Page 180 of The Stolen Throne
“Meaning what?” Reven demands.
She flicks him a wary glance before focusing on me. “Once we start, we cannot stop. If we do…well, horrible things have happened to those who stopped early.”
“We won’t want to,” I assure her.
She nods. “You must do and say everything I tell you in unison,” she warns. “If you don’t, then one of you will pass to the grave far sooner than the other. It can take time to find each other in the next life, if that happens.”
Reven stiffens, and I glance at him, only he brushes his thumb over my knuckles.
Got it. Don’t stop. Everything together. I don’t bother to explain that the likelihood of either of us making it more than another year—months, even—is slim to none.
Her sister priestess finishes murmuring over the box, and the one before us smiles. “Good. Are we ready?”
I’m starting to get tired of that question.
“Take each other’s hands and face each other,” she says. “Look into each other’s eyes.”
We do. Anticipation wants to send me bouncing on my toes, but I manage to remain solemn.
“Don’t look away until this ritual is complete.”
The sound of flint being struck is followed by the heavy, cloying scent of incense swirling around us. The priestess touches the end of it first to Reven’s forehead and then mine, with a small sting of the heat and leaving an ashy imprint I suspect on us both, purifying us for the ritual.
It reminds me of the Shadow Rite Reven performed to heal me. He did the same thing then.
She doesn’t wait, murmuring in a hushed voice a chant of words that blend together so that I can’t pick them out. Until I catch “Aryd,” followed later by “Tropikis,” and I realize she is invoking the powers and blessings of each of the six goddesses. Also similar to the way Reven did that night that feels so long ago now.
She moves closer, as does the other priestess. A pause. Then a gossamer-light touch whispers over my skin.
“Goddesses,” the priestess says, clear and true. “We bind these souls with golden thread of the Fleece of Blessings made from the mother goddess Nova’s own gown.”
I’m dying to look down and see this, but I heed the priestesses’ warning and focus only on Reven. On the steadiness in his gaze. The need. The kind of joy I’m not sure he’s ever allowed himself to feel.
“Do not move,” she says to us. “If you break the thread, you break the bond, and it’s delicate as spider silk.”
Damn, this ritual comes with a whole lot of warnings.
She moves to our other side and does the same to those hands, using the same words. Then… “In unison, repeat after me.” She takes a breath.
With this golden thread
I entwine
Your hands, your heart, your soul
To mine.
The words flow from us like water from a pitcher, easy, and in unison. The shadows inside me warm.
“Now we go on a little walk around the altar,” she says.
Altar? Is she talking about the table?
“Step when I say. And…right. Left. Right. Left.”
Keeping my gaze on Reven’s, I try not to tangle up in his legs, because I am walking backward while he moves forward, and the way she has us moving is awkward to say the least. I relax only after we make a full circle.
“Excellent,” she says. “And now the other way, to show the goddesses that even when your feet aren’t aligned and one of you is walking blind, you walk together.”
