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A light not graced by flame or sun...but me.
Solin sucked in a breath as my skin glowed brighter and brighter, fading from gold into a pearly sheen, just like the white light I’d seen when I’d first stepped into the flames to find Solin.
It warmed my chest and helped fight against the pain, pulsing and shimmering like sunlight on water.
With his breathing shallow, Solin kept drawing on me, making his way up my glowing wrist and wrapping a bee’s translucent wings up my incandescent forearm.
He didn’t seem surprised by whatever power bled out of me. He remained deadly focused and committed.
My light cast over his face, shadowing his cheeks and eyes.
I winced as his needle hit bone.
I blinked back tears as he wiped away blood with the rabbit skin as it oozed and distorted his design.
Time skipped forward again, and I was barely aware as Solin let go of my right hand. He reached instantly for my left as I swayed from side to side, gasping with gratefulness as the awful burn in my blood began to fade.
“Almost done, Runa. Just a little more.” His fingers were cool against my blazing awareness. “Forgive me.”
I screamed as another pain blazed.
Dark and cruel, vicious and binding.
This time on my left palm.
My blood tingled and seared, pushing through my heart until fire existed in every organ. It felt as if a thousand bees stung me with their venom, seizing up my muscles and sending rivers of sharpened agony through my veins.
A noise came from outside.
Shouts and thuds as if a fight had broken out.
A man’s voice rose in outrage.
My heart skipped; I did my best to focus, but I slipped backward again, dragged down by venom, pain, and an eternal awful burning.
“These marks can never be undone,” Solin murmured, his head dipped over my left palm. The light in my skin flickered, threatening to snuff out the more pain that drowned me.
“You must heed everything I tell you, Runa. They cannot be simply washed away or forgotten.” He sniffed back what sounded horribly like grief as he finished the final draw. “These marks bind you to your new path and promises. I hope they can protect you from the horror I have foreseen. Please remember that you will always have me, and I will protect you until my final breath. You will never be alone again, but with that gift comes a cost, and the cost has already been paid.”
He kept his chin down as if he couldn’t bear to look into my eyes. “He will never hurt you. I will not allow it. He will cherish the earth you walk upon and will do everything he possibly can to make sure you are loved and happy.”
My head was woozy, my thoughts clouded and unable to follow.
A cooling balm smeared over the scalding discomfort on my right and left palms, tenderness granted with softly spoken promises of peace after such awful pain. My eyes flickered open as Solin pushed aside my deerskin wrap and smeared the comforting ointment on the mark the fire had branded me with, coating my skin and protecting it from the air and pulsing agony.
Only once all three wounds glistened with whatever medicine he’d used did he help me sit up.
I didn’t remember lying down.
With fatherly softness, Solin captured my cheeks in his astringent hands. The herbs in the salve teased my nose, vowing that, one day, I would know what they were once I started my lessons with Pallen and her apprentices.
I clung to that vow, all while Solin came back into focus. He kissed my forehead and looked at the smoke hole above. Outside, a spritz of stars had appeared, dazzling in the new fallen darkness.
“It is done.” Letting me go, he stood and wiped both hands on the bison fur wrapped around his hips. “You will learn what you have agreed to the moment we step out of this lupic. I hope to every flame that you will forgive me.”
I shuddered with gathering discomfort. “Solin...w-what aren’t you saying?”
He didn’t speak or offer me his hand to pull me to my feet, knowing my palms and their new ash-oozing tattoos were beyond touching for now.
“Solin?”
He just shook his head and raked fingers through his hair, tangling in his woven braids.
Keeping my hands tucked carefully against my belly, I stood without too much of a wobble.
Syn whimpered and nudged my thigh, sending me tripping before I caught my balance. “It’s okay, Syn,” I murmured, raising my palms to study what Solin had done.
I gasped at his mastery.
The fuzzy, plump body of a bumblebee took up my entire right palm. Its feelers spread up the insides of two of my fingers while its six legs fanned out over the edges of my hand. Its wings somehow looked as translucent as nature intended. Faint lines scratched over the body of the banded bee before swooping up my wrist as if the bee hovered in mid-air, its wings pinned up and proud, the softest hum of its flight echoing in my ears.
