Page 5 of Antiletum
Again, her eyes flick guiltily into the open door.
I meant it as a means to ease her heartache. Our union was sprung on her, and she had little time to adjust before our wedding, made much worse being hand-in-hand with grief. She adored the sanctuary of her parent’santiletumestate, finding solace in her quiet otherness within worship walls. The only place she was allowed to be herself. Completely alone.
With the mind boggling exception of Tabitha.
Admittedly, I was relieved to learn that Delaney hasn’t been entirely opposed to practicing her magic at all. Given all she’s endured. Given what I know now.
“What did you do? Hmm?” My face leans closer to hers, my head doing a slow tilt to the side. A motion that she clocks before glancingaway. “More than that, what did you give?” Inquisitive, I pull back to scan more of her body, searching for tells.
Delaney’s fists bunch tighter in her skirts, and clarity washes over me: The action is less about reining in her desire to punch me and more about hiding evidence.
My hands pop away from the wall, grabbing hers quickly. I move so fast she doesn’t have an opportunity to attempt resisting. Skirts float around her like wood smoke as her hands come loose, a streak of blood marring the formerly believed pristine fabric.
There—on the back of her left hand. An open patch of bloody, red tissue from where she sloughed off a swatch of her skin as an offering stares at me, so deep I can see a peek of white tendon. The price of her offering accelerates before my eyes, fleshy tissue beginning to ooze blood.
I sigh, barely running the pad of my thumb over the edge of the angry patch. Delaney hisses through her teeth, snatching her hand back and cradling it against her chest.
A shot of guilt eats through me. It was an accident, touching the open wound. It was hard not to, given that she gave the skin of almost half her fucking hand. I don’t let that remorse show through, instead baring my teeth back at her.
It’s worse than I expected. Good foresight on my end to send Mallin to Nelda, the resident physician and his grandmother, with a bundle ofantiletum. Unfortunately, now I’ll have to refill my personal stash. Hard to come by these days with the recent razing of several prominent fields.
Pity.
Not to mention the way Parliament hoards the herb as another means of control. Can’t have their subjects skirting the confines of their binds and becoming too powerful. Getting ideas.
Turning on my heel, I head into thespirlinary, now completely empty, to find the full scope of what Delaney was practicing for her wretched bitch cousin. What kind of price will have to be paid to bridge the gap and restore balance between the warring Ellden clocks and a single living Heartstone?
They haven’t been fond of existing simultaneously. But I suppose that was the point, now, wasn’t it?
A paired person practicing their magic without their spouse has a price far steeper than that of the overuse of an unbonded individual, their magic wholly theirs and not dependent on another to use.
But also much weaker than when brought together with a spouse.
The call to death within me surges as the scent of Delaney’s magic cloys around me within thespirlinary, begging to be used. The octagonal room with its stone arena benches swim in sunlight, pleasant and airy, despite the scope of magic still staining the air, the off-kilter energy.
I stride to the altar, Delaney hot on my heels. She tries to come in front of me, shielding my view from her practices, but it doesn’t matter. Over the top of her lovely head I can see the mirror, the bowl of moonwater, now stained pink and useless with the patch of her skin perched at the bottom of the bowl.
Apparently she thought an offering with moonwater in aspirlinarywould be enough to skirt the confines of our magical bond. To reach out to someone beyond life through the plane of a mirror.
Already, the offering is beginning to fizzle and fade, increasing as her price accelerates on her body, magical necrosis devouring away at her flesh.
“I wasn’t necromancing!” Delaney insists, voice steely.
The need to throttle something owns me, wondering how many times she’s had to give the same defense before.
“Save it,” I say as gently as I can. After all, I’m not angry with her. Not really. “You forget, I am as you are, and I amintimatelyaware of the grey areas of our power. It may not have been raising the dead, but how far off is conversing with the non-living?”
I should know, I’ve practiced such myself. And I amachingto do so again. As soon as she will let me in.
Necromancers are rare and have not widely been accepted anywhere near living history, the gift bred from existence. Much like myself in the earlier years of my life, Delaney had to hide the scope of her gifts from others, something her failure parents devoutly saw to. But she can’t hide from me.
And with me, she will have to hide no more.
I soften further, as I always do when I’m allowed in her presence for more than a breath. But this interaction is deeper than any we have had so far—the quiet, tentative tension between us in her rejection officially coming to a head.
“Delaney…” I begin, but have no idea what I want to say. My eyes flick towards thecaelos, praying for patience and understanding, something I have done every single day since our ritual, pairing us for life. Since I fell asleep with my bride in my arms, only to wake to an empty bed and an unexplained coldness from her that I haven’t yet convinced her to share with me. Or anyone else.
Other than probably fucking Tabitha.
