Free The Ruby Prince: Book Two of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 2) by Beth Brower Page A

at her with his red-rimmed eyes.
    “What do you need me to do?” she asked.
    “You kneel—” he began. “No, I—I should kneel before you.” Basaal said these words deliberately but kept them close to himself somehow, like he didn’t want Eleanor to look at them too long.
    She stepped back and sat on a small bench at the foot of the bed, and he knelt before her on the bright tiles, close enough she could have lifted her hand to his face. He removed his stiff jacket and set it aside, rolling up the sleeves of the black shirt he wore, revealing his bare forearms and the mark of his house in his skin the color of old blood.
    Curious to examine the intricacies of the mark now that she understood what it represented, Eleanor reached her fingers out towards it, brushing the pattern with her fingertips. Basaal turned his head away, and Eleanor, not understanding what his reaction might mean, pulled back embarrassed.
    Tugging at the corner of his mouth, he then looked at Eleanor with an edge of a miserable humility. He nodded toward the bag, and she opened it, removing each piece and setting them beside her. Then she waited, moving her fingertips nervously against the fabric of the cushion, unsettled that she didn’t mind him being so close to her again.
    Basaal lifted a thick, black leather band with silver clasps. “You take each Safeeraah, one at a time, in both hands. Touch it to your brow, then to your lips, and, at last, place it over your heart. It is then secured in place.” He ran through the motions so that Eleanor could see the process.
    “Were they new Safeeraah,” he explained, “you would speak the associative oath, and I would repeat it. Because I have already committed to their covenants, I repeat the oaths aloud to you as a recommitment to them. You become the witness that I have done so, and,” he said gravely, “you must repeat them to no man or woman.”
    Nodding, Eleanor took the black and silver band from Basaal, and the prince held out his left arm, pointing just below the mark of his house. She raised the band to her forehead, then to her lips, and then to her heart before securing it in place as he had instructed. The clasps were difficult and strong, which was no wonder to Eleanor if they were intended to last a lifetime. She used all the strength in her fingers to close them tight against his skin.
    Once the band was secure, the prince held his arm before his face, closed his eyes, and spoke his oath: “ Honor in battle, strength in heart; what lies ahead is the only reality, may it be triumphant .”
    His eyes opened. “Gifted to me by my older brothers when I commissioned my own army.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Fifteen.”
    Eleanor blinked. He had been so young. Although, she had yet been younger, when taking the throne, it felt different to her somehow. Turning back to the Safeeraah on the bench, Eleanor selected a bright red woven band, and Basaal pointed below the black Safeeraah now placed on his wrist.
    Again following the motions of the ritual, Eleanor tied the red band securely in place, and he repeated his next oath: “ Life unto death, as one soul, fealty forever.”
    Eleanor had never wondered if there was someone in Zarbadast, waiting for his return. The expression on her face must have betrayed her surprise, because a quiet smile broke through his face as Basaal answered, “Annan. Friend, not lover.”
    Eleanor moved her eyes away from his. A silver band with fine Imirillian inscriptions was next, and he held up his right wrist so Eleanor could clip it into place.
    Basaal then breathed in deep. “ Those who are gone before gaze upon those who come after; I hold my place in reverence, steadfast as the immovable one, ” he vowed.
    A beautiful, delicate-looking piece then caught Eleanor’s attention. She picked up a thin gold chain, set with square cut diamonds on a diagonal. It glistened between her fingers, and she thought it, perhaps, the finest bracelet she had