thinks I’m not trustworthy?”
“Yes.”
“Because you have fully heeded to that warning, and sincerely do not trust me.”
“I want to.”
Val drums his fingers over the table once, tapping against white linen.
What a shockingly intimidating gesture.
“I need more than that, Delaney,” Val says so quietly it makes the hairs across my arms stand. “It never occurred to you to come to me? Rather than use your gift alone, harming yourself to try to speak to the dead instead?”
The intensity my husband levels me with is almost too much. A part of me wants to stand from this table and leave the room just so I can breathe. Words escape me. Because he’s right. That would have been the obvious choice for most. But I’m so accustomed to being left to my own devices, to not bother anyone with the existence of my necromancy, my instinct was to figure it out on my own.
“Did you know that owls mate for life?” Val asks suddenly. “They choose their partner and then pair until they die.”
Perfect. Another abrupt change to draw my already creased brows tighter together. Images of a beautiful, dark barn owl flash through my mind. I answer with a scowl, slightly offended. “Of course I know that.”
There were plenty of written records of my own ancestors’ chosen pairings, still able to shift into their owl forms. Long before Parliament existed and oversaw the sanctioning of marriages.
“Did you know that’s where the tradition of usingvinculumas wedding bands came from?”
With a frown, I think back to all of my lessons on history and culture.“I’ve never heard that. I’ve only ever known that they are used to bind us to each other.”
“That they do.”
I glance down at my own ring just as my husband does the same with his, reverence and a hint of disgust glossing over those intense features. An uncalled for shot of insecurity eats at me, wondering if themated for lifebit is causing the awe or the distaste. Perhaps some of both.
Maybe he’s wishing that, in my rejection, seeking an affair wouldn’t have hisvinculumband shrinking against his finger, pinching off the flow of a vital artery to his heart in a slow, excruciating death every time one is unfaithful.
I may not be wholly accepting of my husband quite yet, but I’m not exactly disgusted by our union either. There’s no one living I would ever be tempted to take as a lover myself.
A large raven comes to land on my window sill just as I open my mouth to speak. Val raises a hand, halting me with his stare pinned on the bird like he might just speed to the window and snap its neck.
Brow raised at him, Val ignores me, still as a statue, waiting for it to fly off. When it does, Val turns back to me. “I’m sure you’ve been told to never have a conversation you don’t want heard or repeated in front of an animal.”
I laugh. “You’re superstitious.”
“If that’s what you want to call it, sure.”
“Shifters haven’t been around since before theNocturnelaid to rest. Hundreds of years.” Just another tally in the margins of my questions. “Okay, enough with being cryptic, Val. Get to the point that you’re obviously trying to make.”
“I do adore your tenacity.” That bright smile flashes. Dangerous and sinful. “Once upon a time,everyonewas able to choose their own spouse. Not just the rabble.” The way Val’s voice drops at the wordrabblesends a shiver down my spine. As if it’s personal.
Parliament only sanctions marriages within the nobility and more powerful bloodlines, leaving the lesser status populations to marry at will. They use plain silver wedding bands that don’t bind magic. I’m inclined to admit that it seems quite the privilege, despite the fact that a sanctioned marriage is supposed to be a status symbol and increases a paired couple’s power when used together.
“Yes, once placed, avinculumband has never been able to be removed. It keeps both spouses from being unfaithful, unless one wants to lose a finger during a long, slow trek to certain death. It was used as a romantic symbol in thatnothingcould shake that love and devotion, not even death. Butvinculumhasn’t always bound one’s magic to another’s,” Val continues with an increasing shot of malice not at all directed towards me. There’s the disgust in regards to being bound. “That’s only been since Parliament came to be. Constructing their Ellden clocks and sullying the sacred metal. How else do you think the Ellden clocks track when balance has been upended? It’s because thehands are made ofvinculum. We’re bound to each other. We’re bound to the clocks.”
That push and pull wars within me. The tug of my heart in too many directions. Too much falling upon me to add to my culture shock.
“You’re toying with me.” I don’t at all care for the way I sound. Naive. Unsure.
“I would never do that, Delaney.” The look Val gives me, serious but kind, holds no condescension, none in the slightest. Only care. “I only want you to understand.”
As I’m mulling over his words, what they may mean, if they hold even a scrap of truth, the night of our wedding washes over me.
A particular detail that I haven’t allowed myself to think on too deeply, given the implications and how terrifying they are. A detail that has helped me hold onto my suspicions of my husband after Rainah came to me, despite the draw I have to him, courtesy of the aforementioned mating for life. Despite my wanting to believe that maybe it wasn’t intentional since everyone who knew I was a necromancer before my wedding is dead and gone. Other than Tabitha.
