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“And this time, no one will be trying to stab us,” Laiken adds.
We make our way out of the temple and down to the water. Laiken watches me, waiting for me to enter. I nod and dive into the water, swimming my way forward over the sand and then out into the open ocean.
A moment later, Laiken follows me, his body swift and graceful as it cuts through the water. He’s an impressive enough presence on land, but here in the ocean, he is a monarch moving through his kingdom.
Immediately, his tentacles wrap around my legs and shoulders to pull me into position. I see above me the great beak that sits underneath his head. It’s yellow and sharp but also just as beautiful as all the rest of him.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” he asks. “Don’t worry. If you decide you don’t want to do this today, you can. It’s a big choice. Even if you just want me to wait for a moment until you’re ready for the feeling of it, that’s fine.”
“No. Do it. I want to see your mark on me.”
He nods, and the tentacles holding me tighten just a little.
“Ever since I met you, I knew that one day you would be mine,” he says. “I didn’t know what path that would take, or how much it would change me and my life, but I knew. And in this moment, I want to celebrate that knowledge. I mark you as mine, now, and forever.”
And then his beak digs directly into the flesh just between my breasts. I almost cry out from the pain, but I hold back. The very next moment, he presses his whole body down on the wound, and I feel a cooling sensation passing over it.
The sharp pain of the wound is gone. There is still a dull ache, but that’s easy to deal with.
It’s over,I think.I’ve been marked forever.What I’m about to see, I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Laiken lets go, and I see the mark he’s left on me. There it is, an X cut with the beak. The arms pressing down around the wound stretch it out, turning the middle of the X into an eight-pointed star, with four tiny lines between the arms of the letter.
It’s beautiful,I think.
I love it, and I love him.
“What do you think?” he says, drifting down so that the two of us are once again face to face. Around us, the ocean teems with a thousand strange creatures and beings, but he is the only one I care about.
He is literally written on my heart.
“It’s perfect,” I tell him. “I love you.”
His arms wrap around me and hold me tight as we float in the cold, blue water.
“I love you, too,” he tells me. “I love you forever.”
29
PENNY
I’ve seen many humans who have been scarred or branded by the elves who own them in order to mark them. This feels nothing like that. The mark has to do with both of us. It’s the mark of our relationship, of Laiken’s claiming.
I’m his, but in a way, he’s mine.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell him, leaning backward and allowing myself to be carried along by the water.
He wraps his arms around my wrists and waist, floating gently alongside me. The water is cool and full of life.
“I knew that you would love it,” he tells me.
I don’t recognize most of the animals. I think I remember someone telling me about the caesin, the long skinny things that weave their way through the water like black ribbons. Some of them have bright red stripes that are mesmerizing to watch. I also recognize the bufo, which sits still on the bottom of the ocean, its legs tucked up into itself before occasionally leaping forward after some small creature.
But there are so many others I’ve simply never imagined. Things with fins, things that look like plants, or rocks that breathe, or bits of the ground that suddenly open their mouth and leap up. It’s as rich as any forest, maybe richer because there are no elves to hunt it or cut things down.
I could spend a life here, floating with Laiken and watching all of these creatures and slowly learning to understand them all.
It’s important to me that Laiken is with me. Maybe it’s the mark on me, but already, I find it hard to imagine living without him.
