Darkness carved in bone

Chapter 24

Ten

Ten looked at the two wedding bands between them, bewilderment and shock ran through him. How could the prophecy have predicted this, influenced this path? He looked up at the ceiling as if to look to the sky and wonder what kind of powers lingered there to make this cosmic interference in their lives. Had this all been set in motion before they were even born?

He had been given his father's wedding band when his father had passed away. His mother had wanted him to keep that piece close to him, to have some small token of his father's forever. He had considered wearing it, but when he had tried it on it had felt wrong and strange. He wasn't married and he wanted to carry his own wedding band when he eventually did marry. Therefore, he had instead carried it around his neck, or tied it to his sword. When they had left the cabin, he had transferred it from his sword and put it around his neck, without knowing why he had done it.

But now he would put it on his finger because the Sòlung before him had made a cover up, a lie, that they were married on a ruse to keep his lineage hidden from her people. The ruse had required two wedding bands to complete the lie. She had one, given to her by a Volve in the night, apparently chosen at random, but now that they needed it, the fifth token appeared as the second and matching ring to the one he had carried close to his heart for the last thirteen years.

He looked into her eyes and found that same startlement and bewilderment that ran through his own body. He took the ring from her fingers and looked into her clear blue eyes that seemed to shine in the candlelight and pushed the ring, the fifth token onto her ring finger.

She looked down at the ring on her finger and looked up at him again, a shiver of nervousness flickered in her eyes as she did the same to him. She untied the leather strap that held the ring and pushed the ring gently on his finger.

Ten couldn't help but study the sight. First his own hand, almost unfamiliar with that golden band across it. It symbolized something he didn't quite know how to react too, something that had felt more like a constraint and obligation, than the symbol of love that it should have been. He felt nothing of that now, the constraint or obligation, as he looked down at the ring. One reason that he did not feel those things could be the fact that this wasn't for real, that he in fact wasn't married. On the other hand, it could also be for a whole different reason that he did not feel those things as he glanced up at Helen for a moment, his heart beating steadily, but hard in his chest.

He looked at Helen's hand that carried the wedding band he had put there, and felt a strange proudness build up inside him. As if he was proud to have claimed her as his.

Their eyes met as they both looked up from their hands, and she replied his smile, sending bolts of warmth and electricity through his body from where their hands joined.

His body inched closer to hers, and her chin lifted towards his face. He lowered his face until their noses were nearly touching. His entire body was close to shaking, wanting to end the distance between them. His heart beat frantically in his chest now, and his lips wanted to taste her, to feel her warmth against his skin.

A short knock to the door startled them and made them both take a disappointed step away from each other as Melanie stepped inside the room, after Ten had told her to enter.

She set a small tray with two bowls of soup and bread on the small table beside the hearth and lay two sets of clothes over the end of the bed. "I hope it will taste good, and that the clothes fit you. If you want to clean yourselves, there is a path through the backyard that takes you to our hot springs," her sweet voice chirped before she paused and looked at their faces and added suggestively ; "at this hour there will probably no one there," before she excused herself.