-- Belshazzar --

I could feel the difference before I ever even opened my eyes.

I’ve always been very in control of my emotions, much more so than Athalia. She lets her emotions rule her, to the point where it’s ridiculous. That’s why she hates me so much. It’s not because of what I did to her two years ago. It’s because I’m in control of myself and she isn’t, and she hates it.

I could feel my emotions, just like always, but now I could feel hers, too. Even in sleep she’s a whirlwind of emotions, an ever-changing maelstrom. I couldn’t say I was surprised.

I was surprised to realize that she was touching me, though. I was on my back, and she was on her stomach next to me. She had snuggled up to my left side, resting her head on my shoulder while her arm was stretch across my chest and one leg settled in between mine.

Athalia hates me. I’ve already established that, but it bears repeating. She hates me with every fiber of her being, and I wouldn’t have been shocked to wake up with her standing over me with a knife, about to carve my balls off and feed them to me.

I was shocked to realize that not only was she touching me, she was cuddling with me. The realization was akin to realizing that you were cuddling with one of the sharks that lived in Blue Moon Bay.

I got out of bed and took off the sweaty, dirty underclothes I’d been wearing since the Bonding. They must have taken our robes off before they put us into bed, because I noticed that Athalia was only wearing a corset and underpants.

I walked back over to the bed and leaned over Athalia. “Get up. I’m hungry and I want to eat.”

Athalia shot straight up, scrambling to get off the bed as quickly as possible. “Am I late?” she asked, her voice muffled as she fought with the blankets tangled around her.

“Late for what?” I asked. Her behavior confused me. She wasn’t saying anything rude, and she didn’t seem annoyed that I’d woken her up.

“Late for-“ she stopped mid-sentence, and her eyes widened as she slowly looked up at me. Almost immediately her eyes squeezed shut again, and she shrieked in horror. “Put some clothes on!”

“You act like you’ve never seen a naked man before,” I said, smirking because I knew she probably hadn’t.

I haven’t, I heard her think, but she covered up her wince quickly and glared at me. “I fail to see how that’s any of your business.”

“I thought not… hard to see who’d want to sleep with a cow like you.” I turned away from Athalia and looked around the room.

It was pretty small, with just enough room for the large double bed they’d been sleeping on and the low table at the foot of the bed. There were two piles of clothes on the table, with a note lying on top of each pile. Athalia said one, Belshazzar the other.

I picked up the note on top of my clothes and crumpled it up, tossing it aside. I picked up my underpants and undershirt and put them on, smiling slightly at the feel of the soft cotton. It wasn’t the silk I’d worn before I joined the Academy, but it was a lot better than the rough wool cloak that was all we were allowed to wear as students of the Academy.

I tried to ignore Athalia, but I could feel her emotions like they were mine. There was a smidgen of hurt in there, but I could ignore that. I couldn’t ignore her fury.

“If you’re going to attack me, at least wait until I’m fully dressed,” I said without looking at her.

The anger didn’t bother me, but that tiny little bit of hurt she felt did and that annoyed me. She was my Bonded, sure, but did that mean I was going to turn into a pathetic little sap, feeling guilty every time I hurt her feelings? It wasn’t my fault she was so sensitive.

“Believe me, I have absolutely no desire to touch or see you in only your underclothes,” Athalia sneered.

“That’s not the tune you used to be singing,” I murmured, still not looking at her as I pulled my pants on.

I could feel her anger, feel her lose what control she’d had on her temper as she tried to snap kick me in the face. She was still on the bed, and bent over as I was while I tried to pull my pants on, I was at the perfect height.

I’d moved before I even knew it, falling to my knees and grabbing her ankle with both hands. We both froze, shocked.

“No,” Athalia said, shaking her head. “No. Oh, Star Warrior, no.” She didn’t try to pull her ankle out of my grip, just gazed at it tearfully. She flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling uselessly. “Do you have a knife?” she asked.

I looked down at the table. There was a single long dagger sitting in between the two piles of clothes. There was no indication that it belonged to one of us or the other, and I could only assume it was meant to go to whomever turned out to be the Warrior.

I grabbed it and tossed it to Athalia, who caught it out of the air. I watched as she brought it to her arm and sliced down deeply about halfway down the top of her forearm. I could feel her pain, but she didn’t cry out. Instead she cupped her hand over the wound and closed her eyes.

I could feel the immediate relief from the pain, but the less the wound hurt the more depressed Athalia became. I sat down and pulled up my pants as far as I could, since getting up from my position on the floor with my pants around my knees clearly wasn’t an option. I stood and pulled them up the rest of the way, pulling on my shirt and tucking it in before buttoning my pants.

I put the vest on, running my hand over the crest on the left breast. It fit perfectly, with the crest directly over my heart. The last thing to go on was a weapons belt around my hips, and then I was done.

“Are you going to get dressed?” I asked Athalia, ignoring her inner anguish.

“Go away,” she said quietly, sniffling miserably.

“You know we’re supposed to stay close to each other for the first week,” I said irritably. “Would you please get dressed so I can eat? I’m starving.”

“Do you think I care if you’re hungry or not?!” Athalia screamed, sitting up and throwing the knife in my general direction. “I was supposed to be the Warrior, not the Healer! Me! I never would have Bonded with you if I’d known this was going to happen! I hate you, I hate being a Healer, and I hate being Bonded. Go without me, or starve to death for all I care. I despise you.”

I turned and pulled the knife out of the wall where it had sunk in- it was a good throw, I couldn’t help but notice. Not as good as me, but she wasn’t bad. I turned back around and tucked the knife into my belt before walking back to the side of the bed. Athalia had buried back under the sheets, so I ripped them back. She curled in a tighter ball, hiding her face in the pillow she was hugging to her chest.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for nine years,” I bit out. “I am not going to let you ruin it for me just because you didn’t get exactly what you wanted. Get out of bed and get dressed. You stink,” I added mercilessly, hoping to anger her into getting up.

“I know what you’re doing,” Athalia said hollowly. “And I don’t care. I don’t have to leave this room, and I’m not going to.”

“Wrong,” I said flatly, grabbing her arm. I hauled her out of bed, clutching her other wrist when she tried to punch me. I started to untie the laces of her bodice, causing her to kick and scream.

“Get off of me!” she yelled, thrashing in my grip. “I refuse to let you manhandle me, you bastard!”

“Either you take them off or I take them off for you,” I said calmly. It was hard to keep my voice even when I could feel her emotions- sadness at not being the Warrior she’d wanted to be, anger at me for humiliating her and herself for not being able to fight me off, fright and embarrassment at the thought of me seeing her naked.

“I’m not going to rape you, you know,” I added irritably. “There’s no need to be so afraid.”

“I am not afraid!” Athalia snapped, still struggling.

“I can feel your fear, Athalia,” I told her calmly. “Now stop struggling.”

“Don’t say my name,” she snarled, thrashing even harder. “Don’t you dare say my name.”

“Or what?” I asked, amused. “You’re going to Heal me?”

Athalia stopped moving suddenly, and I nearly dropped her on the floor when her knees gave out. “This is my punishment, isn’t it?” she asked hollowly. “For being a bad friend. This is my punishment… being Bonded to you. Being a Healer. I’m getting what I deserve.”

I was shocked. I’d never seen Athalia so… meek. She took her corset and underpants off, ignoring my shocked staring. I noticed that there was a mark on her left thigh, several shades darker than the rest of her skin, which was all the same pale tan. I’d forgotten that Bordhain don’t change colors under the sun like the rest of the world.

They were mostly human, but there were subtle differences, such as their inability to tan and the pointed tips of their slightly longer ears. And the teeth… both the top and bottom canines, while not as exaggerated as on a cat or dog, were noticeably longer than those of any Avalonian native.

There were other differences, of course- Avalonians have gold skin, black hair, and brown, gold, or red eyes. The Bordhain have pale tan and blond hair, and their eyes were blue, green, and purple.

Athalia has hair somewhere in between the two colors, a bit too gold to be tan but not quite gold enough to be blond. Her eyes are a mix of colors too- violet, I believe was the world I recall some girl using to describe a dress the same color. Too blue to be purple, too purple to be blue.

The coloring of Bordhain wasn’t the biggest difference, though. Bordhain men and woman have fewer obvious differences between the sexes. The men are about a thumbs width shorter on average than Avalonian men, while the women are about a hands width taller than Avalonian women. Avalonian men are about a hands width and a half taller than Avalonian women on average, making most Bordhain women two thumbs width shorter than the average Avalonian man.

Athalia is taller than the average Bordhain woman, standing at the same height as most men and towering over most women. Her body isn’t too shapely by Avalonian standards- our women are short and curvy- but by Bordhain standards, she had a very full figure.

I’d always known, ever since what happened between us two years ago, that Athalia is very sensitive about her body. Bordhain prefer to keep to themselves, staying away from outsiders, so in the capitol city of Avalon Athalia is very much alone in her looks. I never realized quite how insecure she was, though, until I had access to her every thought and emotion.

She didn’t say anything, but I heard her anyway.

Bastard. He doesn’t even have the decency to look away. I suppose it’s a shock for him to see someone who looks like I do naked… he’s used to gorgeous, refined women. Like Nelisse.

I was surprised at the bitterness I felt when she thought her friend’s name. I knew they were close. I’d thought they were close enough that what had happened two years ago hadn’t affected them at all. I was nearly certain it hadn’t bothered Nelisse at all, but apparently Athalia wasn’t able to shrug things off as easily.

Well, it wasn’t like I hadn’t known that before…

“Is that a birth mark?” I asked, just as Athalia was pulling up her pants to cover it.

“No, it’s a tattoo,” Athalia snapped. Of course it’s a birth mark, imbecile.

You realize I can hear every word you’re thinking, don’t you? I thought, projecting it towards her.

“As if I care,” Athalia said, but I could feel her embarrassment. I knew I should have refused the Bond. I knew it. I can’t believe I thought being Bonded to him would make him more tolerable… it only makes him worse. Because he didn’t have enough to use against me as it was.

“I’m not any more thrilled about being Bonded to you than you are about being Bonded to me, you know,” I told her coolly. “In fact, I think of the two of us you got the better deal.”

Athalia said nothing, just concentrated on getting dressed. She tucked her shirt into her pants and put on her vest and belt. I looked her over critically. Her pants only went up to the top of her hip bones, tight around her ass but loose all the way down the legs except where they tied tightly around her ankles. Her shirt was similarly tight, except for the sleeves which belled out until right where her forearm turned into her elbow; from there on, they were as form fitting as the ankles of her pants. Her vest was no looser than the shirt, hugging her body tightly, and the belt was slung low on her hips.

“Who picked out these clothes?” I wondered aloud. “And why on earth did they choose a shirt and vest that fit so tight? On second thought, those were probably the biggest they had,” I amended quickly. “They’re not used to women who are quite so large, I suppose.”

Athalia gave me a blank look as she walked past me out the door. “Are you coming to the dining hall or not? I thought you were hungry.” Her voice was flat, and her thoughts were closed off. She’d learned how to stop me from hearing her quickly, but she couldn’t shield her thoughts completely, not yet. And she couldn’t stop me from feeling her emotions.

I was surprised when I poked at them and realized that she was feeling as empty as she sounded. It wasn’t that she was controlling her emotions. It was that she just wasn’t feeling anything. I couldn’t see into her deeply enough to know what was going on inside her head. We hadn’t had time to develop that deep of a Bond.

I followed Athalia to the dining hall, too deep in my thoughts to do more than follow along obediently. The thought of Athalia’s emotions just going away like that frightened me, for some reason. She had never been able to shut her emotions down, never. She was too passionate to ever be able to control her emotions to that extent. Not even I could control my emotions that well, and I was the emperor of calm and collected.

Athalia sat down across from Nelisse, and I was so out of it I didn’t even realize she was there until I sat down next to Athalia and was confronted with the face of Matteo, her Bonded.

“Hello,” I said briefly, before grabbing as many different food dishes as I could and loading them on my plate. I wasn’t sure why I was so starved, but I ate nearly three times as much as I normally would have- and that was quite a lot already.

I noticed that Athalia barely picked at her food, as did Matteo- of the four of us, only Nelisse and I were actually eating. We ate more than enough to make up for our Bonded, though, and that kept our mouths too busy for speech.

Once I felt I couldn’t eat another bite I stood, and Athalia and Nelisse followed my example quickly. Matteo was slightly slower to move, but I was the only one who’d noticed. Athalia and Nelisse had started chatting once Nelisse was done eating, since they were still waiting on me, and once they got into it it was as if they’d shut us out completely.

I walked a few steps, as indifferent to Athalia as she was to me until I realized she wasn’t right behind me. I turned around and opened my mouth to speak, but she beat me to it.

“You’re the Warrior?” Her voice was quiet and shocked, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at Nelisse.

Nelisse’s hand went to the knife at her belt and she looked at Athalia guilty, her eyes flicking down to Athalia’s belt and then back up to her face. She didn’t say anything, just nodded mutely.

Athalia stared at her friend, and all of a sudden the emotions she’d somehow locked away came flooding back. I was overwhelmed with the shock and hurt she felt. As upset as she’d been when she realized I was the Warrior, it was nothing compared to this.

Why is it that she always gets what I want, and I never do?

It took me a moment to realize that it had been Athalia’s thoughts. Apparently she was too hurt to be bothered to keep me out of her head. I looked at her and was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

“You’ll do well at it,” Athalia whispered before turning her back on her friend and all but running from the hall.

I stood there, stunned and staring at Nelisse. She looked miserable, and Matteo pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and comforting her. He looked up at me as if he could feel my eyes and frowned, as if asking why I was staring at them and not comforting Athalia.

I shook my head. She was his now, and hopefully he’d do a good job of looking out for her. She deserved it. I liked Nelisse. That was the problem, though. I’d liked her a little too much, two years ago, and Athalia had never forgiven me for my deception.

How could she have truly believed that it was her I was pursuing, though? She was so big and… brown, with her cold violet eyes and her freaky pointed teeth. I liked short, curvy women with gold skin and dark hair, their eyes a rich chocolate or bright gold. I liked graceful, delicate women, not big clumsy brutes.

I felt tired all of a sudden, and I stumbled back to the room we’d been given slowly, nearly dropping from exhaustion. Athalia wasn’t in the room, but I was too tired to care. I flopped down on the bed and buried my face in my pillow, falling asleep almost immediately.

-- Athalia --

Belshazzar didn’t seem to realize that our connection went both ways, because he didn’t bother shielding his thoughts as he walked away from the dining hall. I had stopped halfway back, too upset to remember the way to our temporary room, and waited for him.

I could hear his thoughts, his good wishes for Nelisse and his disdain for me. They weren’t words, specifically- you don’t always think in words in your mind. Sometimes you do, of course, but mostly you think in pictures, ideas, rather than actual words. His thoughts were clear, though, no matter the medium.

He thought I was pathetic, a big ugly clumsy brute with no hope of ever roping a man into marrying her. Ridiculous for ever daring to hope someone like him could have honestly meant to court me, even if it was only for a short dalliance and not anything serious. Pitiable, for being so desperate for affection that I’d allowed him to fool me into thinking he’d cared.

I could feel it when he fell asleep. His consciousness dimmed, shutting off almost immediately; I wasn’t sure whether to be thankful that I no longer had to hear his vitriol or depressed at being alone in my head.

Once I couldn’t hear him anymore, it was hard to hate him. He was only thinking what I’d thought a thousand times. I knew I was big and ugly, knew that my Bordhain attributes were repulsive to men.

I could have gone back to the Bordhain tribe my family belonged to, true, but I’d lived in Taimat for the latter half of my life. In my heart, I was Avalonian. I couldn’t go from this life to a life of herding cattle and eating only dried jerky and stews. I loved living here. It was like paradise. Not a perfect paradise, no, but it was better than Bordhain in every way imaginable, though no true Bordhain would have agreed with me.

But it’s more than clear that I’m no true Bordhain.

I turned and walked away, tired but unable to bring myself to lie down next to Belshazzar and sleep. It wasn’t his fault I was the way I was, but that didn’t mean I had to like him either. There was no need for him to think of me so cruelly. Nelisse managed to love me, and while I didn’t want Belshazzar to love me- not anymore, anyway- I didn’t like the way he thought about me.

I wandered out of the Academy gates, nodding distantly at the guards who greeted me excitedly and asked about my Bonding. I’d gotten to know them all very well on my many trips in and out of these gates, whether I was supposed to be leaving the Academy or not.

I knew they were happy for me to have finally gotten what I’d wanted for so long- the guards were all bonded, just like everyone who worked at the Academy, and they knew how it felt. How it was supposed to feel, anyway. I couldn’t share their joy, not when all the Bond meant for me was being stuck with Belshazzar, reliving the worst moments of my life over and over again until the day I died.

I drifted through the markets, barely seeing the world around me, and down the streets on a route I didn’t need to be awake to walk. I’d gone to Lally’s Tavern so many times I could walk there deaf and blind, fighting my way through an army without fear of getting lost.

Even if I was a Healer now.

Lally greeted me at the door with a huge grin and a tight hug, making my bad mood disappear. “Athalia, darling! I’d heard the bells chiming for the Bonding ceremony four days ago. I’m so proud o’ you, love. So, who is he? Is he handsome? Tell me he’s taller’n you, love, I know you hate it when you loom over men.”

“Do you remember Belshazzar?” I asked, losing my smile as soon as my Bonded was mentioned.

“Of course! How could I possibly forget him? I’ve never met anyone else capable o’ making you cry the way he could. He was a handsome boy, too, tis such a shame... Why d’you mention him?”

“He’s my Bonded,” I said flatly, threading between the men in the tavern and following Lally behind the counter. I donned an apron, ignoring Lally’s gaping.

“He was a student at the Academy? I thought he was a noble’s brat!”

“Maybe he was,” I said with a shrug. “But he’s a Bonded now, and you know what that means.”

Lally nodded understandingly.

Once you join the Academy, you are no longer legally a member of whatever family you’d been born to. It was a rule made by the second Emperor to prevent Bonded from inheriting noble titles or family wealth. You paid back what you owed the Emperor by working from him, not by using the family coffers. It had more purposes than just that, though.

If you’re not legally a member of a noble family, you can’t inherit that family’s title. The Bonded served Avalon, using their powers for the good of everyone. If they didn’t, they were either kicked out of Avalon or, in rare cases, executed. The Emperor didn’t want Bonded nobles using their power to one-up rivals, and Bonded are notoriously against the arranged marriages that were often necessary to end family feuds.

All in all the rule served many purposes, most of them sensible and good. Only the meanest of people abandoned their children after they joined the Academy; just because they were no longer related according to the law didn’t mean they weren’t still loved. If their parents did refuse to acknowledge them after joining the Academy, the other students became their family.

I sometimes wondered if my family would have kept in contact with me, were they Avalonian and not Bordhain. Bordhain are very private, keeping to themselves. They trade with other clans for things they need, and marriages are arranged between children whose parents believe they will suit each other, but they don’t write letters or bother with people outside the tribe. The only contact they have with outsiders is when they happen upon them.

Once I’d left for the Academy that was the end of my contact with my parents. I’d missed them at first, but after a while I’d gotten over it. After nine years, I rarely thought about them at all.

“Have you made amends?” Lally asked carefully, knowing how touchy I was on the subject still.

“There are no amends to make,” I told her, handing a man his ale and taking his coin. I tucked it in the drawer under the counter and went to fetch another ale, accepting another coin.

“But you’re Bonded now,” Lally said, as if that made it all better. “You’re two halves o’ the same person. You must’ve made amends.”

“You don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “And for that matter neither do I. I’ve always been told Bonded love each other deeply, more than anyone or anything else. By all rights, I should want to forgive him for what he did, but I can’t. I think I hate him more now than I did before we Bonded.”

“But why?” Lally truly did not understand, and I had to shake my head at her naiveté. For a woman nearly ten years my senior and who had seen far more of the dark in the world than I, she truly was clueless.

“I’m reminded of my shortcomings enough without him, Lally,” I said softly, handing out ale to another thirsty patron. “I don’t need to feel and hear his opinion of me every moment of every day.”

“What d’you mean by that?” Lally demanded, fists on her hips as she turned to me with an angry expression. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, and if he’s going ‘round thinking there is, bring him here so’s I can fix his thinking for him!”

“I do love you, Lally,” I told her laughingly. “But nothing will ever change Belshazzar’s opinion about me. It’s not even worth trying. I’ll learn to live with it, eventually.”

“I don’t suppose you’re at least the Warrior?” Lally asked hopelessly, knowing there was no chance. Belshazzar was a born fighter, despite his almost girly good looks. I had no chance, not when men were naturally so much more aggressive than women.

“No.” I said it flatly, the horrible burn of envy coming back as I was reminded of Nelisse. “Nel did, though.”

“Oh, love,” Lally said softly, lying a hand on my arm. She’d known what it meant to me. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be done about it now,” I said briskly, but I wasn’t fooling either of us, and the man leaning on the country drunkenly didn’t look convinced either. “I’ll just have to be the best Healer I can, I suppose.”

I handed off another ale, unable to believe what I was saying. I’d had little to no talent at Healing before the Bonding, and although it increased your abilities immensely, I knew there was as much chance of me being a worthwhile Healer as there was of me waking up and finding this had all been a dream.

“When d’you get your first assignments?” Lally asked, trying to change the subject from my abysmal luck.

“You said it’s been four days since the Bonding ceremony?” I waited for Lally’s nod to continue. “In three days, then. I don’t know when our assignment will actually start, but if I’m lucky it’ll be soon. I don’t want to have any more time on my hands than I already do. I’m supposed to spend as much time with him as I can, but…”

I bit my tongue and looked away. Spending too much time with him had once been an impossible concept. Now five seconds was enough to make me want to jump in Blue Moon Bay.

“It’ll all work out,” Lally said confidently, patting my shoulder. “Now git going. You look dead tired, and I’ll not have the life o’ a Bonded on my hands.”

“Where am I supposed to go?” I asked, knowing I should leave while I could still walk.

“Back to the Academy, I should think,” Lally said, smiling in fond exasperation. “You’re supposed t’be spending time with him, aren’t you?”

“I suppose,” I said glumly. “And spending time with him while he’s asleep is better than while he’s awake… goodbye, Lally.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Lally all but shoved me out the door, and I stumbled back to the Academy.

I fell into bed beside Belshazzar, trying and failing not to notice how good he looked asleep. His face was peaceful, lacking the disgusted sneer I’d grown used to. It reminded me of the way he’d been two years ago, before everything had gone wrong. Before I’d found out the real reason he spent so much time being nice to me.

I fell asleep with tears rolling slowly down my cheeks, sobs muffled by my pillow. Sometimes it was hard not to hate Nelisse, who managed to steal everything I’d ever wanted away from me without even realizing it.