Reluctantly, Miriam assisted Jonatham in removing the iron bar from its brackets on either side of the bedroom door. The solemn tone of the king's voice when he mentioned a discussion still sat poorly in her gut, but she knew whatever dulled his good humor wouldn't go away in the next several hours. With the soulmate frenzy satisfied, there was no point in waiting any longer; she would never be more fortified to withstand the hurricane of negative energy she sensed awaited them.

As the door swung inward, Jonatham pulled her snug against his side before stepping forward, his momentum becoming her own. She relaxed into the sensation of surrendering to his guidance, sinking her anxiety into the security of her deep trust in his intentions. As they exited the room, the karlet fluttered to her shoulder from the lintel overhead. Its slight weight further settled her nerves, and by the time they'd traversed the length of the hallway, she found a ghost of a smile haunting her lips.

She clung to that feeling as they entered the common room and faced Jim and the king, both wearing unreadable expressions as they rose from their seats. They'd created an intimate arrangement with two overstuffed armchairs facing a leather loveseat, all grouped so closely together that when occupied, the collective knees of the seated would be closer together than the covers of a Robert Jordan novel. The waiting men rested in the armchairs, so Jonatham drew her down to sit in the loveseat, keeping his arm wrapped lightly around her waist.

"Before we get to the heavy topics, I must first congratulate you, son," the elder royal said, shattering the uneasy tension with his forced joviality. "A successful mating is an occasion for celebration at any time, and under current circumstances, it is particularly joyous. I wish you both a long and prolific bond from this day forth. In fact, it will be my great honor to declare this an annual feast day to be observed by the entire kingdom for generations to come!"

Miriam blushed and ducked her head before responding, "Thank you for your kind words, Your Majesty, but –"

Her words were muffled into incomprehensible mumbling by the king's sudden hearty embrace. So tightly did the man squeeze her, it was momentarily impossible to inhale. Jonatham's grunt into her hair told her he struggled in the same way, despite his greater size and strength. She panted a few times when the king released them. Jonatham's heaving breaths sent her flyaway hairs dancing.

He recovered his voice first. "Father, you honor us deeply with your proclamation. However, I recommend we table any discussion of a kingdom-wide festival for when the state of the land is more settled. Jim mentioned you have news?"

Without hesitation, King Requiro dropped the subject of making their mating day a mandatory party, and Miriam sighed with relief and relaxed into Jonatham's shoulder. Surely that was the worst possible news.

It wasn't.

After a brief summary of what happened while they were in the grip of the mating frenzy — nothing — and Jim's assessment of the damage to the fortress — significant, but not unrepairable — the king arrived at his next piece of bad news.

"I sent out messengers to track down those behind the spell that got us all in this mess, once their guilt was confirmed by a palace spell reader. They are the same individuals who hired the dragon assassins, according to the creatures' sworn confession. They all have fled via other portals like the one we used to travel between this place and Earth, leaving empty closets and confused family members in their wake. They left few personal items behind, save what was too bulky to carry in arms. All hid identical scrolls in their abandoned living quarters that revealed their hiding places to the messengers when they entered."

Jonatham's father reached into the breast of his waistcoat and withdrew a coil of thick paper about four inches in width. Jonatham took the scroll by one edge, and Miriam skimmed her fingers over its several inches of length, grasping the end to keep the parchment unfurled horizontally. The symbols looked like a child's first attempt at copying sentences, but from her mate's intense study of the scrawl, he understood the language fluently.

When several moments passed without a verbal explanation, Miriam decided to test their new bond. She closed her eyes and reached for Jonatham with her mind, keeping her own view of the scroll in mind as she did. All at once, she could see the scroll again in real time, the view flicking back and forth as her prince absorbed its meaning. Now, the characters on the page formed recognizable patterns, and she understood the words as though they were her native tongue. She perused the five lines of text with the same speed reading skills that helped her complete her graduate studies so quickly.

It read:

"Power begets power and isolates itself from the powerless, turning hearts to shadow.  When power fails to protect its charges, the shadows deepen and draw strength from fear. Even when power presses the darkness away, still will it linger, seeking power of its own. Far from home yet close as skin, darkness strikes again and again till power wastes to nothing.  When the absent child becomes powerful, darkness shall consume him and return to rule."

With a shudder of dread, Miriam released her hold on Jonatham's mind and opened her own eyes to the thunderstruck gaze of the king. Beneath her cheek, her mate's chest heaved, and the arm around her body trembled. Sweat coated her own skin, chilling her despite the warmth in the room.

"What just happened?" gasped Requiro. Miriam squirmed, wondering if she'd just done something illegal. That's what I get for rushing into a relationship with someone I barely know and only getting the Cliff Notes primer on his culture before making a lifelong commitment. I wonder if they jail or execute members of the royal family in this place? Maybe they have more creative punishments, like–

Mir, stop. You've done nothing wrong. Just unexpected. Tell my father exactly what you did. He will explain.

Even in his thoughts, Jonatham sounded out of breath, strained in a way she had never heard before, not even under the stress of working the reversal spell. The swirl of feedback from his body matched her own sensations when he'd pulled on her essence to complete the spell, just before she had lost consciousness. Ice clenched around her heart. Had she damaged him? Permanently, perhaps?

Needing answers, Miriam forced herself to meet the king's eyes and reply, "I don't know what happened. I wanted to read the note, but I don't understand your language yet. I thought if I could read it through Jonatham's eyes, I wouldn't have to wait for one of you to translate it for me. It worked, very well. When I finished reading, I retreated back to my own mind." She hesitated, then asked, "Did I do something wrong? It came to me so easily, I didn't stop to think..."

Riquero leaned close and cupped her shoulder, gaze warm and comforting. "What you did was ... extraordinary."

Miriam felt her jaw sag open; she tightened slack muscles to force it closed again.

Riquero continued, "I kept my doubts about your bond with my son to myself when we met. Certainly, it is a true bond, or the first binding ceremony would have been an explosive failure. However, you know nothing of our magic or our ancestry, of how important it is for the soulmate of a royal to be a source of strength, not only to their mate but to the kingdom as a whole.

"The soulmate bond itself can be as much a test of inner fortitude as it is a well of blessings, and it hides many of its secrets from weaker pairs, even royalty. Some gifts are evident immediately as the couple completes each tie. Others may not be revealed for many years, if at all. A few gifts are exceedingly rare, only manifesting once a pair has proven their bravery and love for each other.

"The rarest gift of all is between mismatched mates, as is often the case in royal couples. Mismatched mates are made up of one person who possesses their own magic, and one who weaves environmental magic, or cannot manipulate magic at all. In these pairings, it is expected that the natural magic wielder will be able to draw on the essence of their mate to supplement their own spells. Only once in our recorded histories has the non-magical partner been able to draw on their mate's magic to spellcast. Well, once before today."

Riquero stopped and quirked up an eyebrow at her, pointedly shifting his stare between her and Jonatham, whose breathing had slowed somewhat.

"You can't mean... But I didn't use magic, besides taking advantage of the bond! We have done this before, while in the—" She couldn't bring herself to say "frenzy", hurrying on as her cheeks flamed into a blush. "I know no spells, none of your language. How could I use something I didn't even know existed before this week?"

"That is what makes this incident all the more special, my dear!" the king exalted. "The previous incident was between my parents, and my mother drew on my father's magic as he lay unconscious, bleeding to death from a murderer's wound, an injury meant for another. She grew up in a house of healing weavers, though she had no talent for even simple magic. In the panic of fear and impending grief, she spoke a spell she'd heard so many times as a youth, and witnesses claim visible magic flowed from my father's limp hands to her bloody ones on the gash. Yet you manipulated Jon's magic as though you were born to it, creating a translation spell out of nothing, guiding it only with the force of your will. You needed no words to achieve your goal, no chant to access the power of your other half."

He paused to chuckle. "No inkling of what you were about to do, so no attempt to warn your mate to brace themselves – lest you accidentally take too much too quickly – and thus leaving him feeling drained, a sensation only amplified by your recent frenzy, I'm sure. Don't worry, dear girl. He will recover most of his strength in a few minutes, and the rest will return in the next twenty four hours or so. Just try not to do that again for a while." He winked, and Miriam's emotions calmed as Jon's grip on her waist steadied.

She turned her head to look at him, and he leaned close to whisper in her ear, "Next time I will help you pace yourself, so we can share my magic all night long. Just imagine what we could do."

Maybe he meant they could use his magic for helpful actions, like working on the castle repairs or teaching her a few spells, but the low rumble of his voice reminded her of the frenzy, as did his kiss when he cradled her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers.

Miriam couldn't decide if the burn in her cheeks was from thinking about spending another passionate night wrapped in his arms and his magic, or part of the usual side effect of touching him skin to skin. As quickly as the conundrum occurred to her, it evaporated with the rest of her whirling thoughts as she lost herself in him.