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“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. Please don’t get upset by what I am about to tell you. For the most part, humans and elves have long been separated, and I’ll admit there is some prejudice against the thought of foreign humans here in Eria. That’s what I meant when I said the truth could no longer remain hidden. It’d only appear for the worse if the binding hadn’t been 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? Can we somehow break this binding?” She pointed and then plucked at hers.
His breath caught in his throat as fear singed him. Break the bond? They must not. She would have no real choice in the end, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that. Not yet. Was that cowardly? Yes, and quite unlike him. “As my father said, bindings are rarely broken. 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, and her brow furrowed.
Relian smothered a smile at her childish remark. 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 because of that?” The words tumbled out in hopeful eagerness.
Was she really so ready to desert him and the bond that was already beginning to tug at him? As his heart lurched in a most unbecoming manner, Relian couldn’t stop the accusatory glare he sent her way. He didn’t like this turn in conversation at all. “Regardless, the outcome is the same for me. It’s seeking to finish the bond it began.”
“What is seeking to finish the bond?” Puzzlement rather than the previous disapproval creased her forehead.
“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.”
He inwardly cringed. She was under the misapprehension their binding was brought about the normal way. To tell her even part of the truth would be hard—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 mental health 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 off to further considerations of their binding or push her emotional stability over the limits. “My people typically accept the binding for the gift it is.” Because in their cases, it’s something they seek willingly. “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 isn’t 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 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 that 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 unless he bonded to her. 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. But if she bonded with him, she would then share his lifespan, whether she liked it or not.
However, to burden her with all this knowledge right now did not seem a wise choice. Humans were known to be fragile. 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 was what he hoped.
Cal stared at him and then at her hands, appearing to ponder something. She raised her face, her glassy eyes searching his. After she hesitated a few seconds, she spoke in a subdued tone. “And if the bond is not broken early enough?”
“Then madness and even death may await me.”
She flinched. “And me? Would I feel the same as you and suffer the same fate?”
“Since you’re human, I suspect you would feel the same, except to a lesser degree. The death part would probably not apply. ”
A rapid fire of emotions flitted across her face. “So I might survive, but I’d never be truly happy again? Is that what you’re saying?” Her voice rose a little.
“I wouldn’t say ‘never happy.’ There’d just be a lingering melancholy present most times.”
“That sounds like unhappy to me,” she cried, her hands clenching in her lap.
He sighed. It sounded that way to him, too. Not that he would ever admit this to her. “I don’t know what else to say. This is the best way I can describe it.”
“How can you be so calm?” she snapped, her agitation growing.
