Hello? I thought. Into the echo chamber of my head. I felt stupid.
But that presence was all for it. In fact, it was right there, or rather, approached rapidly. I got the sense of rustling leaves, but this time, there was a wariness there as if the presence had to step over or around a barrier.
Hello, Rory.
“Oy, why’s my patio glowing?” Donna said.
“Don’t mind that. It’s just a touch of magic,” Kinnek told her. “Rory, can you tell me if you feel anything happening around you?”
The presence showed some mild interest in Kinnek, then told me, He’s like your knight. Strong, like the one the Lady saved for you, but more experienced. He was at the Singing Stone not long ago and felt the tattered human magic there.
I remembered that from last night, right before I’d fallen asleep. Is that why you showed me that? Him and Vergis at the Stone? I asked that thing in my head.
I got the sense that it shrugged, which was weird. How on Earth did I get a mental image of a voice in my head shrugging? You were worried about your own and sought them out. I did nothing. Do you wish me to do something now?
“Rory?” Kinnek said.
Right. He’d asked me something.
I opened my mouth to tell him the presence was already settled in my head, but that was as far as I got. The moment I decided I wanted to say words out loud, I got hit with…not vertigo exactly, but a sense of not really knowing where I was in the world. My body seemed too small, and I couldn’t even imagine how I’d ever made it move to get me from one place to another.
The presence just observed, unconcerned and unbothered by my mental flailing.
“It’s…here,” I managed in the end, but I felt dizzy. I pressed my eyes shut tighter, sure I’d find the world spinning the moment I opened them.
Kinnek frowned—which I wasn’t seeing with my eyes. Like back in Esaka, I knew my surroundings, but just like then, my vantage point wasn’t me and my physical body. Instead, I was just wherever I focused on in that moment. Vergis was looking at the circle with wide eyes and his mouth half-open in surprise. A red band like a piece of string wound around his right wrist drew my attention.
The Lady’s mark, the presence told me. You need not worry. It doesn’t hurt your knight, and it fits snugly. He seems to have been receptive to her demands, and the Lady is kind wherever she can be.
Well, that was…unsettling? All of a sudden, everything felt very big. The farm, the trees beyond, the animals going about their day, and the abandoned village about a mile away…
“See if you can make it pour magic into the circle,” Kinnek said, and his words made me focus on the ko circle again.
This time around, I noticed Inkiri looking at me, and he was smiling as if he was proud. That helped me settle and stay where I was rather than drifting away again. I wanted to do things he could be proud of. I didn’t love that it was magic, but maybe down the line, there’d be more.
Maybe, in the not-too-distant future, I’d cook him breakfast in some little place in Esaka or elsewhere on Aër, and he’d be proud of me for settling so easily there.
I pulled my attention away from that fantasy and “looked” at the ko circle.
Can you do that? What Kinnek asked?
Of course, it responded, and I felt it do something. The impression I got was that the amount of effort it took the presence was akin to flicking a piece of lint off its sleeve, but the others all gasped.
“Well, fuck me sideways,” Vergis mumbled. “I’m guessing this isn’t exactly standard.”
“Not as such.” Kinnek looked around and pointed to the sleeping dog and calico cat, who was now licking her little paws on the dog’s back. “Donna, are those sunflowers you planted over there?”
“Yes, for the birds. And for Wilson, of course.”
“Rory, ask the voice to make the sunflowers across the lawn bloom,” Kinnek said.
I got the sense that the presence found Kinnek amusing. I do, it confirmed. Interesting as well. The magic of your mate’s people is strange, but our worlds are bound now. With our worlds bound, magic must be bound as well, and it will be done through blood, one way or another.
I knew my jaw dropped, even if my body felt far away. No, we are definitely not doing any bloodletting! Can I wish for you to not do that?
You cannot. Any bloodletting was never in my power to begin with, Rory. Consider that not all bonds forged through blood are violent ones. The presence seemed as amused by me as it had been by Kinnek. Your mate’s life and yours are one, the two of you bound in blood and breath, close as our two worlds and our two magics. I did that when you were finally anointed. Do you want me to make those flowers think that summer has already given them the strength to bloom, like he says?
Yes. I wanted to ask the presence what it meant by anointed, but the notion that Inkiri and I had been some powerful entity’s random choice made me reel.
