6. Alana

SIX

The voice comes again in the middle of the night. Finn’s arm is wrapped tightly around my waist, his body warm and comforting beside me. But when the voice comes, it makes my entire body stiffen.

I uncurl myself from Finn, trying not to wake him, and stand. I reach for my robe and wrap it around myself. Outside, it is freezing cold, but I do not stop to put on more layers. The voice is calling me. It wants me, and suddenly I know I cannot resist it even if I want to.

I walk out into the moonlight completely barefoot. The soil is like a balm for the soles of my feet, the cold nothing but comfort as I let it sink in, drifting up my calves and into my bones.

It quickly becomes a shudder, but I lean into it. I close my eyes and breathe, trying to make the voice come to me again. When it does, it whispers my name and lands like feathers of ice on my skin. I flex my fingers. As I move then, beads of condensation drift up from the grass around me, catching in the moonlight, joined by fireflies that make them glow.

The droplets are beautiful. I breathe out slowly. The voice comes again, and the water drifts up into the air, swirling around my legs and my waist. Then it tightens around me, moving faster, swirling, coiling like a snake snatching its prey.

Something nudges me. But when I try to turn, I can’t.

The voice calls again, and I realise the water is telling me to follow it.

I glance back at the tent, where Finns’s sleeping form is silhouetted on the canvas by the flickering light inside. He would tell me to stay with him. Or perhaps he would think I am losing my mind.

There must be a reason I haven’t told him what’s happening in my head.

Perhaps it’s because I believe Eldrion is doing this to me.

Perhaps it’s because I believe I want Eldrion to be doing this to me.

When the voice calls again, I lean into the sound. It is not Eldrion, I know that. And yet I cannot help seeing his face in front of me. It sends shivers of arousal and anger down my spine, zipping through my bones like splinters of smooth flint. Deadly but beautiful.

I hate him.

But I want him.

And as the water continues to swirl around me and I follow the voice into the depths of the forest, I close my eyes. I do not watch where I am going. Something is guiding me.

Is it him? Is this the moment he finally takes me? Has he come for me?

My feet remain slow, absorbing every second of contact with the forest floor. As I move, more droplets join the ones already swirling, until they are a torturous tornado, propelling me forward into the dark crevices of a forest I do not know.

I should know it.

We have been here long enough now, and yet it still feels unfamiliar. Not like home. Everything here is harsh and sharp and divided. There are fractures within us and around us.

Instead of coming together to fight, we are fighting each other.

And instead of respecting me finally because I helped them to escape, my kin hate me. They despise me. They see me with Finn and they want to throw stones at me. I can see it in their faces.

His kind – the Shadowkind – hate me too, because they think I believe I am above them, and that Finn favours me.

Once again, I have become a pariah amongst my own kind.

And maybe that is why I lean into the voice. I let it take me. I let it pull me into the murky depths of this foreign place, and teach me the steps to follow.

It whispers my name, again and again, a haunting rhythm.

Visions flash in front of my eyes. Or fire and coals and dancing. I hear the drums. I see the scene in front of me as if it were yesterday. The moon celebration. Kayan.

I see his face.

I peel my eyes open and blink into the darkness.

Something glimmers in the distance. A flicker of movement. The promise of a shadow that my eyes cannot quite catch hold of. I blink again, harder, trying to make it make sense.

This time, when I move, the water drops to the floor. It falls in a puddle at my feet, and leaves me trembling with cold.

I wrap my robe tighter around my naked body, suddenly wishing I had put on more clothes.

There it is again. Like a whisper, floating between the trees.

It moves, and with it comes a flicker of greenish blue light.

My breath halts in my ribcage. Then it swells and turns into anxiety. I reach out, trying to feel for a person. Fae, human, elf.

I am close to the shield the fae cast around our camp. I am almost at its very edge. I can feel the magic. It presses down on me and around me, and it feels both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

Of course, I was not one of the ones who cast the shield. I could not; I have no magic that is useful in terms of spells or incantations.

My magic is nothing but a drain on me and those around me.

And yet... the beads of dew on the forest floor still tremble. I can feel them. If I close my eyes, it’s as if they are talking to me. And then other sounds rush to my ears, too. They drown out the voice. Rivers, waterfalls, rain on the other side of the valley. The ocean, the tide.

I stumble back, clutching my stomach as the strength of the sensations overwhelms me.

When I open my eyes, a low murmur parts my lips.

Kayan.

He is here.

I see him.

Blue lights swirl around him, like the water that swirls around me. They have become dancing fireflies, zipping up over his body, illuminating the cords of muscle on his chest and the rivets above his hips.

His wings stretch out to either side of his body, into the trees. They glow, too.

I am transfixed by him. I cannot look away. Visions of Eldrion ripping those beautiful wings from Kayan’s body and throwing him over the parapet of the castle pummel my eyes. Pain racks my body, but when I open my eyes again, Kayan is smiling at me.

He reaches out his hand.

I walk towards him, and then the voice in my head changes. It solidifies. Becomes real. It is him. It was Kayan speaking to me, all this time.

I float towards him above the ground, my wings fluttering with the anticipation of being close to him again.

But then his body shimmers. Literally becomes translucent before becoming real again, and I realise it is not him. He is not here.

“Is it you”? I whisper.

He does not answer, just keeps his hand outstretched for me to come closer. I move towards him, and when I finally take his hand, the water and the lights swirl around us both, tying our limbs together.

I feel him, and yet I do not feel him. He’s there but he is not there.

I shudder violently. A rush of something that feels like cold air sweeps like a tornado through my veins, wrapping around my muscles and my bones and every sinew in between.

Kayan looks down into my eyes.

“Is it you?” I whisper.

Again, he doesn’t speak, but he moves closer. With his other hand, he touches my face.

His skin is darker than it was, and it does not look real. It shimmers, but it is both light and dark at the same time, like he is made of the shadows that appear at twilight.

Blue shadows.

Shadows and water.

His wings beat slowly, but no breeze touches my face.

I look down at his hand. I cannot feel him. I am imagining him. Surely?

“It is me.” Finally, he speaks. He leans in close to my ear, but there is no breath. No warmth.

I find myself wishing he would slide his hand into my robe and touch me there. Anywhere. Everywhere. So I can feel him. But he does not.

“It is me,” he says again.

I stare into his eyes. I recognise those eyes. I would know them anywhere, but I do not trust myself. I can’t. This could be a trick. Eldrion could be doing this, he could have infected my mind.

Or perhaps the forest.

Or the Shadowkind.

Something.

Someone.

As if he can tell my thoughts are spiralling, Kayan dips his head to catch my gaze.

My god, he is beautiful like this. Was he always this beautiful? He tweaks a finger under my chin and I move as if I have felt him, even though I did not.

The water that binds our wrists continues to swirl.

Kayan turns around and leads me with him through the forest. “Water will give us both the power we need,” he says calmly.

I follow like a child being led by a grownup they trust. I trust him completely, even though my mind is telling me not to. My body trusts him. My body knows him. My soul knows that this is the friend I’ve known for so long.

“Alana...” When we reach the edge of the shield, Kayan points to the lake just beyond it. “We need the water.”

“I can’t let down the shield. I didn’t cast it.” I shake my head, tears pooling in my eyes because I don’t want him to leave and I feel like if we cannot reach that water, he will. He will go. And I’ll never see him again.

Somewhere behind me, blue and purple butterflies drift up from the forest floor. They glow too, like the fireflies. They drift towards the shield and float right through it.

Kayan raises his eyebrows at me. “You can do anything you desire, Alana. You are stronger than you know.”

I let go of his hand. The water disappears. I walk forward. The shield shimmers in front of me. I stretch out my fingers. I have seen the others do this, when they tested its strength. Every single one was met with a hardness. Like glass that they could not penetrate.

But my fingers slip right inside it, like they are sliding into a slab of melted butter. I move closer. And then I am through. On the other side, turning to look back at the part of the forest which was supposed to be protected.

If I can get through . . . can’t others?

Kayan is in front of me. I did not see him cross the threshold of the force field. But he is here. His wings continue to beat slowly, but still they do not move the air.

As he walks, I look down at the damp sand at the shore of the lake.

He leaves no footprints. When I follow him, only mine lead to the water’s edge.

But when Kayan does reach the water, it ripples. It remembers him and his power.

“I took your powers,” I whisper.

He nods slowly, staring out at the lake. “You did.”

“They’ve been inside me all this time.”

“They have.”

“And when you died . . .”

“Your emotions set you free.” He turns, smiling.

Without really thinking about it, I move closer and hold out my hand. A small ball of ice forms in my palm. I skim it across the lake the way we used to skim stones, and it sends sparks of blue magic up into the air.

Kayan grins. “I knew you’d get it,” he says.

I turn to him. “Is it really you?”

He nods slowly, his grin turning into a sad smile. “It is, but I am not...” He wrinkles his nose the way he used to when he was struggling to give me an answer about something. “I am not a living thing anymore, Alana. I am...”

“What? What are you?”

He fixes his gaze on the lake. “I’m not sure.”