Taste of ecstasy

Chapter 48

"Between two souls bound by vow, power is neither given nor taken, it is remembered. When two souls are bound, their strength is no longer mortal one becomes the hand, the other the heart."

Night pressed heavy against Calmaria, its winds thick with the scent of iron and ash. In the tower, where light could not reach and time stood trapped between breaths, Magnus sat upon the black marble floor, his wrists marked by silver cuffs that pulsed faintly with warding runes. Beyond the narrow slits of his prison, the world burned. He could feel it the tremor in the distance, the thunder of hooves, the roar of steel meeting steel. Idris was moving, alive and terrible in its wrath, and somewhere amid the smoke and the clash of banners was him Alexander, his king, his bondmate, his love.

Magnus closed his eyes, feeling the world through that bond a cord of molten gold running from the pit of his ribs into the far horizon. It thrummed like a heartbeat he could not hear but only remember. At first, it was chaos pain, rage, the burning scent of battle but slowly, Magnus drew breath, deep and steady, and began to discipline the current that passed between them.

He whispered into the dark, "Alexander, my king, my soul listen to me. You need not burn alone."

Each word fell like an invocation. The old language of the fair folk, forgotten by mortals, hummed beneath his breath. Though his blood held no outward magic, there was power still a soul's inheritance, not of spellcraft but of devotion. He drew the air into his lungs and turned it into light. It pooled in his chest, slow and golden, until the cuffs at his wrists began to glow, not breaking but resonating the wards themselves answering to his call.

Through the bond, far away, Alec's breath faltered once on the battlefield a pause between sword strokes and then steadied, stronger. His vision cleared. He saw the rise of the enemy lines, the dark banners of Calmaria shuddering under Idris's flame. He did not know why his arm no longer ached, nor why the air no longer tasted of despair, only that something was behind him within him whispering to keep going.

Magnus bent his head. Sweat dripped down his neck, tracing the fragile curve of his spine. The child inside him stirred faintly, sensing the pulse of power around them. He laid a trembling hand over his stomach. "You see, little one," he murmured, his voice barely a breath, "he is your father fire and mercy both. We must lend him our calm." He closed his eyes again, shaping the bond like glass between his palms, envisioning Alec's crown gleaming through the dust of war, the blade in his hand gleaming like dawn. Strength is not rage, he told the bond, it is purpose.

The words turned to rhythm, rhythm to energy. He imagined Alec's heartbeat aligning with his own, two pulses in tandem one roaring through battlefields, one anchored in chains. In that alignment, the bond no longer burned chaotically; it sang. Alec, on the blood-soaked plains before Calmaria, felt it hit him like a tidal wave not violence, but grace. The weight on his shoulders lightened. His wounds sealed with the warmth of something unseen. For a fleeting moment, he thought he could hear Magnus's voice over the clash of swords a whisper in the wind, saying, "Steady, love. I am with you."

And he was.

Every strike Alec made from then on glowed faintly at its edge, as if the steel remembered sunlight even in the shadow of night. His men rallied at the sight of their king, unstoppable, radiant in fury and devotion. They said later that when Alec rode, the sky itself seemed to flinch that his banner carried not merely Idris's colours but the light of an unseen star. Back in the tower, Magnus fell forward onto his hands, his breath ragged. His lips were white, his fingers trembling, but his eyes his eyes gleamed with something fierce and unyielding.

The cuffs no longer hurt. The walls no longer pressed. He could still feel the bond's pulse across the war-torn distance strong, alive, answering him. He whispered one last time, voice cracking but sure "Go, Alexander. End this. For us."