The esguards guided the four of them to their seats.
Jesstin was placed beside Elloven, across from Estelar and a beautiful woman in her middle age. There was also a young man, not much older than Jesstin, and another closer in age to Taven. At the far end sat a woman alone. Her eyes were closed, her hands were folded, and her plate was empty.
“The bracers?” Estelar’s reminder was terse but polite. Jesstin looked down, but before he could remove them, the esguards went to work on it.
Jesstin flexed his sore wrists and ankles just as a large, boiling bowl of broth was placed on the plate in front of him. Everyone else received the same.
Attendants visited each bowl and lowered a large hunk of raw meat into each scalding vessel. The water sizzled on contact, and a heady steam billowed from everyone’s bowls. It turned his stomach but then, curiously, fueled his hunger.
Suddenly, he was ravenous.
Beside him, Elloven tore at her meat like a wolf after a fresh kill. Everyone else was doing the same, and soon, so was Jesstin, astonished at his own savage treatment of the meal. It felt so natural, so right. Before he knew it, all that remained was a broth with the leavings. Juices dripped from his chin, staining the gold tablecloth.
There hadn’t even been introductions.
“I don’t know what just happened,” Elloven whispered. One hand traveled to her mouth. “It was like I was possessed. Forgive me.”
“Forgive you? Ah, darling, you were possessed, with the hunger.” Estelar grinned, as did the woman beside him and the younger of the men. “We honor the dead in many ways here. When we eat meat, we revert to our basest, most carnal state, a sign of our reliance on the death of others to sustain our exuberant lives.”
Jesstin glanced at Sesto, but he was gaping at his bowl like it might soon murder him. Elloven just looked lost.
“Not keen on greens here?” Jesstin asked.
“We eat them,” the woman with the pretor said. Like Estelar, she wore the same deep-red leather, but her shoulders were adorned with gold tassels. Everyone at the table had seven gold bands on their sleeves. Sesto had guessed right about rank then. “At morning sup and afternoon relief. Evening is for reverence.”
“This is Tansea, my consort. Beside her is Malon, my other consort,” Estelar said, referring to the younger man. “And my son, Ryquin. Lexsea, my daughter, is in the village tonight, but you’ll meet her later.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Sesto said, “though with no shortage of questions. You said you are a pretor? Is that like a lord?”
“Nearer to a king,” Tansea said smoothly. “And you want to know about consorts? Sons and daughters of the curia do not engage in marriage as you know it. We choose partners, for seasons, sometimes for life. Estelar and I have been in our season for over thirty years.”
Jesstin realized the son, Ryquin, was staring at him. The man didn’t bother to break his gaze when caught.
He heard that word again. Necromancer.
The voices flooded back to the front of his mind with a vengeance.
“You can choose not to hear them,” Gennady said, appearing on the table, his legs dangling over the side.
Are you helping me, you prick? Communicating telepathically with Gennady took so much more energy, and he couldn’t hear himself think over the deluge, but an audible conversation was out of the question.
“Not for your sake,” Gennady retorted.
I tried to ignore them. They didn’t like it.
“Try harder. You’ve blocked me before. You can block them. Elloven needs you to have your wits about you, because no one else will.” He disappeared.
“Though there are some who choose the bond. The Vinculo Sagrado,” Estelar said, and Jesstin snapped his attention back to the conversation. “It’s brash and unnecessary, but there are those who feel so intensely, they wish to make their partnership permanent and irreversible.”
“Irreversible?” Elloven sagged in her chair. “So there’s no way to undo a bond?”
“There is,” Ryquin said. He was still staring rudely at Jesstin. Did no one else notice?
“You must bond with another.” Estelar silenced his son with a hand in the air. “To reverse one already sealed.”
“That’s it? That’s the only way?” Elloven moved her hands to her lap. Her fingers twitched, one by one, as though counting.
“We get ahead of ourselves tonight. You have traveled far to get here. It’s time to rest.”
