“When I said it was magic, I was only half teasing.” He sat beside me, taking my hand. The contact sent a jolt of awareness through me. “It’s the gods. Their magic.” He ran his finger along the mark. “And this is like a tattoo but goes deeper than ink. All married Atlantians have this imprint until their marriage ends.”
“Through death or decree?”
Dark waves tumbled over his forehead as he nodded. “The mark will then disappear.”
That would be a terrible way to discover that someone died. I shivered.
Casteel’s gaze lifted to mine. “Did you not believe in the gods at all?”
I started to say yes, that I did, but it was more complicated than that. “I believed what I’d been taught about the gods by the Ascended. The only magic was the Blessing. Other than that, they were like…silent sentinels who watched over us, and that it was our duty to serve them through the Rite.” I laughed—laughed at myself. “Now when I say that out loud, I recognize how ridiculous it sounds. How blind I’d been.”
“It only sounds that way to someone taught differently from birth.”
“We thought their magic was the Ascension. That the Ascended were proof of that power,” I said as Casteel trailed his fingers to the ring around my pointer finger. I realized something. “It surprised me when you placed the ring on my pointer finger. In Solis, the ring is worn on the fourth finger, but the line the imprint is on is closest to the pointer finger.”
“Clever girl,” he murmured, brushing back the strands of hair that had fallen over my shoulder. “The line in your palm is believed to be the one connected to your heart. That is why the imprint is made there.”
“It’s sort of beautiful,” I admitted.
“It is,” he said, and I could feel his gaze on me. My breath caught. “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling all kinds of special,” he added as he skimmed his fingers over the back of my neck and then the delicate chains of the necklace. “It has been several hundred years since Nyktos has made his approval of a union known.”
My pulse skipped. “Not since your parents.”
“So I’ve heard. My father would boast about it. Tell any who listened that the day turned to night when the ceremony was completed. I don’t think Malik or I believed him, but he wasn’t lying.”
“And Nyktos hasn’t done that for anyone since then?”
“Apparently, not. That is good news, Poppy.”
“Unlike the Blood Forest tree that appeared in New Haven?”
“We don’t know if that was good or bad,” he replied. “We just know it was really weird.”
I laughed, unable to help myself, and it felt good to do that. To not fight a laugh or a smile, and to be happy.
That look crossed Casteel’s features again. The one he wore when I approached him before the ceremony. The one he wore every time he heard me laugh or smile. “Why?” Curiosity filled me. “Why do you look like that when I laugh? Or smile?”
“Because it’s a beautiful sound and smile and you don’t do it nearly enough.” A slight flush crept across his cheeks as he looked at my hand. “And every time I hear it, it feels like I’ve heard it before—and I mean, like before I even met you. Like deja vu but different.”
That made me think of what Kieran had shared. “What does heartmates mean?” I blurted out.
Casteel’s gaze returned to mine. “How have you heard of heartmates but not the marriage imprint?”
“Well…” I drew out the word. “You see, you have this bonded wolven that often says very vague, mostly unhelpful things.”
He laughed at that. “He does, doesn’t he? He spoke to you about heartmates? When?”
“A few days ago.” What felt like an eternity ago. “He said he thought we were heartmates, and I thought he was crazy. He didn’t tell me what it meant other than something about it being more powerful than bloodlines and gods.”
“That was vague.” A smile played across his lips. It was a tired expression, but real. I saw a hint of both dimples. “Heartmates is…it’s almost more of a legend than Nyktos giving his approval for a union. Not fable, but so rare that it has become myth.” He toyed with a diamond teardrop as his lashes lowered. “It started at the beginning of recorded time, when one of the ancient deities fell so deeply in love with a mortal that he pleaded for the gods to bestow the gift of long life on the one he chose. They refused, even though he was one of their favorite children. And they refused each and every year, as the one he loved grew older, and he remained the same. Then, when his lover was old and gray, the body no longer able to support life, his lover left to join Rhain, where not even he could travel. Heartbroken, the deity did not eat or drink, and it didn’t matter that the gods pleaded with him. Even Nyktos himself came to this land and begged him to live. He told him that he couldn’t, not when a piece of his soul had left him when his lover died. It was a piece he would never get back, and without it, he had no will. Eventually, he became dust.”