She took a deep breath and then sighed. “I do not know. I can feel Elea’s soul inside of me, but I am weak. So weak. Death has taken a terrible toll on me.”
Matteo lifted his hand and gently caressed her swollen cheek. “There are no words to describe how happy I am that you are still alive. I love you, Nora. Four little words that I feared I would never get to say.”
Nora took his hand from her face and pressed a hot kiss into his palm. “And I love you, but nothing has changed. You were married by proxy to Elea to fulfill a treaty between our two countries. I cannot break the laws of humans or of my goddess. We can never be together.”
He saw a tear dangle on her eyelash and then slip slowly down her face. He’d never seen Nora cry even once. Not after an injury. Not after Elea’s pettiness. Her emotions seemed like an impenetrable fortress. Yet she was showing them to him.
“At first, I thought to seek an annulment, but then I remembered that I was married by proxy and that I am lawfully the husband of Princess Eleanora of Urka . . . which also happens to be your name.”
Nora’s eyes widened and she leaned closer to him. “But the treaty meant Elea.”
“I don’t give a fig for what the treaty meant,” Matteo said. “My marriage to Princess Eleanora of Urka is only valid once it is consummated, and as you well know, it was never consummated with Elea.”
She blinked. “You’re saying that if we were to consummate the marriage, I would be your legal wife.”
“You would be my queen. The other half of my heart.”
Abruptly, Nora stood up and walked to the window, her breathing irregular. Matteo longed to follow her but thought that she needed space to comprehend this new revelation. He watched as she stood silently looking out the dark window for several minutes.
At last, she turned back to look at him. “If I were to say no, would you complete the marriage with Elea?”
“Never. I swear it on my ancestors. No woman exists in this world for me, except for you.”
Nora’s whole body seemed to relax a little. “You are willing to give me your name and to make me your queen, but will you give me a piece of your soul?”
Matteo didn’t know what he expected Nora to say, but this was not it. “You want me to give you a piece of my soul to prove my love?”
“I know that you love me and you have more than proved it,” she said. “But I cannot be yours until I have fulfilled my part in the prophecy, and for that, I need a part of your soul. I require the strength of your body to heal my broken one.”
“But your soul is already split.”
She held up three fingers. “Odd numbers are considered holy by my people. I should be able to shear my soul once more. I will give you a piece of my soul to hold in your heart and take a part of yours.”
“Will you know what I am thinking? Feeling?”
“I will know you more intimately than anyone else. I will feel your sorrows and your joys. You will experience my pains and my pleasures. The closer we are to one other, the stronger the connection will be.”
“Forever?”
“Until we reach the three Eternal Kingdoms,” she whispered, and then made the sign of the trigon on her forehead and shoulders. “Splitting souls is a celestial practice . . . as is the joining of them. We would be connected to each other for all of time and eternity.”
Matteo did not believe in her goddess. His people worshiped their ancestors. He did not have faith in life after death or in a superior being (or many beings) in the cosmos directing human lives. Yet this sacred rite would connect them irrevocably together. For this lifetime and, according to Nora, also in the next. It was not a step to be taken lightly. This was the ultimate form of eternal commitment.
There was no one else on the entire earth that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. And if Nora was right, that there was life after death, then he would wish to be with her. Always.
Holding out his hand, he turned it palm-side up. “I was yours before I even knew your name.”
Nora truly smiled, lighting her up from the inside. Her smiles were rare and they warmed him to the very core. There was nothing he would not do for her. He had fought for her. Killed for her. And now, he would share his soul with her.
“Let me prepare the trigon,” she said, and walked back to the bathing room.
She returned with a dry bar of soap in her hand. Kneeling, she began to create an elaborate triangle on the floor with the lye from the soap. She stood up and pulled a dagger out of each of her boots. She held one out to him. Matteo took it and she pointed to a circle in one of the points of the diagram. He stood inside it. Nora moved to another circle at the converse of another point.
“There is an empty corner.”
“That is for the goddess.”
Matteo gave a curt nod. The hairs on his arms were raised. He felt as if he were standing in a graveyard, on holy ground.