Page 187

"Between myself..."

His eyes were fully gold now.

The bond opened between us, and his answer came through it all at once.

Love. Terror. Hunger. The violent strain of holding himself against everything he wanted.

Beneath all of it was refusal.

He had heard me.

I held his gaze.

Now choose.

His hand began to shake.

"...and..."

He stopped.

Only my name remained.

He had refused to say it in the courtyard. Now his lips parted, and I watched him try to force the sound past his throat.

Nothing came.

He tried again, and all that escaped him was a low, broken noise. The knife trembled badly enough now that the reflection of the candle shook across the blade.

I could have helped him. I could have whispered Wren and given him the word he needed.

I didn't.

If the bond was going to be severed, then every part of that choice belonged to him.

"...and..."

The candle guttered.

A second later every flame in the Great Hall bent low. The candles in the iron stands, the candles on the walls, and the great hanging wheels overhead all dimmed at once, leaving the room briefly washed in blue light.

Three hundred people gasped.

Then something began to glow between Kaelen and me.

The light came from our bodies.

A narrow thread stretched from beneath my breastbone to his, gold and silver wound together over the stone table and across the knife. It pulsed visibly between us.

Everyone in the Hall could see it.

The painful pull on the bond stopped.

I felt the ritual lose its hold, and the connection settled back into my chest, whole and unbroken.

Relief hit me so hard that my knees gave out. I caught myself against the edge of the stone table with both bandaged hands, but I couldn't hold back the sob that tore out of me.

Three hundred people heard it.