Page 95 of Season of Naga: Volume 2
That colorless gaze finds mine across the chamber. The intensity in it steals what little breath I have left. Gone is the cold dismissal I once faced. In its place burns something primal and hungry, making heat bloom low in my belly.
Before I realize it, the guardian stops at the dais’s edge, signaling me to climb the three steps of obsidian, translucent jade, and alabaster, alone.
When I reach the top, Lurok extends his hand. The ceremonial bands at his wrist catch the light, sending fractured rainbows dancing across my veil. I place my much smaller hand in his, feeling the now-familiar electric current that always pulses between us. His scales are warm. The heat wraps around me like an invisible embrace.
Eira glides forward, her ancient form commanding instant reverence. All attention shifts to the Elder as she positions herself at the head of the altar.
“The Flame has recognized you, Serin Isabella Valen,” Eira intones, producing a gleaming plate. “The serpent stone, Wyndren, has chosen you. Now you must choose in return.”
With reverent care, Eira lifts Wyndren from its silk-lined box. The serpent stone hangs from a delicate silver chain shaped like overlapping scales, catching the firelight as it sways between her fingers.
I forget how to breathe.
Two crystal serpents, pale and translucent as moonlight on ice, coil around each other in a perfect circle. Their tiny scales are etched so finely they seem almost alive, shifting whenever the light catches them. Between their entwined bodies drifts aswirl of silver-white mist that never stops moving, twisting and curling within the crystal like a captured storm.
Lurok’s element made into something beautiful.
“Is that for me?” I whisper, unable to take my eyes off the stone. “It’s beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as the female who will wear it.”
The deep rumble of Lurok’s voice wraps around me, and my heart stumbles. I drag my eyes away from the serpent stone. When I look up at him, everything else disappears.
The ceremonial chamber vanishes. The gathered witnesses, and even Eira standing before us. All of it fades until there is only Lurok.
Lurok is watching me with an expression I have never seen before, his silver eyes bright and unguarded, full of so much emotion it steals the breath from my lungs. The hard lines of his face soften as though he has forgotten there is anyone else in the room.
He reaches up, brushing the backs of his clawed fingers against my cheek so gently it makes my chest ache. Heat rushes into my face. My throat tightens painfully, and suddenly I cannot remember why I had ever doubted him. The way he is looking at me now, as if I am everything. As if I always have been.
Eira clears her throat softly. The sound shatters the fragile, suspended moment between us. I blink, and the ceremonial chamber rushes back into focus around me.
“Wyndren has spoken,” Eira declares, laying the serpent stone upon the silken plate between us. “It stirs only for the one who wields the element of air, chosen by the Infinity Flame itself.”
The mist trapped inside the crystal pendant swirls faster, silver-white currents chasing each other in endless circles.
Eira lifts a ceremonial dagger. It is slender and elegant, its crescent-shaped blade forged from metal the color of a storm-dark sky. Strange symbols gleam faintly along the edge.
“Second Fang Lurok,” she says, offering it handle-first, “do you come willingly to this binding? Do you accept what the Infinity Flame has chosen for Serin?”
Lurok takes the dagger with deliberate calm. “I do,” he replies, taking the dagger and scoring his palm. “I bind for Serin.” Dark blood wells instantly against his silver scales, nearly black in the firelight. Without hesitation, he holds his hand over the shallow stone basin atop the altar. Seven blood drops fall with a soft patter into the basin.
The moment the seventh drop lands, Wyndren flashes. The crystal serpents seem to come alive for a heartbeat, and the blood vanishes as though the stone itself has consumed it.
Eira turns toward me, the dagger gleaming between us.
“Serin Isabella Valen of the human world,” she intones solemnly, “do you come willingly to this binding? Do you accept the serpent stone the Flame has given you?”
My pulse pounds so hard I can hear it in my ears. I look at Lurok. His silver eyes are fixed on me, steady and certain. No fear. No hesitation. Only love. I lift the dagger, my fingers trembling only slightly around the hilt.
“I do,” I answer, my voice clear.
I draw the blade across my palm. Bright pain blooms instantly, sharp enough to steal my breath. Scarlet blood spills over my skin, vivid against my pale flesh. I hold my hand over the basin and let seven drops fall. The blood disappears the instant it touches the stone.
The basin begins to glow. A deep crimson light blooms beneath the surface, soft at first, then brighter and brighter until it pulses like a living heart between us.
Eira inclines her head.
“Blood joins blood. Bond forms bond. Thread weaves through thread,” she chants, her voice rising into something older and stranger, the words wrapping around us like a spell.
