by Kumar, Lisa
“This has never happened before?” Cal’s mind struggled with that boggling fact.
Relian shook his head. “Not to our knowledge, and our memory stretches back very far.”
“So the veil orchestrated this whole situation.”
“Yes and no. The veil formed from the magic that permeates this world, and it’s this magic that makes any type of bonding possible. So while it did bring you here and place the bindings on us, it can’t force a bond where there normally wouldn’t be one.”
Cal frowned. “But if the magic is what controls a bonding, how do you know free choice is possible? Maybe it just throws the people it wants together, setting them up.”
He pulled her against him until she sat in his lap, and her back rested against his chest. “No, it doesn’t operate that way. It merely looks inside hearts and minds to determine the bond level. The veil can prod but never coerce. At least, not until now. I’ll admit it is now skirting a fine line at coercion with what it has done.”
“But why would the veil care so much in our case? According to what you’re saying, it’s never endeavored to bring a couple together this way. There has to be a reason, one I’m not aware of.” She craned her neck to cast him an accusatory look. “But you know, don’t you?”
He gave a grim smile. “Now you’re asking the hard questions. Why would it interfere? What’s so important that it would seek to meddle in our lives?” He glanced at her quizzically, and she nodded. “It’s time to tell you what we know, whether I will it or not. Quite simply the magic of this world is disappearing. The veil seems to be seeking a resolution to a problem we don’t know the cause of or solution to, other than it has something to do with your dimension.”
“My dimension?” Her voice contained a doubtful note.
His arms banded around her, his hands resting on her stomach. Her gaze landed on his hands, imagining them roaming over her. She shuddered when his long fingers started a trail of lazy circles that soon migrated to the underside of her breasts before wandering down low on her stomach. Her breath caught. How far would he go? Luckily or maybe unluckily—she couldn’t decide—he didn’t go any farther.
“Our two realities are interconnected. One cannot be without the other, for they both sprang from the same reality.”
His husky voice, along with his fluid and sensual movements, almost caused her to miss his explanation. The aroused length poking into her backside didn’t help, either. She stilled his hands and scooted over to one side of his lap. “Okay, I’m trying to understand, but I can’t think while your hands are on me. Or while you’re prodding me in the back with your mighty sword.”
He chuckled but behaved himself. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and exhaled slowly. “I’m not sure I’m following the metaphysical talk. Basically, our worlds exist in symbiosis because they used to be one and the same?”
“Yes.”
She slowly drew out her words. “So the veil is trying to save itself and your world’s magic.”
“Not just those but our very worlds themselves.”
She reared away from him. “What!”
He tugged her back to rest against him, this time so she sat sideways. “The balance between our worlds has been upset. We believe the veil is seeking an equalizing influence before either can be irreparably damaged.”
“But what’s causing the imbalance?”
He shrugged. “We don’t know.”
She gave him an owlish look. “That’s comforting. So what’s the effect of this instability?”
“Your world moving at an ever increasing pace, leaving humanity to burn itself out, while ours stagnates, leaving us incapable of growth, of magic. Magic is what binds us so closely with nature, makes us what we are. Both our worlds are leading to the same end through different routes.”
She blanched. “That can’t be healthy.”
His face set in somber lines. “It’s not.”
Confusion pummeled her from all directions. “But what does all this have to do with you and me?”
“Since the veil brought you here, it’s believed you are needed here for some reason.” Seeing her prodding motion, he shook his head. “You’re not going to like this.”
A humorless smile touched her lips. “I don’t expect to. Nothing I’ve learned has been any different up to this point, so try me. I promise to not fall into hysterics.”
“A solution. You’re seen as part of the solution or a missing piece of the puzzle. We both are. Unfortunately, no one knows where to find the rest of the puzzle.”
She swallowed, her mouth dry. He was right about not liking the news. How could she be a missing piece to anything? She was normal, not a super woman by any means.
They remained silent for a while until he cleared his throat. “Now I believe it is time for your explanation of how I ruined your life.”
***
Pulling out of his arms, Cal stood up to leave. That conversation couldn’t happen. She wasn’t ready.
His hands settled on her shoulders and stopped any attempt at escape. “You leveled a heavy charge, even though I realize you said it under the grip of anger. But I still sensed a truth to it—at least a truth you believe.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I want to talk about this right now.”
“Will you ever be ready?”
The tender understanding in his voice caused tears to spring up in her eyes. “Probably not.”
He turned her around to face him. “Then it’s time.”
She rubbed her arms and stared at his chest, not meaning to speak. But it all tumbled out like some vomited noxious poison. “My parents believed me to have…issues. My classmates thought the same thing, too. I was always different, always had my head in the clouds. But when I was thirteen, I made the mistake of telling a so-called friend about my visions and dreams and of seeing your celebration in the clearing. By the end of the day, she’d spread the whole story around the school. The principal and my teacher got involved and called my parents.”
Her voice broke. “Do you know how mean kids can be? Heck, how mean even adults can be? Talking down to me as if I weren’t there or in my right mind? My parents only desired the best for me, but even they wanted me doped up on medication to control my “hallucinations.”’
When she finally looked up, she found no satisfaction in the pain that lined his face as she once might have. “Nobody believed me, so I started to deny it after a while. For a few years, I almost convinced myself I’d merely imagined everything. It didn’t matter I still suffered from the dreams and visions. I shrugged them off and tried to ignore them. But the damage was already done. People no longer looked at me the same, not even my parents. We actually moved to another town so I could start afresh at a new school. That’s where I later met Maggie when she moved to my town our senior year. Things were much better there, practically normal. We graduated and went to college….” She faltered to a stop.
He finished her sentence, his voice subdued. “Where your dreams and visions became worse until the veil brought you here.”
“Yes, and now here I am.” She gestured around her. “In a supposedly impossible place that I was crazy for even imaging.”
His guarded gaze quickly concealed a flicker of worry. “You still hold resentment, and you should. The very existence of my world shaped your life. Your suffering – it saddens me. But I cannot change it, no matter how I wish otherwise.”
She sighed. Tormenting him wouldn’t be right, though letting go of the past was no small thing. “I know, Relian. Believe me, that’s a conversation I’ve had with myself many times since coming to Eria. I can’t blame you. I can’t even really blame the veil after what you told me. And I’m starting to accept that. Yes, my life wasn’t ideal, but neither my childhood nor teenage years were the horror story some people live with.” Her lips twitched. “I think I’ve turned out remarkably normal, considering everything. It’s the circumstances around me that are insanely wei
rd.”
His hands slid down her arms. “Does that mean you can move on from the past without it defining your future?”
More metaphysical talk. She groaned. “Can’t you ever just speak plainly? But to answer your question, yes, that’s what I’m attempting to do. I won’t ever forget the past, but I no longer seek to place blame.”
His arms went around her, anchoring her against him, and he rested his chin on her head. “That’s all I can ask.”
Her body melted as he placed kisses on her hair and just held her, nothing else. They stayed that way until many minutes passed, and it was time to rejoin the others.
***
“Where were you?” Maggie whispered.
“Talking to Relian about you know what.” Cal answered back quietly, aware of the stares they engendered by whispering at the table, where everyone partook of a huge feast.
“You’ll have to tell me later how that went.”
“Oh, I will, and you won’t believe it. I still can’t.”
“Oooh, this promises to be good. It better be.” Maggie’s previous decorum went right out the window along with the wine that went down her throat. “That pompous yellow-haired faerie showed me off like a pampered pet. Do you think humans are coming in favor now? Ha, every fashionable elf will want one. Will we get a jeweled pillow along with a matching collar?”
Next to her, Relian tensed. She shot Maggie a chiding look before turning back to him. What she saw dismayed her. His shoulders shook fractionally, and he coughed discretely in the hand that covered his mouth.
Relian laughed at his father’s expense? She glanced toward the king, but a visiting dignitary sitting to his left engaged him in conversation. Her relief soon took a nosedive in the form of Lord Avrin, who was seated on the other side of Maggie. The appraising look he directed at her friend spelled trouble.
Avrin’s light voice carried an amused tone. “I can’t speak for the king, but if every human is like you, Lady Maggie, I could see humans becoming a very popular fixture in our world.” His voice lowered. “As a fashionable elf myself, I think you would look striking clothed in a jeweled collar, reclining on a pillow.”
Maggie’s eyes flew to Lord Avrin, and her spoon dropped back into her bowl of soup. Her mouth wordlessly opened and closed.
Cal blinked. Had he just propositioned her friend? Well, it seemed he liked Maggie but maybe not in the way she first supposed. He’d escorted Maggie out of the king’s study when they barged in that one day. Now he served as her dinner companion and popped up more frequently than she could ever remember. Maybe elves weren’t so different from humans after all.
This was the first time she’d heard anything so overtly sexual in a public setting. Relian had said some very risqué things in private. She shivered. They sounded so sensual when he said them. Goosebumps covered her arms at the thought, drawing her attention to the fact that it wasn’t a good time to think about those things right then.
She focused back on Maggie and Avrin. Maggie was in the process of stuttering her way through something that resembled a response. “O…oh? I wasn’t really volunteering, thank you very much. I mean, I was just…. Yeah. I mean no. Definitely not volunteering.”
Thankfully, Maggie finished there, not saying anything else. Cal wanted to bury her face in her hands. Her friend had to run her mouth, and now look where it got her.
The sight of the very proper lord stumping her forward friend marveled her. She nearly smiled in heady relief because she’d actually begun to wonder if all elvin men were abnormally stiff when it came to teasing and the like. Well, except for Kenhel. No one could ever call him so. The king, either. He did so like baiting Maggie.
Relian also certainly said things to make her go pink and turn her into a puddle of sexually frustrated goo. She shifted in her chair to relieve the heated pressure building up between her legs. No, so not going there right now, though she wouldn’t mind if he did. Stupid feast and stupid Relian for making her wait, never mind she’d agreed with him on that choice. But how could he be reserved one moment and so uninhabited the next? He had more effing personas than an actor, and elves claimed that humans were flighty with their emotions. What a double standard. It was so familiar and human.
A moment of realization dawned. The full spectrum of emotions had been there all along. It was as Relian mentioned: his people merely hid their feelings more carefully and probably didn’t show them to strangers overmuch. Though elves were often formal and refined, they could let loose with the same aplomb as humanity. For all their differences, elves were surprisingly similar to the people she’d known all her life.
What other wonders would the rest of the evening hold? She had enough surprises on her already overflowing plate. Any others wanting to make an appearance could calmly wait their turn until tomorrow.
Chapter 28
“What!” Maggie screeched. “They actually believe you have something to do with the magic going a.w.o.l?”
Leaning against the railing of her chamber’s balcony, Cal winced as she turned to her friend. Maggie’s vocal cords left her ears ringing. “No, not with the magic disappearing, per se, but with the solution.”
Maggie folded her arms and adopted the same pose as Cal, one foot propped up on the delicately carved-balustrade. It was a posture that screamed doubt. “How? I fail to see how you can change anything.”
“Join the club. But that’s all they have, and they’re holding onto it tenaciously.”
“So just because our worlds are connected somehow, and they can’t find a solution to the troubles of their world in their own dimension, they foresaw the answer coming from our world, and you’re it? God, we’re screwed.”
Cal cringed. “It wasn’t quite put that way. They think I have something to do with the solution, not necessarily that I’m the whole answer.”
Maggie made a disparaging sound. “Well, that’s a relief. Not putting too much pressure on a girl, then. You’re a normal woman with no magic tricks, real or otherwise, up her sleeve, but hey, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”
Cal buried her face in her hands. “Our worlds are royally screwed. They’re not floating up shit creek. They’re sinking like a fifty-ton turd in it.” She didn’t have any special abilities. How would the bonding change anything for Eria? Looking up, she pursed her lips. “Relian is also seen as part of the equation. We seem to be a package deal to them.”
“Like you can’t have one without the other?”
“Yeah.”
“Sheez, it looks like they’ll never let you go. Not that I blame them if they’re right. This is so much bigger than either of us. What are two paltry humans to them if one of them can play a part in saving the world?”
“Worlds.”
Maggie snorted before a bright smile covered her face. “Hey, since it looks like you’ll truly be going nowhere, you can accept Relian.”
Cal started. “Accept?”
Maggie flashed her a look that said playing dumb wouldn’t work. “Bond with him. You know, their equivalent of getting married. You know you want to. You’re crazy about him.” Cal tried to protest, but she cut her off. “Don’t even think about denying it. I know better.”
Pouting, Cal eyed Maggie. “Whatever, Mom.”
***
Chapter 29
“I’ve heard too many reports of the darkindred on the move.” Kenhel leaned back against a tree that flanked the outskirts of the training fields and shook his head, frowning at his sword. “We’ll have to act before they’re allowed to breach more borders and barriers. You know many of our nobility have small fiefs and haven’t the manpower to fight the enemy amassing outside Eria. There are enough within our borders without more breaking through.”
Relian frowned. “And with each one slipping over our borders, one or more of our people disappear. They’ll defeat us through conversion alone if they aren’t stopped soon.”
A grim smile came to Kenhel’s lips. “We kill all we get
our hands on, even though they were once our brothers and sisters. The older ones still fool some of the soldiers, looking like lost relatives who’ve escaped captivity relatively intact.”
“That is why it’s so much easier to kill the young ones. They haven’t developed the strength for such ploys yet.” Relian grimaced. “Such a simple ploy, and one we know too well, but it works for them. Why would they stop? Some poor fool will always want to believe what his eyes see, even though his mind knows it’s not logically possible.”
“We need to think about rising up the national army, Relian, not just bits and sections of it. We need a concerted effort.”
Relian nodded. “You’re the commander of the guard for a reason. Once you give your recommendations to my father, he’ll give them his due consideration. Do you want me to call for a council?”
Kenhel’s playful smile came back in full force. “It’s already done. The council is to take place tomorrow, since so many are already in attendance.”
Relian slid Kenhel a wry look. “I see my father’s infernal plotting has a positive side to it. Taking out two problems with one arrow, though I like it not when that arrow is aimed at me.”
Kenhel snorted. “Yes, it’s ever his way to be efficient. But have you informed Lady Cal of either problem yet?” At the sheepish look on Relian’s face, Kenhel slapped his hand against his thigh. “If she’s to stay here, she needs to be informed of the enemies lurking within and outside our borders.”
“She’s aware of the existence of the darkindred, but that’s about it. She’s swimming under what she already knows. I fear to burden her with more.”
“That’s no longer your choice. In human years, in human eyes, she’s an adult. We should also treat her as such. The time for secrecy has passed. If she’s to be our princess, she needs to be in full possession of knowledge crucial to the kingdom, not what we choose to tell her. Her place here is all but guaranteed.”
Kenhel’s familiar words hit him like a blow. Cal argued for her adulthood in a land of elves where even the teenagers were older than her. “I know, but I just want to protect her.”
