Bound by the Mist (Mists of Eria) (30 page)

As soon as he sat and faced her, she pointed at her binding before poking him in the chest. “How could you not tell me?” Though her voice remained steady, her hands shook, and her heart thudded in her ears. But she screeched out her next words. “Did you put the binding on me, because that seems to be how everyone else gets it?”

A flame of alarm crossed his eyes before they blanked. “No, our case isn’t the usual…occurrence.”

So he hadn’t willfully trapped her? Somewhat mollified, she placed her hands on her hips. “Then explain this “occurrence” to me.”

He avoided her eyes while pulling her down to sit beside him. “At the beginning, I had no way to know the state of your emotional health. Until I could assess this, I thought your arrival in Eria was enough for you to handle. I didn’t want to add to your burden by telling you of how truly odd the binding’s occurrence was. And then I forgot to mention it to you once I promised to be more open.”

Her mind froze at the mention of her mental health. Surely he couldn’t know her past history? The possibility wasn’t likely.

She shrugged it off, deciding to concentrate on something more rewarding: ripping into him. Sitting didn’t stop her from poking him again. “There you go again. I’m not a child. You don’t have to hide everything that’s strange or upsetting from me. There are times I deserve the full, unvarnished truth. This is one of them. And stop forgetting important stuff.”

He nodded and grabbed her hand before he could earn another jab. Relian looked down, his fingers caressing the back of her hand. Though he remained silent, she sensed he measured how much to tell her.

Cal stood up. She’d had enough. He held tight to her hand, and she let out a huff of impatience. “You know, this secretiveness is getting old. I might not be able to leave Eria, but I don’t have to make things easy on you.”

She gave up on him being forthright until he lifted his head to gaze at her. “You’re right. Even though you hold your own secrets, I should’ve given you the full story. What do you wish to know? I’ll answer as truthfully as I can, but I expect the same in return.”

Cal raised a skeptical brow at his words but ignored his demands about her own secret keeping. Where had she heard such promises before? Oh, yeah, from him. He must excuse her if she didn’t dispense with her disbelief that easily. “Just how strange is our case?”

“In all traditional cases, a couple must agree to exchange a plait of hair. If they are to have a complete bond, the bracelets will seamlessly knit closed during the binding ceremony. My people usually take many, many years before they are willing to attempt it.”

His hand moved from hers and came to rest in the strands cascading from the intricate arrangement Arrein concocted. “Most want to be as sure as possible and won’t undertake such an endeavor with someone they don’t know or care for. Many hold off for the opposite reason. They know in some cases it does not happen at all, no matter how desired. It’s devastating to go through the ceremony with a loved one and not be granted one’s most faithful wish.”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “Is it true love in those cases then?”

“There can be love with or without the binding. Just as there are many types of love, there are many situations in which they occur. A binding is merely a testament to a full bond being possible.”

Cal reflected on his words, thinking back to one particular instance. Could it have been their binding? Excitement and dread coursed through her. Would she learn what had connected them during that immeasurably long moment? She inhaled a deep breath and cocked her head to the side. “That day by the waterfall—what was that?”

Relian glanced up from where he’d been watching her hair slide through his fingers in the late afternoon sun that shown through the window. “I wondered when you would mention it.”

Cal fidgeted under his penetrating stare, turning to look at the curtain. His regard burned right through her. “There never seemed a good time to bring it up.”

“Indeed.” As his fingers tattooed a soothing motion on the nape of her neck, he dropped that line of questioning. “It was a moment brought about by the deepening of our link—our bond, if you will. Such incidents are isolated during the binding stage but not the sharing of emotion we both felt since then.”

Her mouth went dry, and her heart thumped like the beating of a drum in the silence that followed. “I thought we weren’t bonded.”

His fingers continued their slow discovery. “No, not fully. Keep in mind, though, that anyone with a successful binding bracelet starts the process. Once you reach our stage, only the official ceremony remains, along with the consummation. Our link is as complete as it can be without the total fulfillment of it. Already, I feel and hear you within me. I think even you’ve felt it.” He took her right hand and rested it against his heart, the beat strong and steady underneath her fingers.

Cal was sure her mouth hung agape. That was what she’d felt while at the waterfall? And the other times when she
just knew
what he was feeling?

He offered her an understanding smile. “How else do you think the consequences we’ve discussed come about? There doesn’t have to be a finished bond for us to feel the effects of our link. What happened at the waterfall was a shared experience that transmitted itself through our developing bond. The innumerable futures that played out are not set in stone and only tell an incomplete story. Events within our control and those that aren’t can affect them and their various outcomes. But we can choose how we’ll walk the path that lies before us, and indeed, if we’ll walk it together as a couple.”

“Uh…. Okay.” His explanation kind of made sense, but it still blew her mind far out of reach.

She latched onto a safer, easier thought. “But why not tell me all this from the beginning?” Cal waved a hand around, encompassing everything they’d been discussing. Why did there have to be so many secrets, ones that pertained to her? They could’ve avoided so much frustration if he and the others had simply put forth the truth. That was a concrete fact to her, one she understood.

“I wanted you to have time before the full implications were placed upon you.”

She scowled. “But sometimes it’s better to be aware of the full implications right from the start.”

“Sometimes,” he agreed, caressing her check. “I will endeavor to bring these to light in a timelier manner.”

Leaning into his touch, she sighed. “I know we don’t have to technically accept the binding, all harmful consequences aside, but our choice of freewill is far different than those who willingly decide to undergo the ceremony. In our case, there was no such freewill. We didn’t have any choice. It just appeared.”

He shot her a rueful smile. “I know. That was why everyone was so surprised, no one more so than me. Besides the fact you’re human, we only attempt bindings amongst the willing. The bracelets are physically placed there by the involved parties. Never before have they appeared by themselves. If a complete bond is to happen, the plait of hair will fuse together during the binding ceremony.”

“This has never happened before?” Cal’s mind struggled with that boggling fact.

Relian shook his head. “Not to our knowledge, and our memory stretches back very far.”

“So the veil orchestrated this whole situation.”

“Yes and no. The veil formed from the magic that permeates this world, and it’s this magic that makes any type of bonding possible. So while it did bring you here and place the bindings on us, it can’t force a bond where there normally wouldn’t be one.”

Cal frowned. “But if the magic is what controls a bonding, how do you know free choice is possible? Maybe it just throws the people it wants together, setting them up.”

He pulled her against him until she sat in his lap, and her back rested against his chest. “No, it doesn’t operate that way. It merely looks inside hearts and minds to determine the bond level. The veil can prod but never coerce. At least, not until now. I’ll admit it is now skirting a fine line at coercion with what it has done.”

“But why would the veil care so much in our case? According to what you’re saying, it’s never endeavored to bring a couple together this way. There has to be a reason, one I’m not aware of.” She craned her neck to cast him an accusatory look. “But you know, don’t you?”

He gave a grim smile. “Now you’re asking the hard questions. Why would it interfere? What’s so important that it would seek to meddle in our lives?” He glanced at her quizzically, and she nodded. “It’s time to tell you what we know, whether I will it or not. Quite simply the magic of this world is disappearing. The veil seems to be seeking a resolution to a problem we don’t know the cause of or solution to, other than it has something to do with your dimension.”

“My dimension?” Her voice contained a doubtful note.

His arms banded around her, his hands resting on her stomach. Her gaze landed on his hands, imagining them roaming over her. She shuddered when his long fingers started a trail of lazy circles that soon migrated to the underside of her breasts before wandering down low on her stomach. Her breath caught. How far would he go? Luckily or maybe unluckily—she couldn’t decide—he didn’t go any farther.

“Our two realities are interconnected. One cannot be without the other, for they both sprang from the same reality.”

His husky voice, along with his fluid and sensual movements, almost caused her to miss his explanation. The aroused length poking into her backside didn’t help, either. She stilled his hands and scooted over to one side of his lap. “Okay, I’m trying to understand, but I can’t think while your hands are on me. Or while you’re prodding me in the back with your mighty sword.”

He chuckled but behaved himself. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and exhaled slowly. “I’m not sure I’m following the metaphysical talk. Basically, our worlds exist in symbiosis because they used to be one and the same?”

“Yes.”

She slowly drew out her words. “So the veil is trying to save itself and your world’s magic.”

“Not just those but our very worlds themselves.”

She reared away from him. “What!”

He tugged her back to rest against him, this time so she sat sideways. “The balance between our worlds has been upset. We believe the veil is seeking an equalizing influence before either can be irreparably damaged.”

“But what’s causing the imbalance?”

He shrugged. “We don’t know.”

She gave him an owlish look. “That’s comforting. So what’s the effect of this instability?”

“Your world moving at an ever increasing pace, leaving humanity to burn itself out, while ours stagnates, leaving us incapable of growth, of magic. Magic is what binds us so closely with nature, makes us what we are. Both our worlds are leading to the same end through different routes.”

She blanched. “That can’t be healthy.”

His face set in somber lines. “It’s not.”

Confusion pummeled her from all directions. “But what does all this have to do with you and me?”

“Since the veil brought you here, it’s believed you are needed here for some reason.” Seeing her prodding motion, he shook his head. “You’re not going to like this.”

A humorless smile touched her lips. “I don’t expect to. Nothing I’ve learned has been any different up to this point, so try me. I promise to not fall into hysterics.”

“A solution. You’re seen as part of the solution or a missing piece of the puzzle. We both are. Unfortunately, no one knows where to find the rest of the puzzle.”

She swallowed, her mouth dry. He was right about not liking the news. How could she be a missing piece to anything? She was normal, not a super woman by any means.

They remained silent for a while until he cleared his throat. “Now I believe it is time for your explanation of how I ruined your life.”

***

Pulling out of his arms, Cal stood up to leave. That conversation couldn’t happen. She wasn’t ready.

His hands settled on her shoulders and stopped any attempt at escape. “You leveled a heavy charge, even though I realize you said it under the grip of anger. But I still sensed a truth to it—at least a truth you believe.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I want to talk about this right now.”

“Will you ever be ready?”

The tender understanding in his voice caused tears to spring up in her eyes. “Probably not.”

He turned her around to face him. “Then it’s time.”

She rubbed her arms and stared at his chest, not meaning to speak. But it all tumbled out like some vomited noxious poison. “My parents believed me to have…issues. My classmates thought the same thing, too. I was always different, always had my head in the clouds. But when I was thirteen, I made the mistake of telling a so-called friend about my visions and dreams and of seeing your celebration in the clearing. By the end of the day, she’d spread the whole story around the school. The principal and my teacher got involved and called my parents.”

Her voice broke. “Do you know how mean kids can be? Heck, how mean even adults can be? Talking down to me as if I weren’t there or in my right mind? My parents only desired the best for me, but even they wanted me doped up on medication to control my “hallucinations.”’

When she finally looked up, she found no satisfaction in the pain that lined his face as she once might have. “Nobody believed me, so I started to deny it after a while. For a few years, I almost convinced myself I’d merely imagined everything. It didn’t matter I still suffered from the dreams and visions. I shrugged them off and tried to ignore them. But the damage was already done. People no longer looked at me the same, not even my parents. We actually moved to another town so I could start afresh at a new school. That’s where I later met Maggie when she moved to my town our senior year. Things were much better there, practically normal. We graduated and went to college….” She faltered to a stop.

He finished her sentence, his voice subdued. “Where your dreams and visions became worse until the veil brought you here.”

“Yes, and now here I am.” She gestured around her. “In a supposedly impossible place that I was crazy for even imaging.”