A Baron of Bonds (Conduit of Light #2)

35. Rev

Chapter 35

Rev

Karus led me outside, her fingers woven through mine, laughing as she pulled me toward the music of the square.

Her eyes reflected in the descending sun, and her breath came warm and sweet when she stopped in the middle of the street to kiss me.

She stretched her hands through my hair, the pads of her fingers pressed into the roots, like her heart pressed into my soul.

She laughed for no reason at all other than loving me, and I grinned, knowing why my own chest rumbled with hers.

“Do you hear it?” she whispered on my lips, looking into my eyes as if I was about to be introduced to something magnificent.

“Yes, I hear the music, Karus.”

My beloved.

She brushed her lips along my cheek, whispering in my ear, “Will you feel it with me?”

The violinist streamed her music into the cool air, her arm moving the bow rapidly across the strings as her body swayed and hummed with the music.

The fountain behind her was massive, filling the square as water shot from raised spouts across each end, timed to the song. The square was full of people darting in and out, calling to each other or stopping to dance on the marble tiles laid in a pattern of a golden sun.

I stood in awe watching the fountain play with the notes flying high and low across it.

It really was magnificent.

She laughed again, her arms sliding around my waist. “Gears under the fountain. When a musician is chosen to play, they come each day for seven days, and their songs are timed to the sprays.”

“And there’s no magic involved?” I pulled her closer, watching how effortlessly plucked notes of the violin synchronized with the spray flying through the air to the spout on the other side.

“No magic. Just a beautiful invention. This only happens every other week. It takes another seven days to get the gears set up for the next musician’s set. Do you love it?”

“Yes. It’s…incredible.”

She quirked a brow in my direction. “How’s your dancing, Baron?”

“Not the best, I’m afraid. Didn’t really have the time or means to learn in the Hallow Marshes. You?”

“Good sir, you are speaking to the ward of the Queen of Hyrithia. I was formally trained since the age of six.”

“Are you any good?”

“Absolutely not.”

We laughed in the shining sun as the music stopped, and the crowd clapped. The musician bowed low and nodded, thanking those around her before picking up her bow once more, stepping on a raised stone at the fountain’s base, and beginning something new.

Karus pulled me forward, refusing to let me stall any longer.

The sound of the strings being pulled tightly started the next round of sprays across the water, and Karus began the movement to a dance I did not know the name of, let alone the steps.

She led the way as she showed me how to hold her hand and place my other around her waist, her own clasped in mine. She gripped my shoulder as she guided us around the marble tiles.

Other couples joined us, young and old. Even a father and his daughter stepped into the paved courtyard as he twirled her around to the time of the music that he seemed to know just as well as his child’s laughter. The sound lilted through the square and everything was perfect.

Everything was beautiful and right, and all I knew was Karus in those moments of joy, both of us stumbling a bit over our dance not yet perfected, yet perfect in that moment.

I pulled her closer, not caring what was traditional, not caring what was proper or common. She laughed in my ear as I took the lead and led her further away from the crowd.

I lifted her hand and twirled her around and around, her burgundy cloak and coper skirts flying in time with the music as she tried to keep up with her own feet.

We flew to the edge of the other end of the fountain where fewer people gathered and no one danced. Her laughter hit me hard and where it did best, right in my chest like a sharp pang of longing, sadness, and fear of what I could lose once more.

But I remembered what she said, and she was right. I was not ever going to heal this way if I did not stop these spiraling thoughts—if I did not stop these moments of remembrance of what little joy life held without her.

Instead, I chose euphoria in that moment.

I chose to love her in that space of time, dancing around a fountain to violin music. Dancing around her laughter and perfect beauty spilling green from her fingers as she held onto mine. The sway of her skirts were like the sway of our love, flowing through the world as a beautiful and mesmerizing thing to behold.

Her grace in her feet was impressive, considering how often she stumbled into doorframes or tended to miss a bottom stair. I loved seeing her like this.

I twirled her once more, readying myself to catch her if she flew too far, but she let go of my hand to continue spinning, her arms out wide, welcoming in the joy and the bliss of the moments we shared together.

She continued her trek, spinning too far and too fast, and I swiftly moved in, following her glide across the square just out of reach of the fountain.

She tumbled into a human statue, clasping onto its outstretched hand before falling into laughter, her chest heaving on the bronze frame.

I caught up to her and leaned in, laughing myself and asking, “Are you alright, love?”

“Yes! I’m alright. I didn’t mean to spin that far before this good man caught me.” She backed up, holding her stomach in laughter, her hand closed around the statue’s bronzed gloved fingers.

I glanced up at the shining metal, and dread pooled through my veins in recognition. “Karus,” I warned, pulling her away.

“No…it can’t be,” she whispered, her breath leaving her lungs rapidly from the dance or what we had discovered. I wasn’t sure which.

His likeness was well done. The curve of his high cheekbones, the tuft of his beard, right down to the detail of his gloved hand that seemed to be reaching out toward the city as if in a gesture of aid.

I read the inlaid stone aloud below us, Karus’s gaze still set on his face. “For his cure that saved our city, we honor Baron Heimlen with this likeness, the Savior of Hyrithia.”