Page 4 of The Curse of Ophelia
Though illegal, it was the Bind that Augustus and I received that night.
I settled into the rickety wooden chair in the parlor, my forearm clasped firmly in the artist’s grasp, a light angled at my skin. I locked eyes with Augustus, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth as I smiled in anticipation. He grasped my free hand between his.
“Squeeze if it hurts,” he whispered.
Marxian, the lone remaining tattoo artist in Palerman, dipped the needle into the ink. A low buzzing bounced off the boarded-up windows, the parlor not officially reopened since the end of the war.
I smiled at Augustus, leaning toward him for a kiss, but Marxian pressed my arm to the table. “No moving, Ophelia.” His voice was stern, but there was a hint of a smile behind his black beard.
He was young by warrior standards—in his forties. His family had inked the promises of our clan for generations in both Damenal and Palerman. After the war, he settled back in our city, hoping to reopen the parlor in honor of his brother, who fell during battle. I had a feeling that he was willing to twist the rules for our tattoos due to that loss. We had all suffered so vastly; any opportunity for a little bit of shared joy was cherished.
“Right. I’m sorry.” I grinned at the artist, and he shook his head.
“Ready?” Marxian asked.
“More than ever.”
My heart jumped when he pressed the tip of the needle to the skin below the inner elbow of my left arm. Reflexively, I squeezed Augustus’s hand, relaxing when he smiled at me in encouragement. It didn’t hurt exactly—or, at least, I did not mind the slight pinching feeling as the fine needle bit into my flesh.
The sensation was odd as it printed a prickling promise into my skin. The ink merely lay on the surface, but this substance was more than that. It contained the essence of the Mystique Mountains, and it was that very magic that I felt entering my bloodstream, weaving itself through my bones and being.
I bit my lips, doing my best to remain still as that power poured into me and the pain deepened. The ink worked its way through me like pins driving into my bones. They stabbed into the marrow, and I nearly cried out, squeezing Augustus’s hand. His gentle words were drowned out by the magic embedding itself in my life. But once the pins found their roots, they stilled, and a soothing warmth spread through my body. It wiped away any hint of discomfort, a radiance taking its place like an invisible string, now as much a part of me as my blood and bones.
It was the most intimate experience of my life, but it felt incomplete, waiting for its other half to join it.
It only took a few minutes to complete, the design simple but significant.
“This will heal it within hours,” Marxian explained. He wiped a special ointment across my arm. “It will be a little sensitive.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
I looked at the new artwork on my body and smiled. Something fluttered through me, twisting, searching for the other string to twine itself around.
It was Augustus’s turn.
He unbuttoned his linen shirt and tossed it across the back of the chair. Marxian instructed him to lie on a low wooden table and fetched a fresh needle. The lights reflected off the tan skin of Augustus’s pectorals where the twin Bind would be inked, locking us together from this day forward.
I pulled my chair over to the table, settling down and grasping Augustus’s hand. His head rolled toward me, and there was something in his eyes I didn’t recognize. A fleeting impression of wistfulness that had me wrinkling my brow in uncertainty. Without saying a word, he reached up and ran a thumb across my forehead to smooth away the worries.
“Let’s do this,” he said, turning back to Marxian.
Buzzing filled the room once again, and I watched our futures be tied together through ancient magic and thin lines of black ink. With each stroke of the needle against his skin, warmth spread through me. The dancing string within my own blood was mated with its match, the two spiraling together, a pair promised for eternity.
*
We crept through the city afterward, our partnership forever sealed between us. Shops and homes were closed up, mystlights in windows extinguished as Palermanians settled in for the night. We wandered down the cobblestone path between ivy-coated apartment buildings.
Overhead, bright orbs of light sprinkled a deep sheet of black streaked with violet. The stillness of the air wrapped itself around us in our state of bliss, and though it was much later than my father requested his seventeen-year-old daughter return home, I did not care.
Not that night.
I extended my arm between us to appreciate the beauty of the artwork in the moonlight. It was a small symbol, something understated to the outside world but a constant in our lives. A simple recreation of a star, with four large points and smaller ones blinking out between them, complete with tiny detailing that made the star appear to twinkle like those above us.
As I slowly rotated my arm, the ink absorbed the starlight from above and reflected it back to me, the tattoo shimmering silver. A celestial acknowledgment of the significance of this decision. A promise between Augustus and me to guide each other home, no matter the bleakness of the night.
“It’s perfect,” I whispered.
Augustus grazed his thumb over the tender symbol, still red around the edges. My gaze traveled up his chest to where he bore the twin, larger than mine and beneath his left collarbone, hovering slightly over his heart.