EIGHT
SAGE
Sleep. It’s barely happening. There was a moment of stillness, when the warmth and comfort of my new surroundings wrapped around me, the poolside waterfall lulling me with its calming rhythm, allowing me to nearly drift off. But then I remembered the last time I fell asleep and woke to three guys gawking at me. And the way I was trapped. And lied to. My whole life.
Eventually, I sit up and scan my new living quarters, which I didn’t bother to look at when I walked in a few hours earlier. I just made a beeline to the couch and collapsed on it, curling myself into the throw blanket tossed over the back.
Now I notice that the couch is purple velvet, soft against my skin. The blanket I was wrapped up in is a pale blue angora, and the throw pillow I rested my head on is delicately embroidered, fit for a queen; it was obviously made by hand. I run a finger over the faded threads and marvel at the detail of the design. Like something out of one of those ancient manuscripts I saw on our school field trip to the museum last year.
I dozed off on that thing. I probably drooled on it.
On the wall across from the couch, where you’d expect a TV, there’s a large painting of a forest with the sun setting behind it—it looks old, some of the paint cracking. The rug that’s covering the dark wood floor under my feet is white and furry. I really hope it wasn’t ever hopping around or anything.
This must be the living room. To my left is the front door; to my right is what looks like a small kitchen nook and two other doors. I assume one of them leads to a bedroom.
I stand and wander over to the closest one, cracking it open. A bathroom. It’s old-fashioned in style, but the fixtures look new. I move to the other door and peek inside.
My breath catches in my throat. It’s like something out of a dream, where a princess would live. A large canopy bed sits in the center, draped with sheer yellow fabric and covered with a ton of pillows. There’s a large window rimmed by built-in bookshelves—look at all those books!—and a puffy yellow chair set off to the side just so. The floor is covered in more fur rugs. A desk and more bookshelves are set into the wall on the other side of the bed, and a hand-painted screen with knotted designs is to my left, in front of what looks like another door. I’m assuming that’s the closet.
I’d go look inside, but I don’t think I can take in any more lavish surprises right now. I feel so out of place, like my surroundings just highlight how lost I am. This can’t possibly be where I belong.
My gaze trails back to the bed. All those pillows. I think of the orange plastic chairs I slept in several nights last week, and I step closer. I reach out and run my palm over the puffy surface of the comforter. It feels like satin, but it looks like simple cotton. I marvel at the sensation of it against my skin, and before I know it I’m climbing up and crawling over the thing, falling into the mountain of pillows until I’m cradled by them.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this comfortable in my entire life.
This. This is heaven.
I close my eyes, and the weight of the last twelve hours lifts from my mind for a fleeting moment. Just long enough for me to fall asleep.
I try to hide my shivering as I wait before the altar, in my position as the Bonding begins. Around me, shadows dance over the cairn walls from the restless flames licking up the ram’s body—the sacrifice on the pyre behind me—and the smell of sweat and burnt flesh smother the smoky air.
The King of Ravens paints an alarming image, standing almost naked across from me on the other side of the blood circle. He wears the corona radiata, the golden laurel-leafed crown, on his head of onyx hair. His short beard is neatly trimmed, combed with lavender oil for the ceremony. His sharp silver eyes study me beneath a heavy brow.
I try not to think about the past. Or future. I try not to think about what those hard hands will feel like on my skin when he seals this Bond.
I study the stone floor rather than look in those metallic eyes. I feel them on me, though, the same way they have been for the fortnight I’ve been here preparing for the ceremony. He hasn’t touched me; he’s only brought me gifts and insisted I sit with him beside the greatfire in the evening before he goes out for his hunt. Sometimes I smell him in the hallway outside my rooms. But he never comes in, thank the goddess. The scent of blood is heavy on him in those moments. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if he’d attempted anything.
After this is done, it won’t matter. My bed will be his. As will my life.
A druid walks back and forth behind me, tossing rosemary and lavender onto the pyre after each stanza of his spell. He calls to the wind from the east, he calls to the waters in the west, and he pulls the spirit of flame and earth into the cairn with us, asking the Penta to approve the Bond set to be made between the two most powerful Houses, as he pleads for a blessing from our mothers, Brighid and Morrígan, and thanks the Cast for their permission to seal the Bond between the two very different powers.
A female druid comes to my side with bowl and brush, beginning to paint my skin in blue woad, tracing patterns of knots and runes across my back, then baring my chest and continuing.
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.