Chapter 18
Rosabel La Rouge
Strange how I could tell whether Taland was in bed with me, his body next to mine, most times through sleep. Like, even when I was unconscious, my body knew his and craved his heat, and my instincts knew when it wasn’t there.
On night twelve, I felt it clearly, like I’d kicked my blanket off while asleep and now I was freezing. The feeling was so powerful that it actually woke me up.
The blanket wasn’t the problem, though. It was there, covering half my body, but the heat I’d been missing was Taland’s because he wasn’t in bed with me.
He’s probably in the bathroom, I thought, forcing my eyes closed again, hugging the blanket to my chest as I waited. The digital clock on the nightstand said it was a quarter past midnight, so we’d only slept two hours ago after quite possibly the best sex of my life. We’d been going at it for four hours nonstop, and that’s why every muscle in my body was slightly aching in the best possible way.
I focused on those memories. On the way his hands felt on my body, his lips on mine, the way he filled me when he was inside me all the way. The way he bent me over and spun me around and had his way with me while he pleased me—that’s what I focused on for a little while.
Except when I opened my eyes again, thinking a minute had passed, the clock insisted that it had been eleven, and Taland was still not back.
That bad feeling in my gut took over me in an instant.
I jumped off the bed, calling his name, and I went straight for the bathroom—empty. The kitchen and the living room, and the other bedroom we never used—they were all empty.
He was not inside the safe house at all.
I stopped in the middle of the hallway, took a deep breath, tried to stop my thoughts from racing so fast. They insisted that something was wrong, that somebody had found us, that our time here was as good as over. Worse yet—they insisted that Taland was gone, taken away from me again, and this time I was never going to find him.
Maybe that’s why I screamed at the top of my lungs, “ TALAND! ”
Not caring if someone was close or if they could hear me—I just screamed out his name with my everything.
I got no response.
I wore an oversized men’s shirt and some loose pajama bottoms, but I didn’t bother to change. The wood of the porch was smooth against my bare feet when I went outside, biting my tongue to keep the tears back. The sky was dark, but I couldn’t see if there were stars on its canvas because of the roof that extended over the porch. Even so, I cursed it—cursed the sky because I seemed to be moving in a circle, a never-ending fucking circle where I only got days of happiness before my whole world was taken from me again.
It wasn’t fair, damn it. It wasn’t fucking fair, but I wasn’t going to quit. I was going to fight back. Just to spite the universe, I was going to go back to the real world and find Taland again, and this time it would be over for good. This time, we’d hide somewhere where even the sky couldn’t see us.
Except…
Nobody had taken Taland away from the safe house. I didn’t need to go back to the real world to find him at all. I heard his voice the moment I stepped down the stairs of the porch and my bare feet connected with the slightly wet soil.
It had rained. The smell of the leaves and the wetness of the ground said so. The sky was indeed clear and a million stars winked at me from above as if to encourage me. That voice I heard was Taland’s—I’d know it anywhere in the world. And he was talking in a foreign language again, though this time not Portuguese. This time, I was almost a hundred percent sure it was French.
I ran.
The cold, wet dirt beneath my feet could have been trying to slow me down, but then again maybe it was just that I couldn’t breathe very well, not until I ran almost to the back of the house, following the sound of his voice.
Until I saw them.
Five soldiers of the Delaetus Army were standing in a half circle around four trees that were just slightly grouped together, a bit farther away from the rest.
Kneeling in front of the third tree was Taland, spewing those French words relentlessly, a knife in his hands as he engraved something on the bark. Judging by the fact that the first two trees had lines and words engraved on every inch of them, I’d say he had been here a while.
I meant to call out his name but all that left my lips was a whisper. I was breathing too heavily and I had tears in my eyes, but it was okay now because the sky hadn’t fallen yet. Taland was right there and whatever he was doing, we’d figure it out. Together, we could figure anything out and start from scratch if we had to.
This time when I ran, I knew exactly where I was going. This time when I ran, I thought for sure he would hear my footfalls and he would turn, snap out of it the way he’d done at the pool and in the bathroom—he’d for sure come to his senses right away.
Except he didn’t. I made it all the way to him and called out his name, and kneeled next to him as he continued to cut the wood with that kitchen knife, but he didn’t even turn his head toward me.
He just kept hissing those French words, white eyes on the tree, every muscle on his body strained, and I could see because all he had on was his pajama bottoms. He was barefoot, too, his torso naked so I could count every protruding vein around his neck, even though not much light reached us here from the moon and the safe house at our back.
I kept calling his name.
“Please,” I said, those damn tears spilling down my cheeks without stop. “Taland, look at me. Snap out of it—just look at me!”
He didn’t.
It was so strange to see him like that, so completely lost. So strange to be ignored by him that every time he stabbed that tree it felt like he was stabbing right at my heart.
“Taland! Taland, please, just—” I grabbed his arm, tried to pull him to the side.
The soldiers around us moved.
All five of them who’d been standing by the trees as still as the night took a step forward, toward us , and their eyes were open. Had they been open until now? I couldn’t really remember —I was so used to them being perfectly motionless any time I came across them, that I no longer even cared to look at their eyes.
“Taland, listen to me,” I tried again, telling myself that I didn’t have to be afraid because those soldiers weren’t going to attack us. Of course not—they belonged to him now. “Please, baby, listen to me. Look at me, Taland, look at me!”
I grabbed his hands and tried to pry the knife out of them, but it was like trying to move fucking steel.
And Taland pushed me to the side with all his strength the next second.
It was so unexpected, like someone had pulled me back by invisible strings, had slammed me against the ground hard.
The soldiers moved again.
Everything happened so fast.
Hands on my arms, pulling me up to my feet. Two soldiers were holding me, while another two stood in front of me, moving like they’d just materialized out of thin air.
Fear gripped me by the throat because I thought they were coming for me, that they would hurt me, or try to—and Taland couldn’t even tell. I couldn’t defend myself because I didn’t have the bracelet on me, hadn’t even thought to put it on, but…
The soldiers hadn’t turned on me. The ones who pulled me to my feet had already let go of me, though they remained by my sides, and the other two had their backs to me. They were all looking at Taland.
I could hardly believe my own eyes.
They were protecting me from Taland.
A scream ripped out of me, and it came from my very soul. Not only because I didn’t understand what was happening, but because Taland couldn’t hear me.
Fortunately for me, that scream must have pierced through whatever spell he was under because, finally, he did.
Finally, he stopped hissing at the trees in French, stopped stabbing them.
He blinked slowly, looked down at his hands, at the knife in them. He looked up at the tree again, then at the soldiers between us and me standing behind them.
He saw me. This time, he saw me.
“Sweetness…”
My knees gave and I hit the ground. The soldiers moved away from me and took their places around those trees again. Taland stood up, brows narrowed, shaking his head. The knife fell from his hand and he came to me, kneeled in front of me, touched my face, wiped my tears that wouldn’t stop coming.
“What…what happened?” he asked me.
He asked me.
Laughter burst out of me, the bitter kind that scratched my throat on the way out. I could hardly stop for a second to draw in air, even when Taland wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his naked chest.
We didn’t calm down for a long time.
My legs refused to carry me no matter how cold it was outside at this hour. Taland was burning, though, his skin hot. I was still against his chest, hands hanging onto his naked shoulders, and minutes could have passed since he came to his senses—or hours.
“We’re okay,” said Taland eventually, but I no longer believed that. And not only because of a gut feeling, but because I’d seen that. All of that—I’d seen it. I’d seen him.
Slowly, I leaned back to look at his face, those strange white eyes that I’d gotten so used to that the memory of his real eyes had gone cold. Distant.
“Talk to me,” he said, and he was freaking out just as badly as me. His voice was shaking, which never happened. “Talk to me, sweetness. Why are you crying? Talk to me…”
It killed me worse than watching him just now when he wasn’t himself.
He wasn’t himself.
I shook my head, but the memory stopped the tears for a moment, at least. “You…you were stabbing trees.”
As absurd as it sounded out loud, I didn’t expect him to laugh. He just followed my eyes, looked where I was looking—at those trees that had no bark left on them.
“You…you had a knife, and you were stabbing at the trees, and I called for you, but you didn't respond. You were talking, Taland, you were talking and talking…”
“Hey, hey, look at me.” He took my face in his hands. “What was I saying?”
He’d begun to get himself under control already, and sometimes I wondered if he did it for my sake. If he held himself together to calm me down.
“I don’t know. You were talking in French.”
His brows narrowed. “I don’t speak French.”
“Yes, I know that!” Except now I couldn’t even laugh at the absurdity. “I know you don’t speak French, but you were speaking French! And when I tried to grab that knife from your hand you pushed me and I fell, and then the soldiers, they-they-they…” I stopped, took in a deep breath. “They pulled me away from you and got between us.”
This didn’t surprise him in the least. “They are ordered to keep you safe even from me if needed,” he said. “Come on, let’s get inside. You’re freezing.”
He stood up and pulled me to my feet.
I could hardly believe my ears, but he wasn’t even kidding. His face said so, and when he tried to pull me toward the house, I jerked my hand away from his.
“No, Taland— no! ” I moved back, toward those trees, pointing at them without looking. “What the hell were you doing here? You’ve been talking to yourself and I hear you, but you never tell me— why, damn it?! Why are you talking to yourself like that? How can you speak French when you don’t speak French— why ?!” Goddess, I was losing it, and the way he looked at me only made it worse. “Tell me what’s going on. Just tell me .”
He shook his head and looked so fucking hopeless that it killed me all over again. Clear to see that he didn’t want to tell me anything, but he knew. He had to know.
“Can we talk inside?” he tried.
“ What. The. Hell. Is. This ?!” I hissed, pointing at the trees behind me.
If he thought I was going to let him off the hook just like I did the first and second time, he was dead wrong. None of it had been in my head—none of it. Not at the waterfall, not in the bathroom, not those strange looks that came over him every now and again—it was all real, and tonight proved it. He couldn’t lie to me, not again. I wouldn’t stand for it.
And Taland must have seen it on my face because he sighed and lowered his head for a moment. Then he came to me slowly, like he thought I might be afraid of him again.
“It’s them,” he whispered, looking at the trees now, walking around me and toward them. I turned, too, followed him with my eyes, so I saw the small nod he gave to nobody in particular, a second before the five soldiers simply turned on their heels and walked away down the mountain without ever looking back.
Chills on my back as I watched them.
Meanwhile, Taland had stopped in front of the first tree he’d basically assaulted, and he touched the places where he’d cut into the bark—senseless lines, I first thought, but now that I was seeing more clearly…
“It’s their names,” Taland said, and every thought in my head came to a halt.
I went to his side, looking at the lines his fingers traced.
“Hugo,” he whispered. “Warin. Richard. Philip, Ada, Symon…”
“The soldiers?”
“The soldiers,” Taland said with a nod. “They talk to me. I hear their thoughts. I know all their names.”
“ Fuck. ” What the hell could I even say to that?
Taland looked at me, that sad, desperate smile on his lips. “I’m trying to find a way to shut them out, but so far they’ve proven stronger. Sometimes they take over completely,” he said. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t want to scare you. I thought I had it under control but when I sleep, I slip.”
I fell against his side with a sigh, looking at those trees again, and I wrapped my arms around his torso. “The only thing you should be sorry about is that you didn’t tell me.”
“I know,” Taland said. “I didn’t want to worry you. You’ve gone through enough already. I wanted to spare you.”
“And I want to smack you on the head right now, but I know it’s wrong, so I won’t do it.”
“I mean, I do deserve it,” Taland said, and I knew he was trying to make me feel better, but it didn’t work.
“Let’s just get inside.” I didn’t want to have to keep looking at those trees or be out here a second longer now that I knew what those names were.
Taland held me to his side, arm around my shoulders, and we went straight to the bedroom. I was no longer cold, but I slipped under the covers and welcomed the heat of his magic when he lay down with me and whispered a heating spell.
It was something to do, something to occupy my mind with until he got comfortable and started speaking.
“It started right away when I awakened them,” Taland said. “I told you before—I can hear them.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think that also included you waking up in the middle of the night to stab trees.”
He pulled me closer until we were face-to-face, our noses almost touching.
“I’ve been trying to keep them back, but it’s not working,” he whispered, not a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Why not?” I whispered back.
“Because they’re too strong.”
“But how did Titus do it? Did he go around stabbing trees and carving out their names, too?” Taland shook his head. “Do you think Hill would have agreed to bring them back to life if he knew they could literally take control of him like that?”
“Not for a second,” he admitted.
“So, it can be done.” That’s what it sounded like to me.
“Yes,” Taland said. “It’s just me who can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it requires me to… shut them down completely. To order them to stay silent.”
“And you won’t do that, because…?”
Taland closed his eyes and breathed in deeply for a moment. I reached out and touched his cheek, and his pain was my pain, so I felt my shoulders crushing together with him.
“They were tricked, sweetness,” he finally said. “Each and every one of these men who signed their souls to Titus were tricked. They were lied to. They were taken advantage of.” He swallowed hard, held my hand against his cheek. “I can hear their memories. Titus promised them freedom as soon as the war was over—he lied. Titus promised them that their families would be safe and taken care of—he lied to get them to give him their souls to link to, and now they can’t pass through to the other side.” Shivers rushed down my back. “I can hear the ones who’ve already been physically destroyed, too. They remain here still; they’re trapped, all of them. They can’t rest in peace or in any kind of way—they’re trapped and they’re relentless and they just want to cross over. They just want this to be over .”
“Oh, my Goddess, Taland…”
“And every second of every day they’re speaking into my head, begging me to release them. Screaming for me to set them free so they can finally get the peace they deserve. They are so, so loud.”
Closing my eyes to release the tears that had pooled in them, I dragged myself closer and hugged him tightly, hid my face under his chin.
“Most of them were fathers. They all had families, people they loved. People they left behind for this. To silence them, I have to order them to keep all that pain to themselves, like Titus did. And I’m the only one who can hear them, sweetness. Nobody else can. Nobody else has for seven hundred years.”
My shoulders shook as I cried, even though I was holding onto his body with all my strength.
“That’s awful, ” I managed to choke out while he kissed my head and rubbed my back to get me to calm down.
“It is. Which is why I won’t order them to stay silent. I’m hoping to…find another way, but if I don’t push back, they take over. It’s a losing battle,” he said, desperate, but now pissed off, too. I could tell by how rigid every muscle in his body suddenly became.
For a moment, a long moment, all we did was breathe. Hold onto each other and think and breathe and try to come to terms with this heartbreaking revelation.
Well, me —because he knew about this possibly since the first day. Or he figured it out soon after. And I knew he didn’t want me to worry, but I fucking hated it when he kept things from me.
So, I said, “You don’t trust me.”
He stopped. Pushed my head up and looked at me. “I trust you more than I trust myself.”
“You kept this from me, Taland.”
“Because I didn’t want to worry you, I didn’t—” And he was feeling awful about it, but he could suck it up and deal with it because I felt bad, too.
“And you think worry is going to break me?” I rose on one elbow. “Newsflash, Taland—it won’t, but you continuing to keep secrets from me will.”
“Fuck, baby,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment.
“It makes me feel weak,” I admitted, even if I would have rather not said a word, but I was preaching about not keeping secrets, and I didn’t want this to weigh on me and turn to resentment later. “It makes me feel like this fragile little thing when you don’t want to worry me. ”
Throwing his head back, he laughed, and it was bitter.
“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, sweetness. Nothing about you is fragile,” he said, and I knew he believed that, but it was nice to be reminded. Because if he thought I was weak, then I was afraid that I would believe him, and if I believed him, I would really be weak.
“Then stop keeping things from me. I can handle it, damn it. I can handle it.” I handled putting him in prison—he should know by now that I could handle anything else.
“I know. I won’t keep anything from you again,” he said and hugged me to him tightly, kissed my lips. “Like the fact that the only time when they’re silent is when I’m with you. Talking or…doing things to you.”
“Maybe they’re afraid of me and don’t think I’m a weakling,” I teased, just to try to lighten up the mood.
“Actually, at first I thought they were just as fascinated by you as I am, but now I think it’s because of how fully you hold my attention. There’s no way for them to get through. It’s been keeping me alive.”
I kissed him back, pushed him down on the bed and climbed on top of him, arms wrapped around his neck.
“Taland, you have to release them,” I whispered, so low you’d think I was terrified that someone might hear. Someone might think that it was an absurd, ridiculous idea.
Closing his eyes, Taland just lay there and breathed for a moment, let me kiss his face.
Then, he said, “They make sure we’re safe. They make sure you’re safe better than I ever will be able to.”
“Nobody’s going to come for us anymore, Taland. It’s been two weeks.”
He smiled, eyes closed still. “They’ve been trying to get through twice a day, every day.”
My breath cut off and my heart skipped a long beat. “Are you serious?”
Taland nodded. “They’ve been sending drones, soldiers, agents.”
Goddess, the way my stomach twisted. “ And ?!”
“And nothing. They can’t get through.”
“The soldiers?—”
“Are more than capable of stopping them, sweetness. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about even if the Council comes here themselves—which they won’t,” he cut me off.
My eyes squeezed shut and I breathed in deeply. Fuck, my thoughts were racing with too many possibilities and imagined scenarios now. I’d forgotten was it was like to have a chaotic mind in less than two weeks, and I understood why. My head was so, so heavy on my shoulders all of the sudden…
“Which is why I’ve been hesitant to figure out how to release them,” Taland continued, playing with my hair, his lips against my cheek. “If they’re gone, the Council will get to us.”
“Apparently, they will,” I said, moving off him to lie on the bed again because I needed a moment.
“I’ve been trying to come up with different ideas, different spells on how to take them off the radar. Me and you, I can erase us from anything, no problem, but they stay together, and together, they emit too strong a signal. I can’t seem to be able to keep it under. I can’t just… turn it off .”
“And you’ve been figuring all of this out without me,” I said, and I tried—Goddess, I tried not to be bitter about it, but I was. At least a little bit.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Taland said. “But your safety is my responsibility. I should have told you about the voices and the soldiers, but it’s my job to protect you and I will do that job thoroughly whichever way I see fit.”
Just now he didn’t really sound sorry at all, actually. “I’m not a baby you need to babysit, Taland,” I spit, and he smiled.
“Noted.”
“And it’s not your job ? — ”
“We can argue about this. You won’t win,” he cut me off, then gave me a peck on the lips.
I sighed. “Fine.” I didn’t want to argue, anyway. There were apparently more pressing issues that needed to be addressed first. “We’ll argue later. Right now, I need to know if there’s anything else you’ve been keeping from me since we came here.”
“Aside from having made up my mind that you look much better naked—no, I think you know everything.”
“Asshole,” I muttered, but when he pulled me in to kiss me, I didn’t stop him.
“I’ll be anything at all as long as I’m here,” he said, raising my hand to his lips to kiss my fingertips.
All that anger was starting to fade away already. “What else?” I asked, even if I hated to take him back there. But I needed to know. I wanted to understand this whole thing better, how deep it went. “What else have they been telling you?”
Taland didn’t hesitate. “Stories—mostly about their loved ones. Their families. It’s not so much that they’re telling me these things, more like…I’m seeing their memories.”
“Like you saw mine when you carried me through the Drainage?”
“Exactly like that,” Taland said, and when he was done kissing my hand, he leaned in to kiss me on the lips, too. “It’s like the images in their minds are mine—for me to read like books or see them like movies. This one man, Luigi from Romania, whose parents abandoned him when he was four, left him in the middle of the street, was raised by three prostitutes in a brothel. He grew to love them like his own sisters. He took Titus’s deal because he offered all three of them houses and enough money to live comfortably without having to set foot in a brothel ever again. He was nineteen.”
Shivers ran down my spine. “That’s fucking sick.” And it made perfect sense, unfortunately. A man like Titus, a power-hungry fucking monster would use his money to trick and entrap someone as young as that boy.
“I can see him, you know,” said Taland, and my breath caught all over again. “I can see him through their eyes. Through their memories. He was… good. Really good.”
I rose on my elbows again. “Good, how?”
“At tricking people. At making them trust him. Believe in anything he said. He was strikingly handsome, with long hair and an easy smile—and a fortune in his pockets he didn’t seem to mind spending. Every single one of the soldiers who linked themselves to him genuinely believed he was a good guy.”
“Goddess, that’s incredible, Taland. This kind of magic…” I shook my head, at a loss for words.
“Should be wiped from all books and the minds of everyone in the world,” he whispered. “Sweetness, he’s tied them to himself like animals. Worse than animals. He’s made slaves out of their souls.”
I snuggled closer again, rested my head over his shoulder. Goddess, his heart was galloping like it was being chased by a storm.
“He was a monster,” I whispered, kissing his skin. “But you’re not.”
“I know,” he said. “I would never even dream of trapping someone like that, let alone work Goddess knows how many years it took him to create that curse.”
“Tell me more,” I whispered. “Do you mind?” Because I wanted to know. I wanted to share his pain with him. I wanted to understand him fully, and I could only do that if I knew what he knew.
“You don’t have to, baby,” he said.
“I know. I want to.”
“You sure?”
“Unless you don’t want to talk about it, I am.”
“I do. It’s actually…easier than I thought,” he said in wonder. “Talking about it out loud, I mean.”
I nodded, kissed him on the chest again, right on his tallarose. “Then tell me everything.”
The night was young, and Taland spoke slowly, told me stories about the soldiers who had been tricked and manipulated by a man seven centuries ago like it all had happened these past few years. I listened to every word he said, absorbed every little detail, and by the time the sun lit up the sky outside our window, I felt like I knew those men as personally as Taland did. I felt like I’d sat with them, had talked to them, had created connections with them, too.
And for a while, I couldn’t stop crying silent tears for all of them.