“That’s because you’re an idiot,” North said affectionately.
He didn’t bother to deny it. “I know. But she’s Vanir—and before you say we can mate with other races, how was I expected to recognize this for what it is considering the Block? I just thought it was some weird thing to do with our magic.”
North and Easta were both shaking their heads.
“How didyouknow?” he asked.
“You forget, brother, that we know what it is like to be cut off from our bonds,” North said sadly.
North’s mate, her betrothed and future king consort of Idavoll, had been captured in the war, never to be heard from again. They’d never found out if he was alive or dead, since the Block severed, or rather buried, mating bonds.
Easta’s mate had remained in Idavoll to care for their faeling. Westley reached out to place a hand on each of his sisters’ arms. They regarded him with sad eyes.
The mating bond being blocked was perhaps the worst result of magic being torn away. To be unable to feel the other half of your soul, to experience that deep connection and then have it ripped away.
Westley shivered at the thought of his uncompleted bond being stripped from him, let alone an established and whole bond.
When she’d been struck with Noren’s poisoned blade, it was the bond he felt slipping away from him. The other half of his soul. The agony of losing her made sense.
He’d thought he understood how his sisters and all those who had lost their bonds had suffered, but he was only now beginning to see the depths of their pain.
“Why didn’t you tell her?” North asked, changing the subject back to him.
“I didn’t want to force her into it after everything that happened. I betrayed my own bonded. How could I do that to her?” His head dropped as the soul-crushing shame he carried buried him.
“You didn’t know, West. You couldn’t have. You betrayed nothing because it wasn’t there,” Easta insisted.
He shook his head, unwilling to let himself off the hook so easily.
“It was there. I’d foolishly thought it was my magic reacting to her because the gods were warning me. But it was the bond. For goddesses’ sake, seeing her suffer outraged me.”
“You let her go,” North said.
“Too late.”
“She’s alive.” Easta tried to reassure him, but it was no use.
“Okay, this is ridiculous. Now you’re sulking,” North scolded, her tone harsh. There was actual anger in her eyes. “Solveig is not some simpering, weak little female in need of coddling. She is a warrior—a general, at that. She knows the price of war,” she said firmly.
“I know,” Westley whispered. “That’s why she’s going to marry another.” The words left a terrible taste in his mouth, the urge to race back and claim her nearly overwhelming him.
“What?” his sisters exclaimed at once, causing the other patrons to look over at them, scowling.
“When?” North added.
“She told me in the letter. She must marry an Elven, unify the realms, and then give Asgard and Alfheim an heir to solidify the alliance.”
“Fuck,” Easta muttered.
Westley nodded. “And because I understand what that would mean for the entire world, I cannot stop her.”
“But the mating bond ...” North started.
“Is not completed. She owes me nothing.”
“She owes you her life.”
“I owe her mine,” he growled. “And I am not going to stand in the way of restoring peace and magic to the realms.”
