“I can’t decide if you wish for me to speak or to kiss you,” Cerian whispers as his eyes drift to her lips.
And rather than answering with words, she wraps her arms around him and finds his lips with her own.
Vialaquietlyshutsthedoor to this honeymoon suite, tugging Tharios along with her. Their presence is hardly needed as Cerian comforts his human princess.
“I should have thought of it sooner,” Tharios says, once again taking on guilt that’s not his to bear.
“You have been a busy elf. I’m sure you would have thought of it eventually.”
Viala rubs her arms as Arisanna’s stricken face fills her memory again. To lose one’s parents to the breakdown of the body brought on by little more than the passage of time—the idea cuts like a knife to the heart. At least when Viala says goodbye to her mother and father, she can expect to see them again.
Images of Tharios growing old and taking his last breath descend upon her, and her lungs constrict as she reaches out to steady herself. Blackness flickers out the light streaming in through a window in the stairwell, and her knees grow weak. Too weak to carry her.
“Viala!” Tharios catches her as the floor rushes toward her. The cord between them evaporates into something almost non-existent.
Then he’s probing her with his free hand as she blinks up at the ceiling.
The urge to make light of her apparent inability to cope with the idea of death battles with the horror still filling her, and she attempts to push from her mind images of Tharios leaving her to this world without him.
When he frees her magic, she gasps and stares up at him. “Put it back. Please.”
“Viala, you just fainted. I need to know why, and I can’t assess your flame properly when it’s bound.”
“I do not need your assessment, elf prince. I need you to never leave me.”
Tharios’s hand stills as he gazes down at her, and she doesn’t look away.
“This isn’t physical, is it?” he says softly.
“The pain in my heart at the thought of watching you grow old and die cuts deeper than any pain I’ve ever felt in my flesh.”
With a twist of his magic, he binds her flame again. Thank the fates. Who knows what she might do in this state?
Then he pulls her into his arms. They don’t rehash the same argument they’ve had too many times to count. There’s no reason to argue. Tharios is too honorable to defy her father and break his word not to heartbind with her.
It’s such a paradox that one of the things she loves most about him simultaneously drives her to madness.
“The Lothlesi feel everything so deeply,” he whispers.
“We are a passionate people.”
“You are passion personified, my love. Please don’t faint like that again.”
“It was hardly on purpose, though I won’t complain about being held by you now.”
He just tightens his arms around her as the cord between them lengthens.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Viala whispers.
“We will talk to your father. We will. And perhaps a heartbinding wouldn’t be a death sentence for you. Perhaps it would make me immortal.”
“So you can watch everyone you love grow old and die?”
“There is no life without death, Viala. Not in the world I inhabit.”
“I’m not sure I like your world.”
Tharios chuckles at her words, but the sound is strained.
