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Essie laughed, the smile returning. “I like kissing you too.”
Well, that was a relief. Apparently, he had not done it wrong.
For a moment, they lapsed into a quiet, comfortable silence.
This was what love was like. It could be charged and heated like a moment ago. Or it could be soft and comfortable. It was the freedom to be himself without worrying about his awkwardness, and the joy of giving Essie that same freedom in return.
Even though the deep connection of the elishina had ended, he could still sense her deep inside his chest. A warm and joyful presence that banished the weight inside him.
The elishina. He had started to explain earlier, but then he had gotten a little…distracted.
His smile faded as he searched her face. He should not put this off. She needed to know just what had happened at the end of the battle. “When I said you saved my life, I did not only mean when you shot those trolls. I was dying, and you did not let go. We elves call that anelishina.Heart-bonded.”
“Elishina? What do you mean? How did I save you then? I’m not even sure what happened.” Essie flopped back onto her pillow, though she lay closer than before.
How did he even go about explaining it? Perhaps he should start at the beginning. “Do you remember in our wedding ceremony when we pledged that our hearts would be as one?”
Essie nodded. “There was this zing of magic, at least I think that’s what it was.”
“When we elves marry, we become very literally and magically bonded. Sometimes, the bond is so deep that if one is injured, the other’s heart can literally keep beating for both of them.” He stared at the ceiling rather than look at her, though he squeezed her hand to make sure she knew he was not ignoring her. “I was not sure it would happen with us. The only human and elf pair to experience it was Daesyn and Inara, and even then, it was the elf’s heart beating for the human’s.”
Though Machasheni had seemed sure they would form an elishina, even from the beginning. He was not sure what Machasheni had seen in them that would convince her, but she had that way about her. Perhaps it came from being over eight hundred years old.
Essie propped herself on her elbow again. “So when I gripped your hand and it felt like I was struggling to breathe, it was because I was breathing for you?”
Ugh. He was not doing a good job of explaining it. “Sort of. More like as long as you were breathing, I would stay breathing, and as long as your heart was beating, mine would be too.”
Her eyes brightened with the light of understanding, and she gave a small nod.
Giving in to temptation, he pushed a strand of hair from her face, letting the silken red strands slide through his fingers. He had come so close to losing her, both in the battle and due to her valiant efforts to keep him alive. “You could have died if the strain of keeping me alive had been too much. Before I met you, I never would have expected a human’s heart could sustain an elf’s that way.”
Rather than sober her, Essie smiled, shaking her head. “We humans may be reckless and make a lot of mistakes, but when we love, we love fiercely. Our lives are too short to afford to do anything less.”
“We elves could probably learn something from you about making each day count.” Even an elf’s life could be short. His had nearly been cut short several times already. He cradled her face, searching her eyes. “I hoped on the day I married you that we would form a heart bond.” Well, that was stretching it a little bit. Machasheni had hoped, and she had helped him have a smidgen of hope. So it was true enough. “But I did not expect, if it would happen, that it would occur this soon. We had not even kissed before the battle.”
“Maybe we hadn’t kissed, but both of us have been choosing to love each other from the day we married.” Essie held his gaze, tilting her head to lean into his hand. “Love is a choice, and it’s one we have been making all along. That probably counts a whole lot more for a heart bond than kissing does, even if I’m discovering I really like kissing you.”
He rather liked kissing her too. And he might have done it again, except that he still had yet to explain the consequence of the elishina that would most affect her. “Will it bother you if your life is longer than what is expected for a human?”
He held his breath, waiting for her answer.
Instead of pain or surprise, her forehead scrunched. She sighed and flopped back onto the pillow. “What do you mean? This has something to do with Daesyn and Inara again, doesn’t it? I think it’s high time I heard that whole story.”
Of course she was struggling to understand. She did not know the elven legends the way he did.
He lay back and clasped her hand again. “Inara was a princess of the elves, and Daesyn was a human woodsman. They met and fell in love. Daesyn helped the elven king, Inara’s father, push the trolls back into the northern realms, and he was wounded in the last, great battle. Inara’s heart bond with him kept him alive until the healers could save him. Their heart bond was so strong that Daesyn lived to nearly five hundred years old. Inara died shortly after he did, young for an elf. The stories say she gave her years to him, and that’s how he lived for so long.”
For a moment, Essie remained silent, staring at the ceiling. He could not read the emotions and thoughts that flickered across her face and in her eyes.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet and sober. “This is why your family was so concerned about you falling in love with me. They feared that either we wouldn’t form a heart bond and your heart would be broken when I died in only a short time compared to an elf’s years or we would form this special bond and you would end up dying young. They don’t want to lose you.”
And there was his Essie. The first concern she voiced was not about outliving her own family, but about him dying young compared to his.
“No, they do not. But, Essie.” Farrendel pushed himself onto an elbow, ignoring the twinge of pain in his middle. He needed to look into her eyes as he said this. “I would gladly give up a few hundred years if it meant that the years I did have were spent with you.”
Hopefully that sounded more romantic to Essie than it did in his own ears.
She smiled and leaned closer, their faces so close once again that their breaths mingled. “And I would happily live to be five hundred if I’m with you.”
