Sweating and exhausted from the last hour, they lay in the bed staring into each other’s eyes, gently embracing.

“When I was a teenager,” began Mallory. “I had a collection of Princess Eliza drawings that I’d fan out over my bed. I’d lock my bedroom door and completely undress. Then, I’d sit there on my bed with my knees bended, leaning a bit forward, and scan between the pictures while I masturbated.”

Still in awe of the euphoria he had experienced, it took Roland a while to process this ridiculous anecdote. He let out a half laugh. “Thanks for finally opening up and sharing something about your past.”

“You never fantasized about her? She was the only one who was sexualized in any of that Heroic Age propaganda. Maybe try looking in a mirror next time you finger yourself.” Roland didn’t say anything he just focused on his breathing and trying to hold on to the lingering effects of his satisfied lust.

“You should try it though,” said Mallory. “Also, I’m down to watch — if you’re into it. Actually, even if you aren’t, I’d still be fine with it.” Roland sighed. This didn’t escape Mallory’s attention. “Whatever. Don’t complain to me when you get bored of lying on your stomach while you grind your clit and pelvic bone with your hand. Hey, at least now with that new body there’s no mess to clean up when you finish.”

“Small blessings bind every curse,” muttered Roland.

“Yeah, you also don’t have to worry about pulling out anymore. Another plus. It’s not all charms and diamonds for me. Sucking dick is way more straightforward than eating pussy. Well, unless you have a sensitive gag reflex.”

“You know,” said Roland. “One of the things I’ve come to enjoy about sex is that talking is not necessary. In fact, it often makes the experience far worse.”

“No need to be an icy bitch. I was just trying to add a bit of perspective to your current situation.” She put her hand between Eliza’s legs again. “I don’t know why you pay upfront at that place; I would have tipped them better if I’d known they’d do such a good job with the wax.”

“Sorry, that’s not what I meant. It’s when you’re in the moment of satisfying your basest urges during sex. It’s wonderful how the voice inside your head shuts off. It’s more than just instinct taking over, it’s like language ceases to exist. Free from the oppression of words. No thoughts, only feelings. That’s the silence I was referring to.”

“You can find the same escape in fighting as well,” said Mallory, who seemed to understand what he was trying to communicate. “And death.”

“Not a very original observation on my part, I suppose.” He gasped because she had been rubbing him this entire time. “Never mind.”

Sensation built once more. He started breathing faster. He held his lips together tightly. After a few minutes, his breathing slowed as Eliza’s body climaxed once again. Mallory pulled her hand away, licked her fingers, and then her lips.

“By the way,” said Mallory. “You’ll probably need a poem for the tastemaker event.”

“Have you written one?” asked Roland as he regained his focus. “I’m sure the Valdt literary community is all agog to hear it.”

She smiled at Roland.

“I have. It’s about a funny little girl I know. I used to think she was an idiot. But now I’m not so sure.”

“How sweet. Hopefully the sincerity of your words will touch her the same way your hands did.”

“Wow. Try to stay away from those metaphors when you finally put pen to paper.”

“What if,” he paused. “What if I write about a brilliant young wizard who’s in love a Celestial, but he’s forced to settle for her daughter and —”

Mallory pinched Eliza’s right nipple. Roland laughed, “It’s purely fictional.” He then leaned over and kissed her mouth and then her breasts.

When he was done, he rolled back to his side of the bed and finally tried to get some sleep after their long night. However, there was one thought he couldn’t let go of.

“Mal, why do we have to bother with any of this now?”

“The sex or the poetry?”

“You know what I mean. What’s the point of risking our lives to take out the Chosen? Can’t we just ignore them? Bright Port, Serene, Valdt — these places all seem fairly prosperous. Why don’t we just live together and forget all of this nonsense?”

“Ugh. Is this some type of post-nut clarity?”

“Fine, don’t answer me. Just make sure you enjoy your Princess Eliza sex toy while you can.”

“Pfft. Weren’t you just sucking on my tits for like an hour? But, sure, you’re the sex toy. Ha.”

“That’s different.”

“Oh?”

“Every day that I was in Serene Castle, I thought of you. I’d given up everything to help you and you abandoned me. I loved you.”

He could see tears filling in Mallory’s eyes. She closed them and her lips began to quiver. Was she going to cry?

“What’s wrong?” he asked, completely caught off guard by her reaction.

She let out a series of dry coughs. “Huh? Nothing. I just had a pube stuck at the back of my throat. It’s weird, it kinda seems even more gross because I know it can’t be one of yours.”

“You’re fucking unbelievable. Everything is a joke.” He shook his head. “And it’s on me.”

Roland got out of the bed and started getting dressed. Eliza’s clothes had been scattered across the room during the foreplay, so this was a slow process.

Mallory giggled, “What’s gotten into you? You’ve been a chick for less than a month and you already sound like a melodramatic housewife that needs constant validation. If this is how our pillow talk is always going to be we should probably start sleeping in separate beds.”

“All you do is use me. Just keep me around to advance your schemes. The only thing that’s changed since the last time we were together is that now I can also fulfil some teenage sexual fantasy of yours. No different than how Eliza treated me.”

“What are you talking about?” Mallory couldn’t help but laugh. “You want me to tell you that I love you? Is that?”

“I’m sure you would if you thought it would make me shut up and do what you want. Eliza did the same thing after executing my only friend in Serene Castle.”

“How could I fall for such an idiot?” asked Mallory in frustration. She had stopped laughing and was now sitting up on the bed. “Roland — two years ago, I barely knew you. And what I did know, wasn’t very endearing. The boy from that time had no aspirations. His idea of fulfillment was shelving books in mildew-filled library and — as I just found out — thinking about my mother’s tits while he masturbated. But that’s not you anymore. Well, at least the first part. What you accomplished in Serene and then confronting the Hero of Relmgard. That’s the passion I crave. That’s who I want. The person I’m with here and now checks all my boxes: Intellectual, hot, and guilty of regicide.”

“Funny,” muttered Roland. He was still upset but also taken aback by her apparent sincerity.

Mallory got out of bed and walked over to her dresser. In the top drawer was her bag of holding. She pulled a book out and threw it over to Roland.

“Remember this one? Can you cast that spell?”

The book was titled Soulbind. He had read it back in Dire Fortress when he was first learning about cantrips. The premise here was that the two characters cast a spell that links their sense of touch in such a way that sexual pleasure between them was greatly enhanced. However, the tradeoff of the spell was that any sexual experience they had while apart was joyless. Of course, being a smut book the title was a double entendre and most of the story actually focussed on bondage. With memories Roland had from the orb, he knew that long ago this was an actual spell that people occasionally performed during their wedding ceremony. He also knew there were other consequences to the spell beyond its connection to sexual gratification. No doubt, Mallory was aware that the spell supposedly ties their fates together.

“Are you serious?” asked Roland.

“Can you do it?” replied Mallory.

“It’s a powerful cantrip so it requires reagents, but nothing that exotic. However, a wedding ceremony is an integral part of the spell.”

“Shouldn’t be hard to arrange. This is one of the few places Relmgard where women can actually marry each other. We can fit it in before we go to the poetry-orgy thing.” She changed her tone as she started to think out loud. “Although I can’t close the douche shop — that’s our busiest day of the week. Also, it will be hard to find someone to cover for me on such short notice. Maybe we could have the ceremony in the store? Nah, that will —”

“So, you want to marry me?”

“Well, if I simply asked you to marry me, you’d probably see that as me trying to manipulate you with another meaningless act. After all, the only record of it would be a certificate with our pseudonyms on it. And even that would be filed away by some faceless Valdt clerk. You’ve been acting like such a cynical teenage brat that you’d likely scoff at that idea alone. With the spell, though, supposedly our beings become permanently tethered. You said you love me, prove it.”

Without a word, Roland turned his back on her and walked over to his bag. He removed the keepsake box that he had taken from Eliza’s room before he had left Serene Castle. He walked over to Mallory and opened the box in front of her. He took out the locket that had been Eliza’s gift to Christoph.

“Eh?”

“Your engagement gift,” said Roland. “Eliza had given it to Christoph as a token of her love. She was sincere. And so am I.”

“You’re not going to get down on one knee?” asked Mallory, already back to teasing him.

She took the necklace before he had a chance to react. After fastening it around her neck, she opened the locket and looked the pictures of Eliza and Christoph that were inside. “Huh, you really did use look like Christoph.”

“I guess that locket is more appropriate than I thought. The pictures bear my current and former likenesses.”

They got back on the bed and embraced. The sun was now rising. They had been up all night.

“Oh yeah,” said Mallory. “We should probably act out the bondage part of that soul tethering story too.” She yawned. “You know, just to be sure.”

“I suppose you already have the gags and restraints ready to go?”

Mallory’s eyes were closed, and she was smiling. She didn’t say anything else.

As Roland finally began to drift off to sleep, he thought back to Christoph’s spell book. There was a section on what he called ‘Magicka Hokum’ — spells that had all the outward appearances of magic, but whose effects were purely sleight of hand or existed only in the imaginations of the fools who casted them. The soul linking spell was listed in that section. Did Mallory know this? Possibly. According to Christoph’s notes, such pseudo-magic was common knowledge among mages. Perhaps her father or one of the many sorcerers in his service told her.

However, with the memories from the orb, Roland knew something else. The incantation’s origins were ancient and, at one point in time, it actually did work as intended. But, because its effects were not immediate and, even then often subtle, it was easy to perform incorrectly and not ever notice. This made its success incredibly difficult to verify. As the spell was passed down over the millennia, the accumulation of uncorrected errors turned it into nothing more than hokum. Christoph knew all of this as well, but he hadn’t noted it in his spell book. Perhaps because that knowledge was already in his orb, he didn’t feel the need to. Regardless, Roland knew the proper words for the ceremony. He would be in control here.

He shook his and turned to fall asleep. My not so clever fiancée, he thought.