The Binding

Chapter Twenty

"It's so..." I wanted to say beautiful, but it wasn't merely beautiful. It was extraordinary. A light breeze touched my hair, tickling my neck. The flames hissed, the trees rustled in the distance and crickets chirping to each other, oblivious to everything. The rest of the world was still and silent.

I don't know how long I stood there before I finally walked over to a large stone about the size of a small bench and sat down. We stayed on that mountain for more than an hour. I laid down on my back, staring at the fires in the sky while listening to the fires of the mountain hiss and whisper. Ezra sat next to my head, his hand stroking along my hair occasionally. It was a gesture of familiarity and possession that I enjoyed.

"How amazing is it that places like this exist?" I finally said. "And that there aren't guard rails along all the fires to protect people from burning their fingers and lights around every rock to protect people from stubbing their toes. The steps of the path are old and crumbling in places, and they are allowed to. They haven't been smothered with cement. And there aren't any electric lights wired along every step."

Ezra nodded in agreement. "They ruin the wonders of the world by trying to protect us from them."

He leaned over and kissed me slowly, with purpose— another gesture of possession that I enjoyed.
The smell of burning ozone made me lift my head. Ezra stiffened as electric fingers crawled across my stomach. He pulled away then stopped, hovering a few inches above me.

We heard the soft sound of stone scraping against stone in the distance and turned. Ezra stiffened on alert. I sat up as he positioned me behind him. A man appeared at the top of the steps. He stopped for a moment, assessing us and then walked in our direction. He had a ring of hair peppered with grey cropped close to his scalp. Light reflected off his bald top. Deep lines around his mouth and eyes as he studied us with a casual self-assurance. The air around him pulsed and vibrated in waves. I could see it swirling and undulating in the air, like heat waves.

As Ezra crouched deeper into a protective stance, the man pulled his hands from his jacket pockets and held them up. He looked at Ezra for a moment with an amused critical expression and then turned his attention to me. Whatever he was thinking about me, his face wasn't showing it. A binding leaped across my hips and down my legs.

"I hear you've been looking for me," he said with a thick Welch accent. "You need to stop that." Ezra stood up a fraction in surprise.

"Ezra," the man said, nodding. "And this is the little one everyone is talking about." He smelled like a hot, dry day... mustard seeds and dusty dirt.

Ezra shifted his weight uneasily. "What do you mean everyone is talking about?"

The man frowned slightly and stuck his hands back into his jacket pockets. "Well, maybe not everyone yet but more than I would like. Many more than I would like. A child only a few months old marries the Angel of Death and then kills an Immortal thousands of years older than her. It's the sort of thing people tend to notice. There's been a lot of chatter."

Then he grinned at me with a strange expression I couldn't quite understand. "I never would have imagined. We thought we'd have more time.

"We?" Ezra echoed at the same time, I asked, "Who are you?"

"My name is Gregor, and we've been waiting for you for a long time."

The air started closing in around me. "Who is 'We'?" Ezra repeated more forcefully. Gregor looked at Ezra again slowly, making some kind of judgment and then nodded.

"He's strong... powerful," he said, ignoring Ezra. "I guess I can see why you tethered to him." The man wasn't making any sense, and I could see Ezra's anxiety building.