ONYX FOLLOWED me out of the forge and trotted along beside me as I hurried through the halls of Cahlish. He scooted into the bedroom as soon as I threw open the door, leaping up onto the bed, where Fisher was sitting up against the pillows, shirtless, scanning the pages of a book.
He smiled when the little fox leaped into his lap and began licking his chin. Actually smiled. That smile faded when he turned his attention to me and saw the state I was in. “Fuck me, Little Osha. Did you get attacked on the way over here? You’re sweating.”
I slammed the door closed behind me. “Why wouldn’t you say my name? Before?” I panted.
“What?”
“Weeks and weeks I’ve been here now, and up until today, you refused to say my name. Why?”
He set down the book on the bed, gently removing Onyx from his lap as well. “I—I just—”
“I’ve just had a really interesting conversation with Te Léna. I was too sick to notice before, when she used to come and heal me after that run-in I had with that feeder, but she has these crazy tattoos all over her hands.” I held up my own for effect. “She was telling me all about where they came from and why. And then! Then! Haha! Imagine my surprise when she told me about God Bindings, Fisher!”
“Fuck,” he whispered.
“That’s so funny. That’s exactly what I said!” “Look—”
“Tell me why you wouldn’t say my name,” I growled. My heart hammered like a piston in my chest. If I didn’t sit down soon, I was going to fall down, but I wanted to hear him say it first. I wanted his fucking confession. “I know you can’t lie to me, so come on. Tell me why.”
He sat there, his bare, inked chest not moving, his black waves tumbling into his face, so perfect, so handsome, and that cursed fucking thing deep down in the basement of my soul ached and said mine.
“You know why,” he said into my mind. “No, Fisher. Out loud.”
“All right, fine. Have it your way. At first, I didn’t say it because I fucking hated you,” he said. “Hated what you represented.”
My blood was cold as ice in my veins, but I had to hear it. “And what was that?”
“Weakness. Vulnerability.”
“I am not weak, Fisher! I’m not like those butterflies, pathetic, hatching and dying in the cold—”
“Not you! Me!” He thumped himself in his chest, suddenly furious. “My weakness! My vulnerability! I’ve known for centuries that you were coming. That you were just going to show up one day and change everything. You’re the chink in my armor, Saeris. The soft spot where the knife slides in. You are the thing that Malcolm will hurt to hurt me, and I couldn’t…couldn’t fucking bear it!”
I bit the end of my tongue until I tasted blood.
“And, yes. I told you once about the Oshellith. Yes, I told you that they hatched and died in a day. But I was being cruel, Saeris. I didn’t tell you about them properly.”
Nothing inside the bedroom changed. Nothing moved, but the air seemed to still. The figures in the paintings on the walls, with their faces slashed to ribbons, seemed to all hold their breath. “What do you mean?” I whispered.
“The Oshellith hatch once in most Fae lifetimes. Up north, in the wastelands, far beyond Ajun Sky, where the dragons used to live. The air’s so cold there that it’ll freeze in your lungs if you breathe it in without a mask. No life exists there for long. But once in a thousand years, the howling winds drop, signaling the coming of the Oshellith. News of that event travels quickly. That’s when the bravest of our kind set out. They go on foot where no horse can go. When they reach the valley where the
Oshellith hatch, they find the butterfly’s cocoons and they shield them with their bodies. They give them whatever heat they can, for as long as they can. It can take up to twelve hours for them to break out of those cocoons. But when they do…” Kingfisher swallowed, shaking his head. “It’s the most beautiful thing a person can experience in this lifetime. They glow blue and pink and silver, with an ethereal light. They have music, though no one knows how. A sweet, soft song that’s capable of healing. The Oshellith mate and lay their eggs, but once that’s done, they fill the air, and they dance. Protecting them while they live is considered a sacred rite that many die in order to perform. That’s what Oshellith means in Old Fae, Saeris. Most Sacred.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, his expression pained. His breath came ragged and uneven. “All names hold power in this place. Every name means something. We have true names that we don’t share with anyone. Not our friends. Not our families. Our mothers are often the only people who actually know it. And even a mother might use her child’s name to her own advantage in the pursuit of power. This place—it’s fucked, okay. And you show up, and you have one fucking name, and everybody knows it. And I couldn’t say it because I was scared. Of what it would do to me when I did. It would be like acknowledging you were here after all this time. So I called you Osha instead. But it meant more, Saeris. To me, it meant more.”
He wasn’t being serious. There was no way. “All of this time…” I whispered. “But…you called me that from the very start.”
Kingfisher nodded slowly, eyes shining bright. “Most sacred,” he repeated, whispering the words.
I covered my face, and I gave in. I sobbed. The name he gave me, the name I hated, was a declaration of what I meant to him even then. For a long, long time, all I could do was cry through this monumental revelation. Eventually, a kind of stillness settled inside me, though. “How did you know? That I was coming? You said that you knew.”
Fisher set his jaw. “I was told. A long time ago. By my mother. She was an oracle. I didn’t believe her, but then, when I was taken ttt—” He swallowed hard, his eyes watering. Quickly, he scooted to the edge of the bed, planting his bare feet against the floor. He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t breathe!
I stepped forward, but his hand shot out, gesturing for me to stay where I was. Screwing his eyes shut, he leaned forward, gripping hold of the edge
of the bed until his tattooed knuckles turned white. After way too long, he drew in a shallow breath.
He was all right. He was breathing.
I staggered back, letting out a sob as I hit the chest of drawers behind me and slowly sank to the floor.
“I…have to be careful,” he gasped. “I can’t…” Trailing off, he sent me a sidelong look that begged me to understand what he was telling me. That there were things he couldn’t say without suffering dire consequences. That I had to fill in the gaps for myself. “She wrote about you,” he whispered. “My mother. Pages and pages. She knew that she’d die soon, and so she wrote me a book. ‘A mother is always there for her son,’ she told me. ‘It doesn’t matter that he grows and steps into his power. Even the strongest warrior’s heart can break. His soul can still be crushed. Since I won’t be able to comfort you when the challenges before you feel too great, take this book and keep it as a guide. Above all, know this. There will be times when the world seeks to destroy you, Kingfisher. But you are stronger than you can ever know. You will not falter. And you will not face it all alone.’”
My anger was a powerful thing, but in the face of this revelation, it wavered. I didn’t know how to feel. This was a lot to take in.
Fisher hung his head, a bitter smile at his mouth. “She said, when I needed you most, you’d come blazing into my life like a meteorite, riding on a wave of chaos that would turn my whole world upside down. That you’d shine so brilliantly that you’d light up hell itself and guide me out of the darkness. She had no idea what your name would be. Just that you’d have dark hair, and a beautiful smile. And that I’d love you with a fierceness despite myself.”
My heart squeezed, my throat burning with emotion. Centuries ago, a mother had looked into her son’s future, seeking comfort, to assure herself that he would live a good life. And she had seen the pain and suffering the fates had in store for her boy, and then she had seen me and known that he would be okay. The weight of that…
Fuck, I couldn’t breathe.
“She said she felt like she knew you. That you and she were friends, even though a thousand years stood between you. She…she drew you.” Fisher’s voice grew tighter as he fought to speak. Balancing on the edge of tears, he forced himself to laugh instead of cry. “And she captured you almost perfectly, too.”
I wasn’t as strong as Fisher. I let my tears fall. “Almost?” I whispered.
Fisher swallowed, looking down at his hands. He looked half-broken when he met my gaze again. “She was wrong, sometimes. About little things. Small details with big consequences.” He pointed to his ear. “In all of her drawings of you, your ears were like mine. You were Fae. And when I saw…” He sucked in a deep breath. Sat up a little straighter. “When I felt Solace calling to me and I stepped into that pool, I saw that you were human, and I knew in an instant how easily this place would destroy you. So I made the decision to leave you there. But I couldn’t leave you, could I?” he continued. “Your stomach was torn wide open. You were dying. I had no choice but to bring you back. So I decided to be awful to you, so you’d fucking hate me and want nothing to do with me.”
“Stellar plan,” I whispered. “That really panned out.”
His crooked smile nearly broke my heart. “Be honest. I think it worked a little bit.”
Ruefully, I shook my head. “Would those marks have shown up on my hands if it had?”
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t think they would.” “What do they mean, Fisher? For us?” “Didn’t Te Léna tell you?” he asked.
“I want you to tell me.”
The room was thick with quiet. Fisher stared down at the rug, picking at his thumbnail. “My mother never said anything about a mating bond. They haven’t existed for so long. The thought never even crossed my mind. But when I found you lying in that pool of blood, I felt it, like a band snapping into place. I smelled it on you, too. And I…I was so fucking angry.” He clenched his jaw. “Angry that the fates had sealed us that way, when no one else in living memory had been affected by a bond. Angry that it had happened before either of us had even had a chance to get to know each other. I had no idea the marks would show up like that. Without any fucking warning. Without us being married, or even…even…deciding for ourselves that we wanted to be together.
“I saw them appear while you slept the other night. I watched them growing darker, one after the other, more marks than I’d ever heard of, and it scared the hell out of me, Saeris.” He nodded sadly to himself. “Historically, Marks like that come at a cost. They’re the kind of Marks that people will want to write stories about. And not happy ones.”
So, it was true then. Te Léna’s was right. Tragic, she’d said. The word echoed through the empty halls of my mind, growing louder with each repetition.
“I’m not well,” Fisher whispered. “I can’t sleep. I’m haunted, constantly. I see things. I hear things. And it’s getting worse.” He hooked his pendant around his finger, closing his hand around it. “This won’t help for much longer—”
“I can make you another relic. I just made one—”
“This isn’t just a relic, Saeris. It’s warded with spellwork, too. My mother went to the witches and had it, along with a number of other items, made for me before she died. Things she knew I’d need. But this thing inside me is getting stronger. There isn’t a spell in existence strong enough to keep it at bay forever. Soon enough, the pendant won’t work at all, and I’ll be lost. But you don’t need to worry. I refuse to bond you to me with that on the horizon. I won’t accept it. I won’t have you chained to me when things get really bad.”
“You…rejected our bond?” My throat throbbed when I spoke. The words cut like blades. I walked an emotional tightrope, torn straight down the middle by what I was learning.
Fisher sighed. “I’m not sure how it works exactly. I scoured the library at Cahlish. For two weeks, I read everything I could lay my hands on that referred to the mating bond. I wanted to find a way to prevent it from forming in the first place, even though I knew it was already too late for that.” He shrugged. “I did read that, if marks appeared, a waiting period could be initiated, though. Where either party could choose to accept or reject a bond. I initiated the waiting period for us back in Ballard.”
The pieces were beginning to fall into place now. “So that’s what all of those books were for? In your tent back in Innìr?” The thought of it made me want to curl into a ball and stop breathing. “That’s what you were doing all that time you were gone? After I was bitten by the feeder? You were looking for a way to free yourself.”
Fisher’s eyes were hollow. Slowly, he shook his head. “I was looking for a way to save you.”
“So you evoked the waiting period. For me. For my own good. Because it was the right thing to do,” I snapped.
Fisher laughed, the sound bitter. “Rejecting the bond altogether would have been the right thing to do.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I’ve asked myself that question a lot. I’d decided that’s what I was going to do when I watched them darken on your skin. Especially when I saw the god bindings appear. But then, when it came down to it, I couldn’t do it. I don’t know why. I—I just couldn’t. But don’t worry. The month will pass, and nothing will change. First, we’re going to get Everlayne back. Then you’ll finish making the relics. Once that’s done, you’ll go back to Zilvaren and your brother.”
I was drowning by the second, dragged deeper into misery, further from hope and happiness. “Oh, great. You’ve got it all figured out, then. Congratulations. I’m so happy for you.”
Fisher looked stung by my tone. Good. He fucking should be. “Saeris
—”
“No. No, really. I’m thrilled that you’ve had so long to think about all of
this. That you’ve known for hundreds of years that I was going to show up in your life. That you knew what those tattoos meant, and you got to decide that you were going to reject me for my own good and send me packing back to Zilvaren. I’m ecstatic that you’ve made all of these awful, difficult decisions on my behalf, Kingfisher.”
“Oh, come on! Be realistic!” Fisher stood, dragging his hands through his hair. He towered over me, a wall of muscle and ink and despair. “Does it change anything? Now that you know all of this? Do we suddenly have more options available to us? Ones that don’t completely fucking suck?”
“I don’t know if it changes anything! You’re the one with all the answers. What does your mother’s book say happens next?”
Fisher’s jaw worked. “It says nothing. You were right at the end of the book. She wrote only that I’d find you, and the fates would guide our path from there.”
Well, wasn’t that just wonderful? I let my head fall back against the chest of drawers and closed my eyes. “Fuck the fates. They don’t get to decide shit for me. I decide what my future is going to be.”
“You have to go home, Saeris. You can go back and work to free your people. You can still be happy. I’m going to die, and—”
My eyes snapped open. “What do you mean, you’re going to die? You aren’t dying. You’re just…you’re…”
He let out the heaviest sigh I’d ever heard. He came and stood in front of me and dropped down into a crouch. When he reached for my hand, I pulled
I yanked my hand away, hitting my elbow against the chest of drawers in the process. He sighed, then reached for my hand again. This time, I let him take it. He intertwined his fingers with mine, staring down at our joined hands for a long moment. “You’re right,” he finally said, looking up at me. “Being driven to the edge by pain and terrifying hallucinations won’t kill me, no. But it’s no life—at least, not one I want to live. And I won’t be safe. I’ll end up hurting the people I care about. At the very least, I’ll be a burden, and I won’t saddle you or anyone else with that. That’s not happening.”
“So, you’re just going to kill yourself?”
He tensed, like a bowstring ready to snap. “Renfis will hel—”
I shoved him as hard as I could, knocking him backward. He landed on his ass, caught off guard. I jumped up, putting distance between us. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” I spat. “You’re so—so fucking selfish!”
The silver in his right eye overtook the green. He sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees. And the look on his face—he was devastated.
“I know,” he choked out. “I don’t want this. I want…” But whatever he was going to say was too painful. He bounced his legs, exhaling shakily.
Then it hit me. “You can’t just give up. If you die, so does Lorreth.”
“What?”
“You saved him. You gave him part of your soul. If you die, you’ll be trapped, waiting for your soul to be made whole again before you can move on.”
Fisher arched an eyebrow, clearly displeased. “That was private. I guess he’s telling everyone now. Look, I’ve made my peace with whatever happens to me after. If I’m stuck floating around the ether for a thousand years, then so be it. That’s still better than the alternative.”
“Lorreth said he’d die before letting that happen. Are you really going to cut his life short too?”
“Lorreth won’t even know I’m gone,” he growled.
“Of course he will! You really think he just won’t notice? Are you planning to tell him you’re moving to another realm for a better life or something?”
“Something like that,” he muttered.
“You’re such an idiot, Fisher. These people are your friends. They love you. You’re really going to ask Ren to help kill you and keep it a secret from everyone else who cares about you? You’d put that on him? And Lorreth is smart. He won’t accept that you’re abandoning Yvelia and not coming back.”
“He’s going to have to, isn’t he?”
“Like hell he will.” I headed for the door.
“Where are you going, Saeris?” he called after me.
“To sleep. And in the morning, I’m going to the library, and I’m going to research how to save Everlayne and you. Because I don’t just throw my hands up and accept defeat when things get hard. I’m honestly shocked to learn that you do.”
