She snorted, shaking her head. “Trying to walk the path of gods is not always wise. You think the titans will welcome us beside them?”
Jotahan shook his head, his expression thoughtful. “I highly doubt it, but I don’t think that will be enough to stop your people from trying.”
She sighed heavily, leaning her head against his chest. “That’s what scares me.”
44
The time had finally come for their sata-drahi’at. Jotahan had experienced so much anxiety and frustration waiting for this moment that he had been afraid it would never arrive. They’d had to delay it another twelve cycles to make certain that both he and Sarah were strong enough after their ordeal to endure the ceremony. In that time, both had stayed within the temple while they recovered. This limited the activities he wanted to do with her, since they never seemed to be fully alone.
One positive of the delay was that the priest Zan Cyall was now recovered enough to lead the ceremony. Once the healers discovered he’d been poisoned, they’d searched Farona’s home and identified the vial of poison, allowing them to successfully treat him.
Zan Cyall’s death would have been yet another tragedy added to an already devastating one. Jotahan still struggled with his guilt and grief. He didn’t grieve over Farona. Not anymore. Now that he understood what kind of person she was, what kind of person she had always been, he realized that he had loved a lie. He mourned the person who never was. The one he’d believed was his best friend.
His guilt came from the fact that he had never seen through her. He’d known that she was controlling, and always had been, but she’d been very subtle in her efforts when it came to him. On some level, he’d sensed that he and all her other companions were being manipulated by her, yet she’d done such a good job of it that he’d become complacent, focusing more on his duty than his private life. He’d allowed her to make decisions for him when he was too busy being Jotaha. After all, she’d known him best, and he couldn’t be bothered with the small details in the skilev when he was serving as guardian in the urvaka.
That was not an easy thing to accept about himself and his judgement. He felt like a complete fool and was angry at himself for missing the signs when he’d been trained to sense danger. Support circles had formed in the wake of the tragedy, and he and Sarah attended meetings with Farona’s former circle of friends. Yan-kanat he’d known all his life confessed their own guilt and anger and pain at Farona’s lies, and also about their many passings of being used and manipulated by her. That was when he’d come to understand how deep her poison had sunk into the skilev of Draku Rin.
Sarah was there for him and her new circle of friends, always ready to offer wisdom and advice for the reeling yan-kanat, despite the trauma that she herself had endured at Farona’s hands. It still bothered him that Sarah had grown up in a world where such betrayals and venomous people were commonplace, but only because he had not been there to protect her from those who had hurt her in her past.
He wouldn’t allow those negative thoughts to encroach upon them on this cycle. They would finally be joined, after undergoing a trial that proved that darkness and evil would never separate them. Their love had been tested, and an even stronger bond had been forged in the flames of the Inferno. The passing of his seal to Sarah was a mere formality at this point.
A necessary one so that he could finally mate with his drahi.
They entered the chapel at the same time, coming from opposite sides of the room to step up to the dais. His drahi looked so beautiful that the sight of her stole his breath. She wore a sitak of orange silk in a sleek and simple design that brought to mind the flames of the Inferno. Her dark hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back in thick, shiny waves that he yearned to run his claws through. One side of her hair was pulled up and away from her face, a twist of her locks secured to the side of her head by the jeweled golden comb he’d given her.
Her eyes seemed to gleam in the candlelight as they came together in front of the mating mattress that had been made for them that now softened the dais beneath Seta Zul’s statue. It would be taken to their home along with them for their seclusion, the herbs that filled it along with the stuffing adding a pleasant scent and hopefully increasing fertility.
They each held their offerings for the goddess, and after Jotahan poured his oil into the offering bowl, Sarah settled her flowers atop the liquid. As they knelt before the goddess and said their vows to Seta Zul and each other, the flowers sank into the oil until the two offerings were blended into a single harmoniously fragrant perfume.
The sharing of the mating pellet followed, and Jotahan lifted it from the plate beside the offering bowl and held it out for Sarah to take a bite. She pulled a face that made him want to huff with amusement, but dutifully chewed and swallowed. Then she took the pellet from his hand and held it up to his mouth. After he took his bite, he understood her disgust. The grainy, hard-packed pellet had a strong and somewhat unpleasant herbal flavor, but the ceremonial food was intended to increase their desire and enhance fertility during their seclusion.
That ritual finished, the time arrived as he rose to his feet again and turned to take his drahi’s hand, drawing her up with him. He felt the fine trembling of her fingers, the dampness of her skin, despite it being cooler than normal for her. She was nervous, perhaps even frightened of what was coming. She’d been offered a potion to dull the pain, but she’d declined, saying she wanted to experience the full extent of the following pleasure.
He was worried that her pain would be greater than that of a female yan-kanat since she had no scales to guard her delicate flesh, but she’d insisted on no potion, determined to go through this last trial with him without aid.
He gently squeezed her hand in reassurance, and she shot him a grateful smile.
By the Ajda, he loved this female like crazy. He would do anything for her. If he could take all the pain of their sealing upon himself, he would.
They stepped onto the mattress, the soft scent of fertility herbs wafting from the fine woven fabric casing. Standing in the center of the mattress, they faced each other. He looked down at his beautiful mate, seeing the pale moon of her face looking back up at him, her head tilted back, the candlelight gleaming on the harzek he’d given her, sparkling in the faceted gemstones that nowhere near outshone her dark eyes.
The watching priests and acolytes were silent save for Zan Cyall, whose mellow voice guided them through the steps of the ceremony. He told them to remove each other’s garments, and Jotahan felt his first moment of hesitation. Not because he didn’t want to claim this female in front of the goddess and every servant of hers who watched, but because they were all males, and he didn’t want to reveal the beauty of his mate’s body to them.
But Sarah was already nervously tugging at the tie that bound his robe closed at his waist, her hands shaking. He dared not delay the ceremony because of his own possessiveness. No servant of Seta Zul would dare to covet another male’s drahi.
With a few brief tugs on the straps of her sitak, it slipped from her shoulders, just as his robe fell from his. Their garments drifted to the mattress to pool around their feet, but he barely noticed the sensation of the silken fabric against his scales. His gaze roved over Sarah’s body, taking in the alienness of her form, marveling at his own ignorance when he’d first met her and had not realized then how beautiful she was. Like Theia herself, Sarah stood before him in all her glory, her soft, warm skin finely dusted with very pale hairs. The coarser, curly hairs on her pelvis had all been removed for the ceremony, to decrease the possibility of them lighting on fire and causing even more pain for either of them.