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A utumn rain turned thick with slush continued to patter against the windows as I drifted to sleep in Byrgir’s arms. I did not wake when he rose to close the curtains, or when he left the room sometime in the morning.

The voice was quiet and sinister in its return.

My unconscious was black fog and drifting, unintelligible whispers.

And still, the voice. Distant, less oppressive and domineering than before.

But still there. The worst part was, I couldn’t tell if he was with me, or if it was just a memory of him reverberating in my tortured mind.

A dull panic blossomed in the back of my skull, and I fought down a familiar nausea as I opened my eyes.

The usual mists of Rhyanaes drowned the sun’s rays, although it was bright outside. Bright enough that the sun had nearly burned the fog away, which meant it was probably around noon. But I was here, home, safe in this luxurious bed.

I opened my closet, eager to dress in my own clothes at last. There was the deep blue dress I’d purchased with El on my first tour of Rhyanaes with her.

Hanging next to it was the sleek blue dress with strings of pearls dangling across the open back that El had convinced me to try on in the shop that same day.

And next to that hung a black dress I had never seen before.

I pulled it from the closet and tried it on out of curiosity.

The back was low, the small straps hanging off my shoulders, and a deep split ran down the center of the structured bodice.

Two long leg slits ended high on my hips.

It glistened a deadly, shimmering black, reflecting light like the darkest obsidian.

I had never worn anything that made me feel so sexy, or so powerful.

It fit a little large with all the muscle I had lost, but El had clearly ordered it to my measurements.

Even while I was imprisoned, she had prepared gifts for my return, so certain that I would be in this home of ours again.

I smiled and shook my head. I had no idea when I would wear something like this. I changed into my more practical blue linen dress.

I braided back my long, wavy hair with some difficulty, given the state the activities of the previous night had left it in, then made my way down the spiral stairs to the sitting room.

As I reached it, Byrgir came in the front door.

He dropped the empty sack he was carrying and rushed to me, sweeping me into his arms and spinning me around in a tight hug.

“Good morning, my Little Lamb,” he said, and kissed me.

“Good morning, my Big Bear,” I replied.

“Big Bear?”

“Your bear hugs.” I shrugged. “And size.”

“Size of what?” he asked coyly.

“All of you,” I said, sliding a teasing hand down his torso.

“Be careful,” he growled in my ear, “or I’ll carry you back up to that room and you won’t get breakfast.”

“I’ve been through worse,” I said. The haunting voice of my dreams still echoed in my subconscious, but I smiled. I would not ruin this day with grim revelations of problems not yet solved.

“You have, which is why skipping meals is not an option for you. Come on.” He took my hand and led me to the kitchen, where hunks of smoked salmon were piled on a plate on the kitchen island, their deep orange flesh turned a darker red with the smoke, beads of rich orange oil glistening on their surface.

My stomach rumbled. A tray of muffins also waited, and a bowl of apples.

Byrgir pulled some cold porridge from the fridge for me and started to retrieve a pot to warm it on the stove, but I stopped him.

“I think I need a break from porridge. For a while, at least,” I said.

“Ah, of course.” He looked down into the bowl and a dark shadow passed over his countenance.

But then he put it back in the cold storage and was already smiling again when he turned back to me.

Nothing ever soured him for long. “Extra salmon then. You need to rebuild those muscles.” He squeezed my too thin arm, then put on the kettle and began preparing tea for us.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.

“El went straight to Celestine’s this morning and they’re likely speaking to the rest of the Council now, preparing to send an ambassador to Astruiath to ask them to let in our refugees.

Crow is putting together a few teams of Rangers to map out the best routes for them, and then planning our extraction efforts for Eilith. ”

“And what are your plans today?” I asked.

“I’m all yours today. And training, of course.”

“Can I join you?”

“Only if you eat enough breakfast,” he said.

I shoved a large chunk of smoked salmon into my mouth with exaggerated obedience.

∞∞∞

“Byrgir, when we got out of the Temple, you asked me about the Blood Oath,” I said. We were in bed again, in the late afternoon after training in the rain, limbs entwined and sheets tangled as he stroked my hair.

“I did.” He waited for me to continue.

“Did you mean that?”

“Of course I did,” he said. “I got the idea the first day after you were taken, and I haven’t been able to get my mind off it since. But it’s a big commitment, Hal. The rest of our lives. I don’t expect you to be ready to take that step right away. You should take some time to think about it.”

I was quiet a moment, then said, “The world feels so much darker than it did before. I have never felt pain like I did when I was trapped there. When I had lost you. It fractured my soul to miss you like that. Split me in two. I never want to feel that way again.”

“And you never will, my love. I will always be by your side. Until Aed takes me to the Underworld, and then even after that. I will find you in every rebirth, every life.” He squeezed me tight against him, and my throat ached with threatening tears I tried to swallow.

“I’m not interested in an eternity without you. I want no life that doesn’t have you in it. Human lives are too short.”

“I will always come back to you, my eternal queen. I swear.”

“Will there be war?” I asked. A simple question, but the weight of it hung in the air like a curse.

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. All was 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.