Chapter 38

CHAPTER 38

ELODIE

A cry of anguish brought Elodie up from the haze of nothingness that had claimed her, jolting her as if she awoke from a dream of falling, seconds before she hit the ground. Her breath caught in her throat like a ball of ice and all she could feel was the thundering of her heart. And then…then a terrible wrench as that same heart tore itself apart.

A cold wind blew through her and she tried to look around.

Everything felt different.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Not just here, not just in this place between worlds which served as her prison. Because that’s what it was, she realised. She had failed the Aurum, and it did not take failure lightly.

But this was a place of the Aurum and right now the Aurum felt…

A loss?

The mist that surrounded her stirred, rising and falling like something vast and endless was breathing, something in pain. Elodie searched through it, not even sure what she sought until she saw it.

A figure knelt in the mist, half a dream and half a mirage.

For a moment, she thought it was the Aurum back again to torment her, but the blazing light was no more than a flickering candle flame now. Fading. Dying.

She still knew him. How could she not?

‘Roland?’ Elodie whispered.

He lifted his head like a flower seeking the sun, following only the sound of her shaking voice. The pain etched on his handsome features made her heart lurch.

‘Elodie?’ he murmured. ‘Where…where are we?’

She scrambled across the vast and empty space between them and flung her arms around him.

Which was when she knew for sure that this was not another trick of the Aurum. He didn’t vanish like smoke, or change into something else. There was no laughter, no sneer.

He felt real and warm…

Great light and shadows of old, how was he here?

‘Roland? What happened to you?’ Something stabbed at her eyes and she blinked back tears made of acid which needled their corners. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be here, not like this. It made no sense at all.

When he spoke, he almost sounded distracted, like a child waking from a nightmare.

‘There was an attack… There were shadow kin. They took Wren, and Hestia’s boy, I think. They would have killed Finn. He was… Where…where are we, El? Tell me.’

She tried to soothe him, her palm against his face. He leaned into her touch like a cat.

‘It’s just a place, a between place. Don’t be scared.’

He shook his head and smiled against her touch. ‘Not scared, my love…just…what does that mean? Between what?’

How to explain it? The concept was old and witchkind knew it well. There were tomes about it in the College of Winter. Elodie had studied copies of them, half a dozen of the finest, once upon a time, made specially for her and brought south.

‘It lies outside of our realm,’ she said, trying to be clear for him. ‘Like the place where the Nox was banished. But not there. I promise, not there. It’s between dreams and wakefulness, between thought and instinct, between life and?—’

And then she realised the whole, dreadful truth of it, the horror her mind had been trying to shy away from the instant she saw him here.

He looked so confused, her beautiful Roland. So lost. But slowly, surely, he was already working it out. She could see it in his dark eyes, the dawning realisation. He had always been meticulous, methodical…

‘Ah,’ he said, and nothing else. When he glanced down at his side, blood seemed to blossom in the gash which had been torn clean through his mail and tunic, a wound which only seemed to appear as he remembered it existed.

It looked bad. Really bad. The healer in her mind was already assessing the possible damage, calculating the outcomes. None of it was good. The rest of her…

‘No,’ she told him, firmly, a command. ‘No, don’t you dare!’

As if she could actually command him in this. In anything really.

A smile tugged at his lips. Rueful, almost teasing. He was thinking the same thing, wasn’t he? Their minds had always been in tune like that.

‘I don’t think I can obey this time, my love,’ he sighed with regret.

Elodie tugged him closer, her splayed right hand closing on the wound. If it was the real world, that would have hurt him more than she could bear. But if it was the real world, she could have poured magic into him in order to heal him. Or failing that, she could have used her herbs, her knowledge of healing and everything else at her disposal.

But this was just a place of memories and raw will. And it was not her place.

‘Don’t you dare leave me, Roland de Silvius,’ she snapped. Suddenly, she was furious. With him for getting into this position, with herself for being powerless, with this cursed place, with fate, with everything. ‘You were meant to rescue me. You promised.’

He almost smiled and it tore at her heart with talons. ‘Since when did you ever need rescuing?’

‘Now!’ She couldn’t keep her voice from breaking. ‘I need you now. And always. I can’t lose you, Roland. Not again. Never again.’

He was fading, turning to mist in her arms, but she still saw that heartbroken smile.

‘You never lost me, El. But your people need you. That’s more important, love.’

‘No it isn’t. Don’t be so…so… stupid !’

But Roland just kissed her. He smiled and kissed her.

For a moment his lips lingered on hers again, their touch too cold. She sobbed his name.

‘Please, Roland…please don’t go…’

But she couldn’t stop him. Not this time. Perhaps not ever. This time, he left her.

‘Roland!’ Elodie screamed his name out loud as she sat up in bed, her skin frozen, her whole body shaking with effort. Suddenly, very much awake.

Maryn started out of the chair opposite, her face worn and pale, her eyes ringed with shadows. She looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks.

‘Elodie? Oh thank the Aurum! Elodie!’

Her hands were firm and assured as she tried to assess Elodie’s health, taking her temperature and pulse. Always the professional, a consummate healer.

Elodie swatted her away. Her hand hit against a metal bracelet on her cousin’s wrist, hard and cold as iron. Elodie’s eyes grew round with alarm.

‘Roland! Where’s Roland?’

Maryn just frowned, hesitating to answer, and Elodie somehow knew that everything was so much worse than she had feared. Endlessly worse. ‘Maryn? What has happened?’

Her cousin winced and then swallowed hard as she considered her possible answers.

‘Majesty,’ she replied in formal tones that warned Elodie that her fears were well founded. The Maiden of the Aurum wore a shadow-wrought steel bracelet which smothered her magic. How could anything be good in any of this? ‘I regret to inform you that Pelias has fallen. The regents’ council surrendered the city to the forces of Ilanthus. We are prisoners, you and I. King Leander of Ilanthus has taken Asteroth.’

‘Through what right?’ Elodie snarled. Leander? King? Not while she lived.

‘Through right of conquest, and through right of marriage. He has claimed Wren as his bride.’