Page 6 of Antiletum
“I was never supposed to be a paired wife. The role of Lady wasn’t meant to be mine,” Delaney says heatedly, tears pooling in her eyes, the sight punching through my heart.
At this, I interrupt. “Yes, Delaney, and it was never expected for me to be Lord, yet here we are. And besides, your magic was never truly your own before. Was it really that much better to practice in the dark? Where no one knew? Where your family hid and frownedupon you? Was that life of loneliness and lies truly better than the idea of practicing with me?Beingwith me?” My voice is gravelly at the last question, betraying myself.
A smudge of gold at an open window catches my attention. I turn towards it, glimpsing Tabitha’s interested face, listening in on the conversation over the backdrop of songbirds. At my glare, her glee is wiped away and replaced with fear. Tabitha runs away. I glower at the back of her head, wondering how she can find so much pleasure in the suffering of her kin.
A pattering of fluid against stone turns me back to face my wife, exuding anger and sadness so thick it coats my throat. Her wound is getting worse, bleeding more profusely as her offering expires.
I grab the hem of my tunic, untucking it, and rip fiercely to pull a piece free.
Delaney senses my intention and tries to shy away. I grab her uninjured arm firmly, moving her back in front of me. Insisting she allow me to care for her until she gets what she needs.
Delaney gazes at a point beyond my shoulder, unseeing through the haze of tears clouding her eyes. Her jaw is locked tight, but she relents to my care all the same.
Blood coats my fingers as I take her hand, wrapping it tenderly to staunch her bleeding until she makes it to Nelda in the infirmary. I glance back at the mirror laid out on the altar, at the moonwater and skin—rapidly decaying as the moonwater evaporates, the magic spent, the offering given and well past being received.
She was clearly somewhat successful in her endeavor, given her joy until she saw me.
“Who were you trying to reach?” I ask softly, not betraying the anxious leap of my heart. I more easily swallow my frustrations asDelaney shows me her hurt, beyond the offering she gave to reach someone beyond.
The question is pointless: I know precisely who she wanted to speak to. Still, I think we might be getting somewhere, and it seems a prudent question to ask.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.” I tie off the ripped fabric covering her wound then lick a smear of her blood off my thumb, my eyes pinned on hers intently.
Her breath catches.
I smirk at her reaction, biting my bottom lip, teeth snagging on one of my two silver hoops pierced through it. “Come, it’s not as if I haven’t already tasted every part of you.”
Maybe I should have been this brazen before now. This is pure elation. Voicing my desire. Watching her cheeks stain pink.
Not giving Delaney an opportunity to respond, I pivot back to the core conversation, all the genuine care and concern I carry drenching my tone. I will make her see. “If you’re willing to harm and weaken yourself in order to speak to the dead… it matters. You can tell me these things and we can figure it out. Together.”
“Not long ago I didn’tneedto do what I was born to with a helping hand. I could do it myself.”
“Not freely.”
A grinding creak catches my attention, and I glance to the Ellden clock of thespirlinary, hanging on the wall. Those hideous clocks are everywhere. All connected to the three original Ellden clocks, tied to the Heartstones. Theirvinculumhands holding our powers like a lead to a mongrel. An ever cruel reminder to stay in line, lest we lose it all.
One of the three hands has shifted again, ever so slightly, away from the thirteenth hour, top and center. Delaney glances behind her and sees it too, guilt etched across her face.
It’s a struggle to not groan as the possibilities roll through my mind about what I’ll have to do to fix it. How much blood it will take.
Had one of the hands moved clockwise, as they did when balance was upset before the Heartstone beat again, the price would have been much easier to pay, movingforwardto restore balance. The other way around, however…
Those gaps will surely be much more difficult to bridge.
Delaney moves to round me, to leave, ignoring my question, but I sidestep in front of her.
“Did you speak to all of them?”
Mother. Father. Sister.
Delaney watches me, reserved, but some of her steeliness is melting away, bringing back some of that light that she had during our ceremony. For me. Hope, warm and heady, snakes through my ribs. I douse it instantly with ice, demanding that it calm the fuck down before we’re met with more disappointment.
But green sprigs shoot past that ice when she answers me, and I canfeelher honesty. Letting me in, even if only slightly. Even if only for a moment. “No, just Rainah.”
Her older sister who was supposed to have a bonded match with the new Lord ofNoctua—a Lord who was certainly not me. After all the untimely deaths leading us here, Parliament hastily sanctioned mine and Delaney’s union, the unexpected new Lord needing to be paired to a Lady before fully ascending to his position. The highest within theNoctuafaction. The voices between Parliament and the people.
