Chapter 5

I portal back to the hair clip in Nariel's closet. This time, while there's some vertigo sucking myself through dimensions rather than a nice civilized gate spell to walk through, I don't feel like I'm dying. It's more like the rush of falling on a roller coaster—dizzying, adrenaline-spiking, a threat of danger, but not actually worried about my own mortality.

Then Nariel's hand appears in front of me, plucking the hair clip and pinning it to his shirt like a boutonniere.

So that I can portal to him .

I glance up at him, and his eyes are dark.

He holds a hand out to me. "Shall we?"

My heart thumps, and I stare at his hand like it holds a poisoned apple.

I remember the first time he held his hand out to me in Costa Rica. The challenge; the soaring. Held in his arms.

If I let him hold me like that again, will I just melt into him and lose myself ?

Whatever I am, though, I'm not one to back away from a challenge. Even if it's not good for me.

So I meet his eyes and place my hand in his.

Nariel's eyes go full black—there are no whites anymore.

In the next instant, his shadows spill out of him, surrounding us as he wraps himself around me.

But here in his arms, I can see clearly.

Cloaked in his shadows, no one can see the top of his tower opening to the crimson sky.

No one can see as Nariel launches us into the air.

No one can see him snap out the wings he's so self-conscious about.

No one but me.

"I never did touch your wings, before," I murmur into his ear.

Nariel's arms tighten around me. "Don't."

Oh.

My grip on him loosens.

Like, I'm not letting go—though I do have my wand in hand in case of emergency—but that's as close as I can get to withdrawing and putting space between us, given the circumstances.

Nariel, however, tightens his hold on me in response.

"I meant not now." His voice is strained. "The inner parts of the wings you can reach from where you are can be... sensitive. I don't want to fall out of the sky, even if you can catch us. "

Oh.

Cautiously, I grip him again more firmly, and feel rather than hear the deep sigh he lets out.

Cool, glad I'm managing to make life awkward for both of us.

"Could we just gate there?"

"No. Spirits and angels can traverse between realms freely, but not within a realm. Gates are a human magic."

Okay, stuck like this then. I actually look around past our bubble, searching for something else to talk about.

Nariel told me once that Makora was full of obsidian spires, and seeing them all, black spikes that don't seem like they could bear the weight of the larger toruses on top of them, stretching for miles, really brings home that I am not in a human world right now.

He has a closet, he has a human shape. But he's not human.

No one here is, except for me.

"You really do have the tallest spire," I note. Like, by a lot.

"Of course I do."

"Does nothing grow in Dark Earth, or are we just in a desert?" The ground looks almost like the same obsidian as the spires.

"Both. Makora's infrastructure was more resilient than other places because of how it was made. But in this world, everything that grew was made of magic. There's not enough magic for that now. "

The spire density finally starts to thin. "How many of these are unoccupied?" I ask quietly.

"Too many."

Okay, well, so much for that topic change. "Where are we going? Or did you just want to confirm you could fly around freely here, too?"

"I trust your spell, Sierra."

My chest tightens.

When I don't respond, Nariel says, "I'm taking you to a place where you can see most of my realm."

I guess I can spell myself some binoculars. "Why?"

"So you can see what you're getting into."

What? "Are we not talking about demon marriage again?"

"Correct," Nariel says, a note of amusement in his voice now. But there's strain under it.

"Why does it matter what I think of Makora? Wait—is this like, a marriage of state?" In a flash of insight I realize, "That's why you're not mad at Gaspar—he was treating me like a co-ruler? Nariel, what is a bond. "

"I promise we're almost there."

I bang my head against his shoulder repeatedly, and a laugh bursts out of him.

"I know," he faux-soothes, "it's hard not to know everything."

That makes me freeze in his arms.

And of course Nariel catches it. "You're upset you didn't realize how you could find High Earth's spells. Sierra, you cannot expect to have all the ideas all the time, particularly not when High Earth is very intentionally overwhelming you."

"High Earth did its best to overwhelm me as a student and it didn't work then. I can't afford for it to work now that the stakes are higher."

"The situations are totally different," Nariel says. "You weren't responsible for all of High Earth."

"I've been under plenty of pressure and not buckled before."

"And you're not buckling now. Grand Magus Evram, one of several grand magi—"

"Eight, last I knew."

"One of the top ten living mages anywhere came to you because even he, with all the resources at his disposal, couldn't manage alone. That is what other people are for. Your people don't know enough yet to help you, but I do. You will have the ideas when it counts."

"I didn't, though," I say softly.

One of his arms brushes up my back until he can flick my head with a finger.

I turn and glare at him.

And wow, our faces are close, pressed together like this.

"You knew immediately what to do with what I reminded you," Nariel tells me. "Don't you dare do High Earth's work for them."

Making me feel inadequate .

Yeah, that is what their goal is. Making me doubt until I second-guess myself, and as soon as I slip, they'll be poised to take advantage.

"I wish I knew what Destien was up to," I mutter. "He has to know I would notice the spell he added to the Miyajima anchor and would have told somebody about it. But there haven't been any attacks there, and he hasn't tried to contact me at all. What the hell did he do it for? Oh, wait, did you know about this?"

"Yes, Gaspar did report that. There are two options, aren't there? Either he's not politically powerful enough to enact whatever he planned, or he's playing a longer game. Since you can't know which, it doesn't affect your choices now."

I look at him again. "What does?"

He looks back.

And then we begin slowly spiraling downward.

"Me," he breathes.

We're high above a mountain range now, and I barely even noticed.

I notice as we plummet down.

But I notice because I'm not worried about it.

Nariel offered his hand, and I took it.

He's not going to let me crash.

His gaze is intent on mine, like he's waiting for the moment I balk.

I just raise my eyebrows back in challenge.

And then I stick my tongue out at him .

His fast grin zings through my soul, like it has from the beginning.

He snaps his wings, and we're suspended in the air like we're floating.

And then, gently, we land on a rock.

Nariel doesn't let me go.

My heart is pounding. "Wasn't I supposed to look at what I'm getting into?"

His grin falls slightly, takes on a sardonic edge.

Ah. Because I already am looking, of course, at him.

This time I slide my arm up behind him to flick him in the head. "Nariel. Tell me about the damn bond."

He sighs, loosens his grip on me, so that he can gently turn me to look out across Makora.

And, wow. That is a sight.

Nothing green grows, but it looks like the rock does. There are formations across the landscape that defy physics, like obsidian has formed tendrils that erupt out of the earth to form claws around the spires.

"Here is the catch," Nariel says. "A bond is not like the bindings High Earth has perverted for their contracts. However, it will function like a diplomatic tie. The problems of my realm will become yours too."

Jesus. I tear myself away from the view to look at him. "Nariel, I already can't handle Low Earth's problems. You of all people know how easily I can fuck up and lose my shit. Why in the world would you think this is a good idea? "

" Because I have seen you," he says fiercely. "I have seen you face the tallest odds in the universe and still fight. You would have fought two worlds at my side to keep me from imprisonment. You are inundated with challenges and still wasted no time to rescue me, at great personal and political risk, because you could, and you believed it was right. I had once dreamed of a partner who could and would stand by my side, but even in my wildest imaginings I could not have dreamed of you."

Nariel brushes a hand over my cheek, and my entire being thrums in awareness.

I am frozen, mesmerized.

His smile turns sad. "But I know what you want is magic, Sierra. I know you would do your best by Makora, and Dark Earth, but you already feel trapped by obligations to Low Earth. So I understand if being bonded to me would be one shackle too many."

"You're so focused on telling me the catch," I finally manage, "but not why you think I might want this."

A flash of real humor again. "Yes, so you know you don't need to look for a hidden catch. I don't want you to bond with me under false pretenses. But bonding with me would mean you could share my power."

I blink. "Come again?"

"And I yours, of course," Nariel adds hastily. "But you said your grove was my grove, so—"

"I'm not worried about you leeching off of me."

He narrows his eyes. "No, you're not, are you? You're—worried about leeching off of me ? Don't—that's the whole point. I can share with you my capacity for power, as well as some of my powers—I can show you the world without having to spend any power, and I can transport you anywhere between realms without an anchor. And you will always be able to find me, even without this."

He presses my hand to the cherry blossom hair clip he once gifted me.

That sits over his heart.

"But I could weaken you, by drawing too much on your power," I say.

He narrows his eyes. "And I you, but now that you've restored Low Earth's magic, it's not likely. We'll also be able to sense each other's emotions in a limited fashion, so we would each have ample warning if we were getting close to the edge."

"Well, I can see why we're likening a bond to demon marriage," I say, trying to turn this a little lighter so I don't destroy us entirely. Because the next thing I say is, "I appreciate the vote of confidence, and you wanting to help, but I don't think this is a good idea."

This time, I feel Nariel freeze.

"When our power blended, in your grove," he says slowly, "you didn't run away or withdraw. You're not afraid of me."

"No, I'm not," I agree. "Not the way you mean, anyway."

Never mind. We're doing this the hard way anyway .

Well, the hard way for me. That tracks.

"Will you explain?" he asks me softly.

I sigh, and lean forward, my forehead against his chest. I don't have to look at him while I say it, at least. "I'm not worried about being overwhelmed by your power, Nariel. I'm worried about my emotional dependency on you."

A beat.

"What?"

He sounds so baffled, so taken aback, I actually huff out a humorless laugh.

"Nariel, you know how to lead. You know how to deal with other worlds. You are powerful enough to defeat enemies I can barely even stand my ground against. You're acting like you would be dragging me down, but it's the opposite. If I start depending on your power—"

" Counting on ," Nariel interrupts. "Not depending. Because you can count on me, Sierra, even without a bond."

That does not actually improve the situation.

I pull back, away from him, and he lets me.

I'm still only inches from him, but now it feels like there's an entire chasm between us.

"You're not afraid of me," Nariel says, "and you would stand at my side and fight harder for me than I would for myself. But somehow you still think you're less than me."

"More like less equipped," I mutter, and then take a breath and spit the rest out. "And I don't want you to bind yourself to me out of obligation. All you'd get is access to my power, which I've already given you, and all my problems."

Nariel stares at me. "And you , Sierra."

My heart tightens. "Right."

We stare at each other, Nariel in apparent disbelief—I can practically see the gears turning in his brain—and me growing tenser with every passing moment as I wait for him to react.

The wind echoes around us, the sole figures alone together in a mountain range overlooking a demonic landscape.

"Well," Nariel finally says, "first things first, then. Let's get you better equipped."