Bound by the Mist (Mists of Eria) (12 page)

But in ages past—before the veil had closed—elf and human had united through marriage and even complete bonding. It had been relatively uncommon but not unheard of. He sighed. An apology was in order. Throwing a measured look at his father and Kenhel, he warned them not to interrupt. Both elves signified their acceptance with a slight nod.

Going to kneel before Cal, he moderated his voice. “I always seem to be offering an apology during our meetings. As this is only our second one, I’m afraid I’m not leaving you a very favorable impression of me.”

She still wouldn’t glance up, so he took her chin in his hand. Her eyes looked misty. Guilt tugged at him. “Come, let us go farther into the gardens for some privacy. I believe it might be better to finish the rest of this talk by ourselves. Kenhel will see to Lady Maggie until your return, so do not worry for her comfort or safety.” He sent a questioning glance to Kenhel to make sure his friend would fulfill his wishes.

Kenhel gave the two women a charming smile. “I would be very happy to entertain Lady Maggie until you return.” Turning to her, he raised his brows. “What would you like to do, my pretty lady, in the meantime?”

Maggie snorted at this flattery. “You’re a silver-tongued devil, I think.” Turning, she caught Cal’s gaze, who gave her a weak smile and agreed to Relian’s proposition.

As everyone said his or her farewells, a mischievous smile flitted over Maggie’s face. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Cal!”

Cal rolled her eyes. “Yeah, guess it means I can do about anything I want then.”

Chapter 12

With avid eyes, Cal took in her surroundings and worked to match her strides with Relian’s as he led her deeper into the gardens. She loved the way plant life merged with the structures and statues. Art and nature melded together in a way she’d never seen perfected quite so well.

Even though truly enthralled with her surroundings, she purposefully focused her attention anywhere but on the male by her side and the strange feelings he created. Her hand tingled where it rested on his arm, but she wouldn’t draw notice to herself by removing it.

They walked on for a few more minutes, the whisper of leaves and the song of birds surrounding them. The marbled statues of elves and forest creatures glowed in the waning light.

Relian stopped before a stone bench. He waited until she seated herself before folding down to sit beside her. They remained silent in the falling light. Cal fidgeted. Would he talk first or should she?

“Night will soon fall.”

Relian’s voice startled her out of her thoughts. “Yes, it seems so,” agreed Cal quietly, not wanting to be the first to break the triviality of their conversation. However, this stilted exchange wouldn’t solve anything. Would nothing be easy between them?

“Cal...Lady Cal, may I call you Cal in private?” She nodded, and he continued. “You may also address me as Relian, if you desire to do so. Such formality when we’re alone seems outmoded given the situation in which we find ourselves.”

Cal let out a rueful laugh. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

“Why do I have the feeling you won’t so readily agree with me in the near future?”

He gave a small smile that made her heart rate lurch and speed up. Damn him. “Because, Relian.” She stumbled over his name, still unused to speaking it aloud. “We’re still from different worlds. We can’t change that. I suppose our views will be quite different and agreement hard to reach.”

“You speak wisely for one so young.”

Cal stared ahead but gave a slight shake of the head. “Not wise, just realistic.”

She leaned forward and dropped her elbows to her knees, turning to look at him. Cal almost wished she hadn’t. Seeing him just compounded the dilemma. Relian resembled no man she’d dated or even seen. His features were undeniably elvin, but she couldn’t give a concise answer of what made them so. He, like the other elves she noticed, had winged eyebrows that arched more sharply than most humans’ would without the help of wax or tweezers. Then there were the slim ears that gently curved into a point at their tips. Still, she didn’t know what made him so different from a human man. He just was.

His puzzled voice broke into her scrutiny. “Why do you look at me so intensely?”

She sighed. How could she explain? “You’re so different. I’m not just referring to the cultural aspects, either. You look like no man I’ve ever seen, and I admit I’m finding that hard to digest. And you’re immortal, which is totally impossible.”

“Well, I don’t look like a human man, for I’m not one and have something akin to immortality. But that is a subject we’ll discuss at a later date. I’m not that different, though. Our two races were designed along the same fundamental lines. I have two hands and feet, just like a human male. If it would make you feel better, I am a man, just an elvin one.”

He talked so matter-of-factly and with such pride, Cal stifled an urge to laugh outright. Yes, she’d been well aware he was male. She supposed males—no matter what race, species, or whatever she should call it—were not so very different. It appeared, elf or human, both had egos their female counterparts had to watch carefully.

“That’s true. But everything, from the landscape to the people here, seems so foreign to me.” While saying this, she gestured at the garden surrounding them and then at him.

“I can’t deny that much of what you see here is strange to you. That fact will only abate with time and effort.”

“Time and effort?”

“With time, our ways won’t seem so strange to you. With effort, you should be able to adopt them as your own.” He said this as though he thought it were the simplest thing to achieve.

Her ire flared, and she pulled herself up straighter. Relian didn’t ask her if she
wanted
to adopt his people’s ways—he just assumed she would. He took too many suppositions for granted. She didn’t know how long she would stay here, let alone anything else. At this moment, she would leave if she could. Even as that thought flickered through her mind, though, she didn’t quite believe it. As she remembered her dreams and the contentment that often arose from them, her anger sputtered.

She didn’t know what she wanted.

***

Relian sensed the agitation his words caused. “My lady, nothing has been decided as of yet.”

As he spoke, he knew the untruth of what he said. It had all but been decided. By him, his father, the council, and, most of all, the veil. If they could keep her here, they would—even by force. Somehow, she tied into the future of their survival, all of theirs. Her world and theirs. He didn’t want to burden her with that news, unless he had no other choice. Finding out they not only expected her to bond with him, but that they also thought she might play some part in saving two interconnected worlds would be too much for her right now. It was almost too much for him.

Cal took a deep breath. “So what happens next? I’m kind of at a loss here.”

There had to be a way to reassure her staying in Eria was in her best interest, as well as his. He’d have to phrase his words carefully so as not to offend her. The best course of action lay with some cautiously placed truths. “My people, for the most part, are now aware of the binding. Those that are not will surely know by tomorrow.”

“Why is that?”

“We announced it tonight. My father and a select few have known about it longer. We—my father, his council of advisors, and I—thought we could no longer hide the truth safely. Please don’t get upset, young one, by what I am about to tell you. Humans and elves have long been apart, and I’ll admit there is some prejudice against the thought of humans here in Eria. That’s what I meant when I said the truth could no longer remain hidden. It would only appear for the worse if the binding were not announced with all the joy it would normally bring.”

Cal sent him a questioning look. “The celebration tonight?”

“The very same one.”

“So I’m basically ruining any chance you have for a normal bond with a woman—female of your kind? Or can we somehow break this binding?” She pointed and then plucked at hers.

His breath caught in his throat. He would indeed have to choose his words carefully. No matter what occurred between them, she shouldn’t feel guilt over something she couldn’t control. But he couldn’t tell her the full truth, not yet. “As my father said, bindings are rarely broken, if ever. We receive that one chance to completely bond with someone, if fortune shines upon us. We don’t receive another chance if the first opportunity passes us by, either due to our own devices or death.”

“Even if one of the pair to bond dies?”

“Yes. As I said, it doesn’t matter how we lose the choice. Once it is gone, it is gone forevermore.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.” Disbelief tinged her voice. She furrowed her brow.

Relian smothered a smile at her childishness. He merely shrugged. “When is it ever?”

“But I’m human. Maybe the rules or whatever you call them don’t apply to us in the same way?” The words tumbled out in hopeful eagerness.

Was she really so ready to desert him and the bond they started to share? As his heart lurched in a most unbecoming way, Relian couldn’t stop the accusatory glare he sent her way. He didn’t like this turn in conversation at all, and it did nothing to improve his mood. “Regardless, the outcome is the same for me. It’s seeking to finish the bond it began.”

“What is seeking to finish the bond?” Her forehead now creased in puzzlement rather than in its previous disapproval.

“The binding. The binding is essentially the beginning stages of the bond. It wants to be completed. It desires to be completed.”

She glanced away, her hands twisting in the skirt of her dress. “What happens if we don’t complete it? I mean, besides never having another chance to bond again? Are there any negative effects? Your father mentioned something about consequences. But since we didn’t ask for this, surely there’s a way out. Not everyone can be happy to be betrothed this way.”

The conversation headed into dangerous territory. She was under the misapprehension their binding was brought about the normal way. He didn’t desire to tell her even part of the truth, because one answered question could lead to a thousand unanswerable ones. Any information about how unusual their situation was, beyond the apparent, would have to be carefully controlled and released at the appropriate time. At least until they could assess her adaptability and discover why the veil wanted her here.

Total omission, though, wouldn’t serve him well on this occasion. If he wanted her to go through with the ceremony, some measure of candor would likely sway her in his favor. But the whole truth could very well close her mind to further considerations of their binding or push her emotional stability over the limits. “My people accept the binding for the gift it is.”
Because in their cases, it’s something they seek willingly.
He left this part of his sentence unsaid. “As for any negative consequence, I cannot say for myself, as I’ve never experienced it. But I’ve heard that the joy of living is not as strong as before. Unfortunately, the soul loses something of itself when a bind or bond is broken. It’s hard to ever be quite the same again.”

She gasped, as if doing so would negate his words, and faced him. “I would condemn you to be a broken man….elf?”

“Not broken. If severed early enough, I would become an elf who changes because he lost something he can never regain.” He gave a shrug. What else could he say? “I cannot explain it more fully than that.”

He’d simplified it quite a bit for her, but the core fact remained: one cannot break a binding without cost. No matter how he might begrudge the fact, part of his soul was entwined with hers—not fully yet, but enough to negatively affect him if the binding remained uncompleted. Soon, even that would change, and he wouldn’t be able to let her go. Not when his sanity counted on it. Death would be a welcome release, one he’d be guaranteed.

His heart clenched. Death. She was mortal, and death came easily to people such as she. That ghostly specter visited his people much more rarely. For his kind, this was a blessing and a curse. Loss and a nearly endless life didn’t combine well. For those with any kind of bond, it was doubly worse.

However, to burden her with this knowledge was wrong. The time for pressure of that kind would come later, if need be. The illusion she had some control would keep her calm and pliant. At least that’s what he told himself. That he didn’t want to destroy her hopes shouldn’t matter, couldn’t matter.

Cal stared at him and then at her hands, seeming to ponder something. She raised her face, her glassy eyes searching his. After she hesitated a few seconds, her subdued tone reached his ears. “Would I feel the same? As you?”

“Since you’re human I suspect you would feel the same, except to a lesser degree.” A rapid fire of emotions flitted across her face as she processed this information.

“So I would never be truly happy again? Is that what you’re saying?” Her voice rose a little.

“I wouldn’t say ‘never happy.’ There would just be a lingering melancholy present most times.”

“That sounds like unhappy to me,” she cried, wringing her hands.

He sighed. It sounded that way to him, too. Not that he would ever admit it to her. “I don’t know what else to say. This is the best I can describe it.”

“How can you be so calm?” she snapped, her agitation growing.

“Young one, I’m not calm, just resigned. There’s nothing I can do to change it, nor can you. You must realize this, no matter what course you choose.”

“What course I choose? And stop calling me young one. Considering what you want of me, that’s just freaky.”

Relian fought his impatience, his frayed fabric of nerves threatening to tear beyond any stitches he could give it. “There are but two choices before you. Yes or no, you must pick one.” He kept his voice a steady monotone.

“Yes or no?” she questioned dumbly.

His temper snapped to life. “The binding! Yes or no to the binding,” he retorted more hotly than he intended. This woman tried his patience like no other.