Page 71 of The Sovereign, Part One (The Sovereign Saga #1)

“Maxim. Isara.” His voice was smooth but worn.

“I am Caleren Dov, a Cultural Arbiter of Tethering Rites. It’s a privilege to officiate your vows this evening.

” He offered a small bow of the head, then turned toward the others with a gesture that somehow conveyed both grace and command.

“If you would all take your seats, we’ll begin shortly. ”

Our small group of loved ones followed him to the half circle of chairs, but Lev stayed behind. He took my hand and leaned in as if he were about to kiss my cheek, but instead, whispered in my ear. “Just go through the motions. I’ve taken care of it.”

I nodded as he released my hand, watching him take a seat next to Papa.

Maxim squeezed my hand. “Ready?” When I nodded, he led me to the center platform.

Caleren Dov offered a small smile as we joined him. “Good evening,” he said, his hands folded at his waist. “On behalf of the Dominion Office of Cultural Affairs and the Registry of Vestured Pairings, I welcome you all.”

Something inside me turned toward Maxim as if I were an old world compass that had suddenly found north. The adjustment was simple, the effect wasn’t. My heart complied.

“We are gathered this evening for the formal Tethering of Sovereign Isara Poeima and her selected Supplicant, Maxim.” His eyes swept gently across the room.

“This is not merely a ceremonial appointment. It is a rite woven into the foundation of our history. As the forefather Elion Nareth once said, ‘To tether is not to bind, but to open—one to another, flesh to breath, thought to impulse, will to wonder.’”

I felt Maxim shift beside me, his hand firmly in mine.

Caleren took one step closer. “It is with great care that we proceed. Isara, if you’ll permit me.

” He lifted a small, silvered device—no larger than a stem of lavender—and held it behind my left ear over the access point I used to access Calyx with the auditory network.

A cool touch, a measured pressure, the subcutaneous node settled beneath the dermis, and a filament latched to the mastoid with a muted click.

Maxim bowed his head, allowing the same noninvasive procedure.

He didn’t flinch, though I saw his jaw shift slightly as the connection took hold.

“Isara and Maxim will now be tethered, an encrypted neuro-sensory conduit that allows shared access to biometrics, location, emotional thresholds, and regulated affective calibration. But more than that…” Caleren paused, folding the device into his robes.

“It is the pulse of devotion, read not by algorithms, but by the constancy of presence. By proximity, by breath.”

His gaze rested on us both. “Please, join hands.”

Maxim reached for me. The moment our fingers threaded together, Caleren produced a long, narrow length of fabric—ivory, with subtle threading of silver—and wrapped it around our joined hands, binding us palm to palm.

“You may now speak the vow together.”

We had practiced it, but in that moment, it caught in my throat. Maxim’s hand tightened.

“I grant you access.” He began the first words, and I joined him.

“To my biorhythms, impulses, thoughts as permitted. My breath is yours to know. My presence is yours to feel. And I receive you,” we continued, my voice threading into his.

“With trust. With dominion. With no lesser intention than all.”

The cloth binding our hands grew warm.

Caleren lifted his hands as if holding the silence itself. “With these declarations, witnessed and recorded, the tether is now engaged.”

Maxim blinked once. His mouth parted slightly. For a beat, he looked dazed, as if the ground had subtly shifted beneath him and only I had remained unmoved.

Caleren watched him with a knowing smile. “The tethering is complete,” he announced. He gestured for us to bow our heads, and then he removed the connection. “Your bond is now active, registered, and sanctioned for Oathbond formalization. Congratulations.”

Behind Maxim’s shoulder, I caught Papa’s hand smoothing across his mouth, then curling into a loose fist. Mina dabbed beneath her eye with a folded square of cloth.

Avaryn tilted her head with an unguarded softness I hadn’t seen in her in years.

Bellam was smiling through parted lips, scanning both Maxim and me, as if she were trying to memorize the shape of the moment.

Roan, beside her, had gone perfectly still—his hand resting protectively over hers.

Lourdes sat with her usual poise, spine straight, expression serene and faintly pleased, as if everything was unfolding exactly as it should.

But beside her, Leopold’s gaze lingered on Maxim, a furrow in his brow betraying some inner calculus.

I watched him too long, trying to decipher whether he sensed it, that the bond between us had already been forged, long before the ceremony made it official.

I drew a slow breath and turned to Maxim.

Nothing had changed, and yet everything had.

We were just one step away from being significantly safer than we were in Vesture.

Maxim’s eyes swept over me, brimming with raw emotion.

Whatever he felt, it clung to the surface of his eyes, just barely held in check.

He squeezed my hands, his lips forming a hard line.

“Just one more night,” he murmured.

Caleren stepped back, his mantle gathering around his legs. “May your tomorrow arrive with open hands, and may your union stand should the world dare to shift beneath it.”

Even though I was lost in Maxim’s beautiful olive-green eyes, some part of me kept waiting for an alarm to sound, or for a commotion outside to give way to a line of Regs marching in with cold expressions and clipped orders.

I looked to my beloved best friends and family, so happy they were near tears, and a moment passed.

Then another. Caleren offered a final nod, then turned without fanfare and withdrew.

We remained in place, hands still clasped, suspended in a silence that stretched just long enough to suggest something else might follow.

But nothing did. No red lights. No intrusion or raid.

Just the hush of a room wrapped in ceremony.

Lev had done it, just as he said he would.

And for the first time since we learned the truth, I let myself believe we might actually make it.

We were less than twenty hours from the Oathbond, and for now at least, we were safe.

After the family dinner at Celestines, compliments of Lourdes and Roan, we all went our separate ways, and then it was just Maxim and me, sitting alone and silent in the darkness of our sub-bay.

“The Crèche will deliver my belongings an hour before the Oathbond… just the last of my wardrobe, toiletries, grooming kit, and the diagnostic tablet,” Maxim said.

“I’ve already packed for the resort, so once the ceremony is complete and we’ve said our goodbyes, we can leave without delay.

Have you finished packing? Would you like help with anything? ”

I blinked, slow to return from my thoughts. “Hmm?”

His hand found mine. “You’re worrying,” he said gently, pressing his lips to my fingers. “What is it?”

“I was scared today,” I admitted. “I kept waiting for the Regs to come storming in, to rip you away from me.” My voice faltered.

“And I’m still afraid. Afraid that tomorrow will be the day it all ends.

Lev says we’re protected, and he’s proven it time and time again, but it’s hard to believe it when we’re this close.

This is the part in every story where everything falls apart—the second they think they’re safe.

” I turned toward him, my eyes searching his.

“Tell me that’s not how our story ends.”

“If it does,” he began.

“You have a plan,” I finished.

He let go of my hand, then stepped out of the transport. When my slipgate opened, he was already there, hand extended, his expression calm but resolute. “Many. I have many plans,” he said gently as he helped me to stand. “And tomorrow, whatever may come, we start our lives together.”

I let him guide me from the sub-bay, our steps muted as we ascended the narrow staircase. We lingered in the low-lit corridor until the panel gave way with a muted sigh, and he gently drew me inside. “Calyx,” he said, his tone low but clear. “Initiate immersion basin. Infuse serenity serum.”

“ Sequence initiated ,” Calyx replied.

I hesitated. “I wish you could stay with me tonight. And I also know I wouldn’t sleep, feeling like I was inviting the very thing I’ve been afraid of.”

We climbed the stairs to the somna, and he waited for a moment while I undressed and stepped into the basin with a long sigh.

“Are you coming?” I asked.

“Thought you’d never ask,” he said, crossing the somna and pausing. He leaned his head against the threshold. “Risking sounding like Roan in this moment, but I can’t believe you’re going to be my wife tomorrow.”

I let my head rest against the ridge of the basin and grinned. “Roan speaks as if he were an insufferable Regency-era Romeo. I can better stomach the language of the Anthropocene Era.”

Maxim hung his jacket over my robe and began rolling up his sleeves, sitting on the tiled floor next to me. He combed my hair away from my face with his fingers, and then submerged his hand, using my body to help guide him to the apex of my thighs.

I arched my back and lifted my chin, my mouth parting with the sensation of his fingers.

“I thought this might help you relax.”

“You were right,” I breathed out. I pressed my knees together, making it somewhat more difficult for Maxim’s fingers to maneuver, but exacerbating the pressure of his fingers against my skin.

I exhaled, my brows pulling inward. The water swished with our movements, and I reached for him, pulling him toward me. Once his lips pressed against mine, I slipped my tongue inside his mouth, and then moaned involuntarily.

“Maybe… you should… stay the night.”

He chuckled against my mouth. “I would love nothing more, but I’d loathe myself in the morning. I can promise you that what I’m planning for tomorrow night will be worth the wait.”

My entire expression compressed and as his fingers and movements shifted, fluid and instinctive, my hips responded before I could think.

“Maxim,” I gasped against his mouth, trembling on the edge.

Tension curled through me, wound so tight I thought I’d split apart in the best way—and then I did.

The release tore through me, wild and exquisite, my body pulsing in frantic waves.

He didn’t stop, only slowed his movements, his cheek grazing mine, breath hot at my ear, as I melted—wilted and dazed—into the water, every nerve still singing his name.

I was still catching my breath when he brushed a kiss to my forehead. I glanced up to find his expression drenched in triumph. Utterly satisfied, and not bothering to hide it.

“You accomplished what you set out to do. I’m relaxed,” I said with a sleepy grin.

“Ready for bed?”

“Are you joining me?”

His mouth pulled to the side before a laugh tumbled from his lips. “Unlikely that I’ll fall for that one.”

He rose to his feet and then brought me a towel, helping me to step out and onto the tile. He held the towel for a moment, shaking his head in awe. “The rest of my life is breathtaking.”

I stepped toward him, wrapping my still-wet arms around his neck. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”

He let his head fall back as he closed his eyes. “Every night away from you seems like an eternity. Tonight will be much, much worse.”

I burst into laughter as he quite literally swept me off my feet, pausing only to snag the silken sleepset Calyx had laid out before carrying me to the bed and setting me gently on its edge. I jutted my bottom lip in a shameless pout, utterly unrepentant.

Maxim lightly traced his finger over my mouth. “You know I can’t stand to see you unhappy. Be gentle with my heart tonight. It feels… dysregulated.”

“Dysregulated,” I repeated, pulling on my sleepset. “Once referred to as the wedding jitters .”

“I can assure you, nothing I’m feeling resembles anxiety.

It’s something far more volatile, a fusion of need, anticipation, and a yearning so profound it borders on agony.

The thought of leaving you tonight feels unbearable.

I fear I’ll crumble the moment I step away and won’t feel whole again until I can call you mine. ”

I reached for him, fingers wiggling with insistent invitation until he was within reach.

At first, it was like tugging on a monument, until, with the barest shift, he allowed it.

I pulled him down beside me, grinning as he settled close, giggling as if I’d won, knowing it was a victory granted, not earned.

“Just stay until I fall asleep. Please?”

“I will,” he said, kissing my temple. “Just rest, my love.”

I nestled into him, hugging him once and then crossing my arms against my chest and bending my wrist under my chin. He tucked the covers around me, and then settled in.

“Don’t use the frequency,” I murmured.

“I already am,” he said without remorse.

Moments later, I slipped beneath consciousness. I didn’t know it then, but that was the last moment we would speak as two. The next would bind us as one, forever sealed beneath the vow of eternity.