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A moment of silence, then his answer. “Aye, I think there will be, Little Lamb. I don’t know when, but there will be.”

“Then we will face it with as much strength as possible. If the Oath makes us stronger, helps us protect each other, then I want to do it. I want to protect you, protect all of Rhyanaes. And I… I need your life to be as long as mine. I won’t stay here a day without you.”

He slid one hand into my hair, cupping the back of my head just above my neck. He kissed me deeply, then looked into my eyes.

“It would be the honor of my life to be your Blood-Bound, my love,” he said.

“The honor is all mine, Byrgir. All mine.”

∞∞∞

The full moon danced on the ocean’s surface in the placid fjord. The late autumn night was chilly but calm, the sky clear. The light of the moon was strong, and the world was all pale light and stark shadow, awash with silver and gray tones. Garmr and Vardir stood watch at the forested edge of the beach, Garmr dark as ever in the light, Vardir bright as the full moon above her.

Byrgir and I knelt facing each other, barefoot, at the hem of the ocean. Smooth, wave-worked pebbles shifted beneath us, the rise and ebb of tiny waves lapping our legs. The moonlight glinted off the shimmering fabric of the black gown El had purchased for me, while Byrgir’s tattoos contrasted dark against his skin in the silver light. He was shirtless, wearing only black pants.

El’s voice carried clear across the beach, the ocean, the walls of the fjord. She said all things first in ethereal, mysterious Senuan, the language of the fae, then again in our common tongue.

“We offer ourselves as witness to the binding of these two souls, these two Sources, through blood and pain. Through love and commitment. With Cerridwen’s blessing we witness this night, under the full moon, two souls become one. Two wells of Source join to overflow. We witness.”

“Aye, we witness,” Crow repeated solemnly, and bowed his head in reverence.

El stepped forward and raised a wooden bowl high above her head; from her perspective, it must have cradled the moon. Then she lowered it, placing it on the shore between us.

“With spit,” she said.

Byrgir leaned over and spat into the bowl. I followed suit.

“With sea,” El said.

Byrgir cupped a handful of the sea and drained it into the bowl. I repeated his action.

“With blood,” El said.

She produced a dagger of darkest obsidian, set into an ornate bone handle. She raised it to the moon, where it flashed in the light, then spun it and handed it to Byrgir, hilt first. Without hesitation, with the fearlessness of a warrior, he drew the blade across his palm. His blood ran thick and black in the monochrome light of the moon before dripping into the bowl.

He passed the dagger to me. My heartbeat quickened with the anticipation of its bite, but I showed no hesitation, no fear. I would face whatever pain lay ahead, endure whatever physical misery I must to be worthy of this man.

“With this Oath, two become one. His blood is hers, and hers, his. There is no separation between them. They share one heart, one blood, one Source. Drink, children of the Oath.”

Byrgir held the bowl in both hands and drank from the mixture we had created. He then handed it to me, white teeth flashing stains of dark black in the moonlight. I drank the viscous liquid, salty and iron-laden. My eyes stayed fixed on Byrgir’s as I did.

“Cleanse yourselves, children of the Oath. Purify yourselves. Resurrect yourselves as Blood-Bound. By the power of the moon. By the power of the sea. By the power of blood. Rise again, no longer two souls, but one!”

Byrgir stood and removed his pants as I undid my dress and it slithered to the beach. All was black and white and silver. Allwas power and pain, Source and love running through my body like quicksilver. El chanted over and over in Senuan, ancient and untranslatable.

“Thaeha anchanmette mai.Thaeha anchanmette mai.”

We walked together, Byrgir taking my bleeding hand in his. Our blood dripped into the ocean as we stepped into frigid waters. I did not feel the shock of the cold, nor the piercing rocks beneath. I felt only the rush of power, the overwhelming tide of Source itself rising inside me. We slipped beneath the surface and were met with the dull, cavernous sounds of the ocean, compressed and amplified. Pops and bubbles, the snapping clack of stones shifting beneath our feet.

Then, far, far away, echoing from the deep –– whale song. Faint on distant sea currents, the sonorous, haunting melody of bonded whales finding each other in the darkness of their world. Rising and falling, singing to one another.

We drifted there, hand in hand, into a world anew. A world of power and binding older than the centuries of humanity. As primordial and potent as the whale song we heard, felt in our chests and bones.

We rose from the ocean born again, dripping in liquid moonlight and brimming with power so heady I nearly forgot how to breathe. We stood in the shallows, naked and reborn, foreheads together, as the wolves howled from the shore and our dearest friends watched with veneration. From the distance, I heard the steady beat of a war drum rise. But no, it was no drumbeat. Byrgir’s heart, drumming steady in his chest. Calling to me.

I stepped from the sea no longer mortal, no longer of this world. Hand in hand with the strongest, most beautiful, most integral man I had ever known. Tethered by a bond I could never have dreamed of, so potent, so mighty that it was almost frightening to behold.

This was not my first rebirth, but it was the deepest, most total. My old self was entirely eclipsed by this transformation. Until this moment I had never felt like an Archfae. Until I felt his blood in my veins, until I drank the sea and tasted the moon. Until his power became mine and mine became his. I knew then that we were no longer human, no longer of this realm. The yawning void of uncertainty stretched before us.

I saw it all then, everything that had happened to me, for what it really was: A gift. It was all a gift. All the lies, the secrets, the pain, the madness. All trials to be passed, old skin to shed in order be resurrected. The new life I was born into from the flames of transformation was a gift. Deeper, more powerful, more meaningful than my existence had been before. I had been handed the keys to eternity, the strength to make a true difference for the people I loved. To carry them, protect them, serve them with this newfound power, far beyond any potential I’d had before. All that had happened had led me here, to this. To him.

Byrgir grabbed me and pulled me to him, his eyes bright in the moonlight, and kissed me. The blood-bond roared into life in my veins. A rush in my ears, an ache so deep I thought my chest would implode, my lungs would collapse. We separated, staring at each other. Wild eyed and breathless. The promise of eternity singing in our blood.