I wonder if the Werma had similar vows at her wedding to my father. And if so, why did she choose to break them anyway and risk the fury of the crows, wolves, and skies when she left us.
The Werma holds her knife out, slicing through the cords and leaving tiny cuts on both our arms. Rivulets of blood run down our forearms toward our clasped hands.
“And so, man and wife you are.”
I am staring at it, a bit mesmerized by the crimson that I don’t immediately realize that the weakness has fled my body. I flick my gaze up to meet Marcello’s only to find him already looking at me. I am still trapped in the depths as I stare into the warm brown eyes of my new husband.
Chapter Thirteen
The Unbalanced Scale
Myheadisfinallyclear as I release Marcello’s hand, sliding my bloodied hand from his. As I do so, I notice something on my wrist. It’s a dark inky stain on my skin, just like the Valknut was. Only the mark of death is gone. In its place is a scale with one weight pulling down the lefthand side while the other rises high above the center.
Marcello lets out a little gasp, and I turn to him to see that he is staring at his own wrist. I lean forward to get a better look at it and find myself looking at a scale marking on his arm which mirrors my own.
Without thinking, I hold up my arm next to Marcello’s. He stares at the mark on my wrist and then raises his gaze to me so that I can see the shock and concern in his eyes.
“Good,” the Werma says with a sharp clap that echoes through the room, causing us both to jump a bit. “The ritual worked then.”
“Why do you sound so surprised?” I ask, pushing to my feet.
The Werma shrugs. “Magic was never meant to be, it exists only now because the gods do not restrain it. But mark me well, magic is no tool. It is not your ally. It is chaos, pure and simple. It has no form, no role, no being. It cannot be controlled.”
I know that well enough from how forceful and intrusive my own visions are. They are a foreign assault to my senses, something I never should have seen.
But the Werma? She has made magic her life’s work as the mystic woman of the mountains. She left her family for thismagic. But then perhaps she is different than most. She is a being as tempestuous and changeable as the magic she understands.
The Werma grips my wrist, her fingers digging into the shallow cuts that she made on my arm. I grit my teeth but refuse to allow the pain to show. I know that the Werma wants a reaction, so I refuse to give it to her. “You will need a salve for these cuts. Come, I presume you remember what I taught you about the herbs.”
I glance at Marcello who reaches up to his shoulder with a grimace, obviously remembering his last encounter with the heart shaped leaf. It seems as if half an age passed between now and then. It’s hard to process that was this same evening, back when Marcello was my enemy. My captive.
And now… well, now he is my husband.
I think I liked it better when he was my enemy.
“Good. Come with me now.”
I follow the Werma outside. As soon as I step foot outside, my dragons are upon me. Snuffling my clothes and nudging me with their noses.
“I’m fine,” I assure them with a little laugh as Worm sticks his head between my legs and lifts as if he is trying to get me to climb on his back and take me far from here. Drekki places his nose against the palm of my unhurt hand and just sits there.
I look up to see the Werma is staring at me and quickly wipe the smile from my face. I carefully extradite myself from my dragons and move to the side of the path where the dirt is already disturbed from my digging for the root. The night sky has an ethereal glow to it, a blue band on the horizon that lends light to the night.
I ignore the cuts on my hand as I begin digging for more roots. I stiffen slightly as the Werma settles in beside me, her withered hands and long dirty nails clawing into the frozen soil.
“The ritual is only half complete,” she says after a moment. I pause my whole body going still at her words.
“What?” I demand. I have been married, bound to my enemy and now only after the fact the Werma is going to tell me that wasn’t enough.
“Let me see your wrist.”
I want to refuse to show her, pull my sleeve down and cover it completely, but instead I swallow my pride and hold my wrist out to her. The weighted scale shows starkly against my pale skin in the bright night.
The Werma reaches out, tracing her fingernail against the mark on my skin. “The weights are not balanced,” she says, glancing up at me. “You’re still cursed.”
I rip my arm out of her hold. “If this wasn’t even going to work then why did you force me to go through that humiliation?”
“Because you would be dead by now if I hadn’t.” She rips a root out of the ground without taking her eyes off me. “Hush your ceaseless animosity, girl and listen to me.”
