“There are no animals within the Hourglass,” I muttered to myself, looking at the birds, wishing I was one of them. What would I do with that sort of freedom? Where would I fly with no walls or laws to stop me?
It didn’t matter. I would never be free, not again. There would never be a time where there wasn’t someone (perhaps a flurry of someones) to monitor my every move. I wasn’t a bird. I was a dragon. And this was what my life would be now.
The sun rose high in the shade-induced sky, sending shadows across the ground that, for whatever reason, made me feel very small. Merrin’s hands felt heavy against mine. There was a time when she had wanted nothing more than this. In all honesty, there was a time when I myself couldn’t see past this moment. And didn’t want to.
Her hands in mine had been the most natural thing in the entire world. She was my perfect. It wasn’t love. It was sturdier than that. And now, glaring at the way her eyes narrowed at me, I saw what it had become. We were nothing; nothing at all.
“Enough posturing,” Chant’s voice shook me to the core and I realized how quickly and shallow my breaths were coming. “There will be plenty of time for longing looks at each other after you have done your duty.”
His words were thick and laden with sarcasm, the sort that made me once again believe that he knew more about Merrin’s mindset than he was letting on. He looked from Merrin and I to our families, and finally to his fellow Council members. “Let it begin!”
The sun dimmed in the sky and was joined by a dusting of day stars that lent a strange effervescent glow to everything. Then, just as suddenly, the world began to shrink under us. With Merrin’s hands still in mine, I realized we were now standing on a large podium. We were literally the proverbial bride and groom atop a wedding cake; our families little more than dots staring upward and cheering us on. The Council however, lifted along with us, remaining just a little higher than we were; which didn’t surprise me at all.
“Say the words,” Chant ordered, staring at me with unblinking eyes. I didn’t have to ask for clarification. All Breakers knew the words. We had been hearing them at every joining ceremony since we were younglings.
I swallowed hard, looked Merrin straight in the face, and repeated what I had been hearing for years. “As fate has made you, so I remake you. As fate has chosen you, so I rejoice in her will. In accordance with my duty, in payment for the life that I was given, I take you as my own. Forever.”
The last words echoed through the room, through the ‘outside world’ the shade had created. It reverberated through the trees and shook their leaves. Suddenly there were no birds left in the sky. There was nothing overhead.
My finger began to burn as the ring markings of the coupled began to etch themselves into my skin. I had always wondered how much this would hurt, and the answer turned out to be, a whole hell of a lot. I bit my lip and tried to keep from crying out as the markings circled my finger, closing the loop as it finished.
“And now you,” Chant smiled, motioning to Merrin. She repeated what I had just said; her words sounding more a blur than a promise as the markings burned their way onto her finger as well.
“It is done,” Chant said, and suddenly everything disappeared. Merrin and I were back on the ground. The sky was gone, replaced by the plain room of the Council’s chambers where I had entered. My eyes flickered to the floor. Suddenly, I felt very exposed. They were all looking at me, and a man is what they were seeing; a coupled man with a spouse and responsibilities.
I let go of her hands- or, I tried to rather. Loosening my grip, I saw that her hands stayed in mine. Her brows narrowed as she realized what was going on, no doubt trying to untangle her fingers with mine and coming away frustrated.
“What is-”
The whole world went pitch black and Chant’s voice boomed into the abyss. “By the power of the Council; a power bestowed on me by Fate herself, I deem you symbioses.”
“No!” I screamed before I could stop myself. The lights came back on as I reared back in horror as I saw what was happening. My entire body burned as the markings that were once contained to my ring finger now ran up the entirety of my left arm. Merrin yelled out in pain as the same thing happened to her.
We were finally able to separate as the processed finished. I fell to the ground, shaking and almost sobbing from combined pain and shock. “You-you had no right!” I said.
“On the contrary,” Chant said standing over me. “I had every right. You are mine, an instrument of the Council. And I have no intention of ever letting you go. As you know, a symbiosis is the deepest measure of commitment any two things can share. You are, now and forever, bonded in ways that can never be reversed and joined in ways that can never be untethered.’
This was Chant’s plan the entire time, I realized. It wasn’t a coupling, it was this. He wanted to make leaving Merrin impossible. He wanted to strip away, without any doubt, whatever small hope of being with Cresta I had left. He wanted to make me his, and to do that, he had to be damn sure I would never ever be hers again.
“It is no longer food or water; no longer air, or ever fate that keeps you alive and on this earth. It is your connection to each other. This bond has replaced your life forces, and without it, both of you will die.”
Chapter 18
Under Her Skin
The next few hours were almost enough to kill me. The symbioses were changing me, and I didn’t just mean the ugly string of ancient looking etchings that now circled my entire left arm like some ill-conceived Spring break tattoo. It was like being born again, like coming to terms with an existence that was new and strange, I could feel her, feel the breath as it filled her lungs and escaped through her mouth and nose. I could sense her heart as it fluttered in her chest. Her pain was my pain. Her rest was my rest. I had heard Cresta’s thoughts back in Weathersby. I had let her into my mind in a way I had never let anyone in before. But we had never been connected like this. I knew Merrin like I knew myself. Every bead of sweat that ran down her neck was mine. Down to the way the fabric of her shirt itched as it lay across her chest. It all belonged to me. And I knew she could feel me the same way.
And if she thought being trapped in Cresta’s mind was a punishment, this must have been a nightmare.
“What’s wrong?” Sevie asked, helping me out of my blasted coupling jacket. For his part, he seemed more put together than he had earlier, though that may have been out of necessity. After all, everyone couldn’t fall apart at the same time and, of the two of us, I definitely had a better reason to be freaking out right about now.
“Do you really have to ask me that?” I answered, shrugging out of the coat. I could have just come out and said it, but the truth was, I wasn’t sure if Merrin would be aware of it. Sure, I couldn’t read her thoughts; at least not yet. But who was to say what she could or couldn’t do at this point? “Do you know how tired I am right now?” I asked, shaking my head. “And not tired because I’ve been awake too long or because I’ve been exerting myself. I’m tired because I’m away from her. It’s actually taxing physically to be away from Merrin. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
“It sounds a little romantic to me actually,” Sevie said, folding my jacket over the back of a chair.
“Don’t start with me,” I snapped at him. “This isn’t what I signed up for.”
“You said you wanted to move on with your life, did you not, Brother?” He shrugged at me. “Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but this seems to be quite an effective method in which to do that.”
“I said that for you!” I told him, running a hand through my hair and wondering if Merrin could feel it. “I wanted you to know that you didn’t have to wait around for Cresta for the rest of your life!”
“But you spoke of yourself?” He said, cocking his head curiously.
“It’s a metaphor!” I said, almost yelling.
“That seems a roundabout way to give me advice, Brother. In the future, might I suggest simply stating what
you mean, as to avoid unnecessary confusion.”
“Sevie! This doesn’t even matter!” I said, flopping down on the bed. “Do you not understand what just happened?!”
“I do,” he answered. “You were given a great honor.”
“What?!” I looked up at him. “It was a punishment.”
“”I disagree,” he said, settling beside me on the bed. “Symbioses is one of the ancient honors, bestowed only upon the strongest and most reliable of connections. It speaks well to your future.”
“Sevie, you can’t be this naive,” I answered. “The Council is doing this for a reason. I just don’t know-”
“No Brother! It is an honor,” he said, clapping a hand onto my own and squeezing, as though he was trying to tell me something without coming out and saying it. “If Cresta and I had been given such an honor, we would not be separated as we are now; for I would know where she was at all times. I would know what she was doing, what she was feeling. I would know her as I know myself. There would be no secrets.”
I stared at him for a long moment. Of course, the Council did this to keep tabs on me. Not only did they want to take my hope away, they wanted to take my freedom away too; right down to the way I felt. They wanted to stick Merrin as deep into me as humanly possible, thinking that I would edit my mind or my heart out of some guilt or sense of duty. And soon enough, maybe my mind would change and my heart would forget. I would be as they wanted me to be. I would be the Dragon, and their claws would be buried so deep in me that I wouldn’t be able to tell where they ended and I started.
Sevie grinned a little as he saw the enlightenment spread across my features. “Tell me again Brother,” he said. “Tell me how naïve I am.”
********
I had not seen Merrin since the ceremony as the sun began to set over the Great Wall of the Hourglass on the day of our coupling. Traditionally, our joining would be proceeded by a great feast where all the Breakers who had any familial connection with either of us; would eat, drink and, at the risk of sounding too corny, be generally merry. But we were not traditional Breakers, not anymore. And our coupling was anything but standard. The general population did not yet know we were joined. In fact, no one outside of my family, the Council, and stupid Luca James, had even seen me since the day I set fire to myself in the Main Square.
That would change tonight.
The Council had already called a meeting for next evening. Tomorrow, every Breaker who was within the confines of the Hourglass and physically able to travel would be called into the Main Square. Merrin and I would make our entrance, effectively announcing ourselves as man and wife; and everyone would know that I was, in all the ways that mattered, loyal to the Council and its desires.
That, however, wasn’t what I was most nervous about. As a newly joined couple, Merrin and I would be expected to consummate our relationship. We would be expected to procreate; spawn of the dragon, as it were. And worse than that, worse than being expected to do it, was the fact that my body was being compelled to do it.
The symbioses made me ache for her. I hated myself for it, but I wanted her. And I could feel the way she felt too, the way the symbioses was making her feel. She wanted me too. And feeling that desire made me want her more. No, it was more than that. She needed me. And I needed her. We needed each other, and I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to resist that need. Like Chant said, it wasn’t air that kept me alive anymore. It was Merrin, being close to her. So keeping my distance, stopping myself from having her, was tantamount to holding my breath. And how long could a man hold his breath before being forced to finally give in?
My heart raced as the sun set, as the night crept closer. And her heart, which beat in my chest, as equally as my own, sped up too. I felt her nerves and knew without question that she felt mine. There was something extra within her anticipation, though; something that aided in her hesitation.
She hated me.
It wasn’t an overly dramatic teenage thing either. There was no passion here; no lines that could be blurred or switches that could be flipped. She had made her mind up, and there was no changing that. I was doomed to spend the rest of my life at the side of and inside the mind of someone who couldn’t stand me.
The breath caught in my throat as the door opened and she entered. She was wearing a sheer green gown that hugged her curves and left her breasts nearly exposed.
Yep, if she was air, I was definitely going to suffocate.
“Are you okay?” I asked, not really sure what I meant by that. Of course, she was okay. And even if she wasn’t’, I would have felt it. Hell, I’d have felt a bubble of indigestion in her chest at this point.
“I’ve been better,” she said, swishing around as she moved near me. “But then again, so have you.” It wasn’t a question. There was no need for questions within our relationship anymore.
My heart jumped as she neared me, half because of the reaction my body now had around her and half because she was a devastatingly beautiful woman in her underwear.
“I love her, Merrin,” I said weakly.
“That’s such a Neanderthal thing to say,” she answered, still moving toward me. I felt the want burning in her, stoking the want in me. Fates hand, I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself. I was going to let this happen.
Get a grip, Lightfoot, I told myself. She’s your wife. There are worse things in the world than being attracted to your wife.
But then Cresta’s face popped into my mind. Her heart slammed against my own. It made me strong, but to what end. I would never see her again. No matter how much I wanted to, Cresta would never be part of my life again.
And Merrin was here, soft, firm, and inside of me. She swept closer. The smell of her filled my everything. The word was a haze and even Cresta’s face began to fade from my memory. Damn this sensation, this confusingly sweet ache that came with what the Council had done to me. This was a trick, a trap; and God help me, I was about to fall prey to it.
“Are you okay?” She asked, and even then I wanted to ravage her. But of course, she knew I wouldn’t. She knew that, if this was going to happen, it would have to be her that initiated it. And she knew, because my mind was hers now that the fight would melt out of me.
“I love her,” I repeated.
“And I loathe you,” she answered. “But I don’t see where that matters anymore. We have a duty.”
“Is that what this is?” I asked breathlessly.
“I’m not sure what this is,” she admitted. “But I don’t think it’ll ever stop.” She leaned closer so that her fingers were almost pressed against my chest. “Not unless we make it stop.”
I sighed heavy, letting my body go limp and hard at the same time. Her fingers finally touched me now, dancing across the peaks of my chest and sending primitive sparks through my body. She traced me gently, and I watched the way the etchings that now ran up her left arm (matching mine to a tee) shimmered as she moved them.
“We have to make it stop,” she said, and I felt the urge that threatened to consume both of us. Without making the conscious decision to do so, I leaned into her, feeling her softness press against me.
“I love her,” I repeated feebly. It was the ridiculous mantra of a child who was up against something he couldn’t dream of defeating. But it was also the truth. I did love Cresta, loved her more than I could have ever hoped to explain or justify. But what did that matter now? What did any of it matter now?
The door to our room burst open. At first I thought it was me, that the tension building inside my body had forced its way out with some sort of shade produced jarring movement. I jerked back, as though touching my wife was something I needed to hide.
Clearing my throat, I steadied myself and looked toward the door. Chant came hobbling in, aided by his ever-present cane and two bed servants who followed close behind at either side.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, and felt both the spike of anger that rose in my chest and the veil
of fear that settled over Merrin’s. “We’re fine,” I said, cutting my eyes over to her.
“You act as though you’re unhappy to see me,” Chant croaked, inching forward.
“This is my wedding night and you’re hobbling around my room like some ancient cockblock. So yeah, I’m not thrilled.”
“Owen!” Merrin said through clenched teeth. Her own anger began to bubble up, though it was, as to be expected, directed at me and not our obvious intruder. “We’re happy to see you, Chant. My husband is just surprised. Please don’t take it personally.”
“Your husband is rude, abrasive, ignorant to hierarchy, and utterly unpleasant to be around. But he is also necessary for what’s to come. So do not worry about what I do or do not take personally. That can be shelved for now.” His thin gray brows arched menacingly. “This, however, cannot.”
He waved his hand and the same energy that blew the door open brushed the curtains apart.
I bristled since we were in the middle of the Main Square, had yet to be properly introduced as a couple, and were practically in our underwear. I had nothing to worry about, though. No one in their right mind would give the two of us a second glance tonight, not with everything else that was going on.
The streets of the Square were full of Breakers, most of them in their night clothes, staring up at the sky with their mouths agape. The moon was full and red, as red as blood. And so were all of the stars that surrounded it.
“The Blood Moon isn’t until tomorrow,” Merrin muttered.
“The Blood Moon doesn’t look like that,” I answered. “And the stars…” Shaking my head, I turned to Chant. “What the hell am I looking at?”
He crept closer. “If I’m not mistaken, your girlfriend just brought about the end of the world. That’s what ‘the hell’ you’re looking at.”
Chapter 19
Team Raven
Cresta
The Breakers Ultimatum (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 3) Page 16
