Iridescent Chaos (Enchanted Chaos 3)

He takes a deep breath. “Dum faciunt, non portant.”

“Dum faciunt, non portant.”

“Oriente mihi partem dolorum.”

My breath falters from my lips. “Oriente mihi partem dolorum.”

He hesitates briefly before uttering, “Quin et ipse portabit iniquitatem mihi aeternaliter.”

I steady my voice as my palm burns. “Quin et ipse portabit iniquitatem mihi aeternaliter.”

Blinding hot pain scorches through me and I squeeze my eyes shut, sucking in a breath through my nose. The pain lasts only for an instant, then everything goes quiet. At least on the outside. Deep inside me, though, something feels different. Lighter.

I open my eyes again to find East looking at me intensely. The cause behind his intensity remains a mystery since strangely the link is very quiet at the moment.

“What did we say?” I ask in a shaky tone.

He shrugs, his gaze never wavering from mine. “Just your standard blood promise incantation.”

I frown, sensing he’s keeping something from me. “I hope I said all the words right. I’ve never been that great at speaking other languages. I actually failed French my junior year.”

“You did fine,” he assures me. “Besides, French is hard.” Giving my hand a squeeze, he pulls away.

I glance down at my palm, surprised to find a raindrop-shaped ice chunk embedded into the flesh. “Is this permanent?”

He gives a reluctant nod, rubbing his palm with his fingertip. “Sorry, I probably should’ve mentioned that.”

“It’s fine.” I skim my finger along the ice patch. “It feels weird, though, like I grew an icicle inside my flesh.”

“Blood promises always leave marks on the skin, but since we used your power of ice and my power of rain to do it, our mark ended up as an ice patch in the shape of a raindrop,” he explains. “If we’d used another one of your powers to do the promise, the mark would’ve looked totally different. But I thought your power of ice was probably the safest way to do it. And it made it so I could split our palms open.”

I trace my thumb along the ice mark. “Do you have one too?”

Nodding, he sticks out his hands. His mark looks similar to mine except for the ice has a more silvery glint to it.

“Your’s is prettier,” I say.

He shakes his head. “No way. Look at how shimmery yours is.”

“Yeah, but yours has more color to it.” I tap my finger against the patch and the noise reverberates through my body and rattles my brain against my skull. “Okay, don’t do that.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” He glances down at his palm again, a small smile touching his lips.

With the link remaining silent, I can’t get a vibe on him at all.

I trace my finger across my icy palm. “Have you ever done a blood promise with anyone before?”

“Nope. You got to pop my cherry with that.” A devious smile pulls at his lips. “And I guess I got to pop yours too.”

I roll my eyes, somehow managing to keep my embarrassment under control.

He laughs softly, taking my hand in his again and lining our icy marks together. “Do you feel any better about this Brody thing?” He grows serious so quickly I nearly get whiplash from the subject change.

I nod. “I do. Why, though? I thought the promise was to motivate me to get over my guilt?”

He shrugs. “It is.”

Again, I have a feeling he’s keeping something from me. “East, what exactly did we say when we made that promise?”