“The Southern King is right, Goddess. It will tear me apart, but I must go back,” Araes said, kneeling beside her chair. His fingers found hers beneath the table and the touch on her skin. Although supposed to be a gentle reassurance, was nothing but heartbreak. “But I promise you, whether in this life or the next, I will find you. I willalwaysfind you.”
“Stay with me,” she whispered, her chest tight and lips salty with grief. “Please.”
Araes brushed a kiss across her forehead. She begged and prayed and pleaded to Eos and Astraeus and the whole damned universe to freeze the projection of time. To stay in this moment where his warmth met hers. But her pleas went unanswered, and the place where his lips had once been grew cold.
Altair let out an audible breath, reminding them of the curious eyes lingering in the room. Tethys didn’t care. Let them see. Let them spread their whispers. If this truly was to be the last time she’d feel Araes’s body against hers, then let the whole fucking continent watch. She pulled him close, refusing to loosen her grip on his tunic, and placed her mouth to his.
For just a moment, the world stilled. The breeze stopped, and the ocean froze. But time was a relentless force, like a river refusing to yield to its dam. When Araes pulled away, he, too, had tears cascading down his chin.
“I’ll have the staff collect your things and prepare a mount for you,” Altair said, returning to his seat at the table’s head. “Leave at dawn. It will be a long journey home.”
Chapter 62
The day crept by in heavy silence. Tethys, now a mere ghostly husk, trailed Araes through his bedchamber as he packed his things. With each folded tunic he placed in his leather pack, the tear in her chest ripped further apart. She sat on his bedside, with eyes unfocused, listening to the scuff of his boot against hardwood as he traversed the room. Araes didn’t speak. Not even a sound or breath escaped his weary lips.
He just packed.
“Araes…” she whispered finally, her voice searing her throat. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“Yes, my love?” he replied. His boots continued to shuffle back and forth across the room. From the armoire to the packing table. Again and again like the incessant tick of the clock.
“There’s something we must do before you go,” she replied. He paused mid-step. Then, a weight pressed on the bed beside her. Behind the curtain of curls concealing her tears, she watched Araes’s hand brace against thecomforter. Every vein along his knuckles rippled with life. “I’ve given you almost everything. Now, there’s one thing left, and it’s been yours since the day we met. Maybe even before then.”
He tipped her chin up, his eyes begging hers to meet them.
“Procyon and I may be bound together by the mortal marriage rites, but we never completed the Elythera,” she said, risking a glance toward him. “I cannot promise you every part of me, but this one…I’ll gladly give you.”
Araes loosed a breath, his jaw flexing as he took in the depth of Tethys’s request.
“The Elythera?” he asked, brushing a thumb down her chin.
“It’s an immortal ritual, binding two souls together. As a child, Euda taught all of my siblings the Elytheran rites in the event that we might find someone to share the rites with, but I lost hope a long time ago…that is, until I met you. It will connect us—tether us—to one another. No matter where you or I go, or how lost we may be, the Elytheran bond will always bring us home,” she replied, leaning into his touch.
“Are you sure?” Araes asked. His eyes glittered with wondrous warmth as she nodded and kissed his palm.
“I’ve never been more certain in my entire existence, Araes. I love you. My Elytheran rites were always meant for you.” She rested a hand on her abdomen, searching for the little flicker of light that grew there.
She wanted to tell him. To show him the future they’d shape together and the life their love created. But saying goodbye would be all the more difficult if he knew the truth.
“I love you too, Goddess. No distance or war or primordial-fucking-being could keep me from you,” Araes replied, pulling her into his chest. Her tears, salted and warm, seeped into the fabric of his tunic. Tethys wanted tomelt into him. To stay enwrapped in his arms for the rest of eternity. Here, they were no longer two individuals, but two pieces of a whole.
“Do you accept, then?” she asked, wiping her damp cheeks.
“Yes, I accept.” She heard the smile in his voice, saw the love flashing in his eyes. In the past, sitting here, facing a man she’d offered her world to, would have terrified her. She’d fortify her walls and push him away, just as she did so many of her friends and family before. Tethys’s heart, once calloused and cold, now settled in her chest. Everyone she’d ever loved, ever trusted, always left.
Everyone before him.
Tethys rose from the bed, smiling as she retrieved Araes’s dagger from the baldric resting beside his leather pack. Araes shifted, keeping his eyes fixed on the silver blade as Tethys dragged its edge along her palm. She winced, letting the sting of the dagger burrow through her skin as it drew a steady trickle of blood.
“Here,” she said, passing the blade to Araes. He mirrored her action, gliding the blade’s edge along his own skin.
“I assume you aren’t squeamish, Lieutenant,” she mused, returning to her seat beside him. He arched a brow, cradling his palm.
“Only when it comes toyourblood,” he said, chuckling softly. Wonder refracted off the flecks in his irises as Tethys pressed her thumb to the blood now pooling in her palm.
“Do as I do,” she said, brushing her thumb, painted red, down his lower lip. She knew the rites. In a time when soulmates and happily ever after didn’t feel too far out of reach, Tethys had taken them to memory, in hopes of one day sharing her soul with another.
Araes mimicked her movements, staining her lower lip with his blood. She welcomed the sweet metallic taste onher tongue. Araes didn’t flinch or shy from her touch as she traced his jaw. He mirrored her, maintaining the tether between their gazes.
