The Liberian

Chapter 56

Halle nodded. “I was working in the library and I—” Halle paused, leaving out the truth that she had thought she was saving a different prince. “I wanted to save him, I wanted to give anything to save him. He said I wrote magic, or made vessels—I’m not sure. Something about it opened a link and that was a Bonding.” She shifted, trying not to allow the conversation she’d started make her uncomfortable.

“That’s amazing,” Fritz breathed.

“So, that’s—that’s why things are different with us.” She wasn’t sure anymore why she had confided this to her friends.

“What is it like being Bonded?” Fritz asked.

“It’s hard to tell,” Halle confessed. “I’ve never known magic and not been Bonded. So it’s normal for me.”

“You Manifested quickly,” Hardy pointed out. “Even the minister was shocked, but it would make sense if you had a Bond with someone like Prince Derek.”

“It was also how ...” Halle hesitated about sharing the previous night with them, but she was in too deep to stop herself now. “During our Channeling lesson, he showed me how to Channel.”

“Well, of course.” Fritz clearly didn’t understand.

“No.” Halle shook her head. “He showed me. While we were Joined.”

If Halle had not understood the gravity of a Joining before, she understood it then. Fritz and Hardy looked at her with a combination of shock, amazement, and—what was most unnerving—a touch of fear. Halle brought her hands together, wringing them roughly.

“It’s ... possible?” Fritz asked, finally.

“I suppose so? I only have what Derek said to go off of.” Halle’s eyes darted between them, desperate to spark some more conversation so they’d stop looking at her like she had sprouted a second head. “What does it mean?”

“I’ve only read about it.” Asking Fritz to recite things from books had the same effect as it did on Halle. His mind began churning once more. “Literature on Bonding is very few and far between because most people who try to create a Bond fail, and one person dies in the process. But Joining is supposedly a state of merged consciousness or awareness.”

“That sounds right.” Halle nodded in affirmation.

“I can’t believe he did that.” Fritz stroked the stubble on his jaw. “It’s supposed to be a risky process.”

“Risky?” Halle asked.

“Again, I’ve only read ... But if the Bond isn’t solid, complete, if the two people are Bonded but not compatible, or if—” He paused, censoring himself. “Well there are other things that can help or hurt it. But I’ve heard it could result in one person losing himself in the other. You end up with one being mindless, while the other goes mad with the noise in his hea18d.”