"Violet, before we go out there tomorrow I need you to know something."
She looked up at him, her eyes soft and trusting, and oh gods he did not deserve her. She knew he was an inntinsic and she hadn't run, she could still look at him like that.
"There are different kinds of scars you can take. The ones on my back are the scars of a... of a king taking responsibility for the people he sends to their possible death. But a mark on your heart is taking responsibility for the life of someone you love." He didn't deserve to call himself a king; he didn't deserve the loyalty the marked ones had to him. But he had it regardless, and so he did his best to live up to it.
Violet's love felt much the same to him. It was something to live up to.
"Like the story of Tybalt and Brumaire?"
Xaden smiled at her. "How much Tyrrish folklore have you read?"
"Some, when I was younger. I haven't had time to read much lately, but I liked digging around the library at Riorson House when I couldn't look at Old Lucerish anymore without my eyes crossing."
"When I took a mark for you, Violence, it was a promise to you. One I didn't feel like I could put into words yet. And on one hand I know we can always die tomorrow, but tonight feels…"
"It's different," she agreed. She reached for her leathers and slid one of the runed daggers into her hand, bringing it up to look at it. "My answer is yes, Xaden. Show me what I need to do."
"It's the rune for support," he explained, and if they survived tomorrow she'd want to learn how all of it worked and he couldn't wait to tell her. "Push it through the dagger like you're imbuing it, but the dagger will carry it forward." He remembered from doing it himself how easily it cut, how it burned as it scabbed almost immediately.
When she did it, he could feel it pulling at him, at his matching scar.
"It's like a mending," she said, wonder in her voice, and he kissed her just above the cut.
"It is a mending. We were alone, and now… Now we're not." A shadow plucked up one of the forgotten strips of blue that she had been using to learn rune weaving months ago and wrapped it around their hands. Ideally a priest of Amari would be weaving the rune but Xaden make the best of it, tugging the knots with shadowed hands so he didn't have to let go.
He said the words in Tyrrish first, and then the Navarran that's used in official ceremonies. "My heartsblood in your veins, and yours in mine, til Malek drives apart what we align. Our fates we weave, from strand to knot to rune, Amari witness how our lives attune."
She repeated the Tyrrish, because of course she did, this brilliant fucking woman who had somehow decided he was worthy of her. He kissed her again, deeply, wondering if it was his imagination that he could feel the energy singing between them with just that touch.
He wanted to take her and run back to Aretia, to the Isles, to- to anywhere. To safety. But she was too determined to let him, so instead of trying to convince her, he just basked in the warmth of her arms. Too soon, it would be tomorrow.