39. Bash
Chapter 39
Bash
T he air had grown colder the higher we rode. We had taken extra time to blanket the horses in addition to upping their feed to maintain their energy levels for the uphill ride, but the more frequent stops had me anxious to get going. I knew I was pushing them too hard—the horses and our people—in my haste to beat Aviel to Adronix. But with only two days left to ride, barring anything unexpected, even these quick stops and scarce hours of rest at night felt like a risk when our maps couldn’t be trusted, and we had no way to know if our lead held.
“So, what are we going to do about Eva?”
Yael rode up next to me, Indra nickering softly as Arion came beside her, extending his neck to brush their noses together. Though Rivan’s dusky steed hated most other horses, Indra was one of the few he tolerated, let alone allowed that close. Yael lifted her chin toward my anima , who was passing out rations and a few extra blankets to a group of Solearans she had fallen back to ride with today. While tonight the tents would magically compensate for the colder weather, I knew that the gesture would be appreciated with the long, cold hours left in our journey as twilight turned to dusk. She knew each of them by name, I realized, as she exchanged a few words with one, then another. I could see the hero worship in a young Solearan’s eyes as she leaned forward, taking their hand with a quick smile of encouragement.
She was already a natural leader, more fit to be the High Queen of this realm than she realized. I only hoped she would get that chance.
Not for the first time, I wondered exactly what the Choosing entailed. If all went to plan, Eva would face whatever trial awaited her the day after next. And while I had no doubt she would be more than up to the task; I couldn’t help but wonder what else she would have to endure.
“Since she still seems determined to die for the rest of us?” Rivan asked, knocking me from my thoughts.
I gritted my teeth. “We’ve discussed it.”
Rivan let out a humorless laugh. “As have we. But I know when I’m being mollified.”
I knew Eva hadn’t let her original plan go, not entirely. I was still terrified that she saw herself as disposable when she was anything but.
Yael shook her head, her gaze still on my anima . “I think we all know that if it comes down to it, she’ll sacrifice herself anyway.”
Eva had been steadily drawing into herself the closer we got to Adronix. Not shutting me out like she had before but…I could feel something stagnant across our bond, wearing away at her. It was like she was slowly going into shock. It scared me to see her so lost; her dead-eyed stare at the ceiling of our tent when she thought I had fallen asleep. And I hated myself for it—that I couldn’t seem to help her.
Instead, I waited, struggling to keep my breathing even as I wrapped my arms around her. Feeling her apprehension deepening across our bond with each day, like a storm looming on the horizon. Straining to keep my own impotent anger in check as it raged against a threat I couldn’t fight.
I wondered if she realized that taking her own life would be tantamount to taking mine along with it.
For a second, I thought of my mother, wasting away before our eyes after my father’s death. How much I hated her for it then. It seemed a strange form of cruelty that I now understood the reason she hadn’t been able to go on without him, even for us.
Because even if I didn’t let myself wither away like she had, there was no doubt in my mind that I would no longer be whole if Eva was taken from me.
“I know,” I admitted hoarsely, flexing my hands from where they had formed into fists.
Rivan sighed. “She doesn’t get that option if we defeat him first.”
Yael let out a mirthless laugh. “I’ll add that to the list of impossible things.”
I closed my eyes, careful not to let my worries leak down our bond. They would only add to Eva’s.
“She's one of us.” Rivan took my hand, then Yael’s, his lavender eyes narrowing in stubborn surety. “We won’t let anything happen to her.”
I watched Eva laugh softly at something one of my rangers said, wishing I could hear the fleeting sound of it over the din. “In the meantime, it can’t hurt to remind her exactly how much she has to lose.”
The clouds had lifted, the night vast and startlingly clear. A thousand stars glistened in the sky, peeking through the snow-dusted treetops in a glittering cosmic display.
It seemed foolish to even try to sleep with what lay ahead. To toss and turn in the few hours we had to do so, or pretend we weren’t both separately spiraling—Eva’s carefully even inhales and exhales a far cry from the soft breathing of slumber.
She held my hand as I led her down the dark path past camp. I frowned as we reached a patch of gray, a desiccated stump sticking through the thin layer of snow, carefully leading her around it so her boots didn’t touch the curse’s erosion.
A ribbon of shadow wrapped around Eva’s eyes, blindfolding her, though she had promised me she wouldn’t look. She shivered as a gust of wind brushed snow from the trees, bespeckling her chestnut hair. I pulled her cloak tighter around her, using it to tug her closer to my side. The moon lit her face in an otherworldly mosaic of light and shadow, and I couldn’t help but run my thumb along her jaw, tracing her lower lip as her mouth curved upward at my attention.
“Just a little further,” I promised.
In a clearing of the forest, a fire crackled merrily, blankets already laid out on the logs my shadows had pulled into a circle around it. A paltry version of our first nights in the Faewilds together, but a passable one.
“You can look now,” I whispered low in her ear, smiling at the way her breath caught. A tremble traveled through her that had nothing to do with the cold.
Eva’s lips parted as I let my shadows fall, her eyes gleaming in the firelight. That perfect dimple formed as a slow smile crossed her face, the stress of our journey banished for one single moment. I gave her an easy, lazy grin in return like everything was as simple as I wished it could be. My fingers spanned the side of her face, my focus wholly centered on her lips as I leaned in and kissed her, feeling her melt into me in response.
She let out a soft sigh as she pulled away, sitting down heavily in front of the fire like the weight of the world had crashed back down on her shoulders.
“I thought we could both use a moment,” I explained as I sat beside her, slinging an arm around her waist and dragging her legs across my lap.
Her smile was a little sad. “More than one, but I’ll take what I can get.”
I pressed a kiss into her hair. The fire crackled, the embers flying upward before they faded into the snowy trees.
Despite the circumstances, traveling through the woods with Eva brought back a flood of perfect memories. Even if this time, our bed was shared rather than two bedrolls carefully positioned head-to-head, our hands reaching for each other in our sleep.
A hint of melancholy crossed our bond, and I realized Eva’s eyes were closed as if memorizing this moment. But I could sense the instant her thoughts darkened, her exhaustion a sharp contrast to the way her apprehension thrummed, could hear the careful cadence of her breathing I knew was instinctual. It killed me to see her so scared, so hunted. I was suddenly afraid of what I might see when she opened her eyes.
When she did, her irises had darkened into pools of obsidian. My shadows wrapped around the wisps of night that darted from her fingertips almost uncontrollably, my heart lodging in my throat.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Eva let out a bone-weary sigh. “The same thing I’ve been focused on since we began this adventure. When we get inside that mountain, I need to find that mirror.”
“ We need to find that mirror,” I corrected her sharply. “Do you think you have to do this alone? To face him by yourself?”
“ If the mirror lets you pass,” Eva countered. “Even with your Celestial eligibility, it’s not like there’s a rulebook. If this is my destiny, then what if it only lets my magic through?”
I glared at her, and she glowered right back. “Then Tobias will come with you to help. Your bloodlink should be enough even if I can’t?—”
“What exactly are you worried about? That Aviel will kill me, or that I’ll do it for him?”
My reply stuck in my throat.
She slammed her hand down on the log and darkness shot from her fingertips, careening into the night. “Do you think I want to die? Do you think that every time I look around me, I’m not reminded of what I have to lose? That when I look at you, I don’t know exactly what I’d be giving up?” Her voice wavered. “Do you think I don’t want another way? A different world?”
It broke something in me to hear the vulnerability in her voice, the fear of what was to come. The pang of her grief that resonated in my own chest. Wordlessly, I held her more tightly.
“Of course, I’m afraid it might come to that,” Eva whispered. The flecks of gold in her eyes seemed to come alive in the flickering firelight. “But what I have to do is more important than fear.”
“We can do this without your sacrifice,” I said staunchly. “We can stop him.”
“I do want to believe you.” She pressed her forehead to mine. “But even if I don’t…” Her voice broke off, and she swallowed. “Do you really think we can stop Aviel without killing him?”
“Way ahead of you, hellion,” I said, grimacing at his name on her lips even though I was happy to see she wasn’t avoiding it any longer. “After you’ve gone through the Choosing, we’ll fight him together, wearing him down until he’s drained of his stolen power. Then secure him in iron to keep him from touching anyone else to gain more.” Eva shuddered, and I knew she was thinking about the iron box I knew still haunted her nightmares. A ruthless part of me hoped we could track down that same box after this war was over and let Aviel live in it for the rest of his life. “And then we’ll finally trap him under the mountain he was supposed to be in all along. Or at least until we can figure out a way to undo what he did.”
If that was even possible.
She nodded slowly, consideringly, even if something about it felt placating.
He deserved to die. For the curse, for the wars, for all of it. For my father’s death at his hand, and my mother’s death because of it. For the murder of Eva’s parents, for her brother’s imprisonment, and for everything he did and tried to do to her. For the nightmares still lurking in her mind and for the ones that turned out to be real. And for all the years she spent sad and suffering and lonely.
But not at the cost of her life.
Eva absentmindedly rubbed her hand against the scar by her neck and rage coiled in my stomach. She looked tired as she quietly said, “But if it doesn’t work…it’s not such a terrible thing, to die for what you believe in and for the people you love. To leave this world to make it a better place.”
I could feel that combination of terror and resolve across our bond, the same as I had felt from her before she had given herself up for the rest of us. For a heartbeat, I could even feel those bands of light cutting into me as they dragged me away from her.
Despite my best effort, my voice wavered as I said, “It won’t be a better world without you.”
Her teeth skated over her bottom lip. “Bash…”
“Don’t even try to argue against that,” I said warningly.
“Every time I stop to think, I remember that I could stop this all now,” Eva whispered, her voice hesitant. “I know that there’s another way. But I can’t help but feel horribly selfish. Our people’s lives, our friends’ lives, your life…they’re all depending on me. And I feel like I’m failing.”
My hand curled into a fist at my side. “What if I were to ride out tonight alone?” Eva’s eyes shot to mine, suddenly wide with alarm. “Use my shadows to shield me. Find a way into Aviel’s camp and see if I could take him down like the assassin I was trained to be in the last war?”
“And why exactly should I let you risk your life instead of mine?” Eva’s words were clipped despite her pressing panic across our bond.
“Because we’re more expendable than you are,” Yael said from behind us. “All of us.”
Eva went still. Yael, Marin, Rivan, Quinn, and Tobias stepped out from the tree line, coming to sit on the logs beside us.
Quinn’s lips were pressed into a hard line, not a hint of her usual smile to be found. Tobias folded his arms across his chest, though his face remained an impassive mask. Yael simply smirked, tugging Marin to her side and wrapping a blanket around them both.
Eva’s hands were so tightly fisted, I knew her nails bit into her scarred palm. “No. Never. Not to me.”
“Hypocrite,” Quinn coughed.
Eva stiffened, a strange mix of shame and determination shining in her eyes.
Rivan sat down on Eva’s other side with a sigh. “Blood and magic are a strange, fickle thing, in some ways more so than Seeing. Even if you were to sacrifice yourself now, it doesn’t mean it would stop the war that’s coming. The battle that was always meant to happen, so long delayed. Some of our people will die fighting to stop the False King from once again taking over this realm. And it will be worth it, to die fighting for what we believe in. But to lose you now before the fight has even begun? If that sprite wasn’t right, we lose our best chance to stop him, and our future High Queen all at once.”
Eva’s lips were trembling. She squeezed her eyes shut, and I reached out to take her hand. “I don’t want to fight about this. Not when our time together might be limited.”
“Then believe in us,” I said softly. “In all of us. Because none of us can fight a war while being distracted that you might suddenly decide to end yourself. You need to believe we can win this without your sacrifice.”
Tobias nodded from where he sat across from his sister, his eyes sparking with light too bright to be a reflection of the flames. “You and I haven’t survived what we have and made it this far to fail now.”
Eva bit her lip, her eyes darting between us before she whispered, “Okay.”
Yael raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”
Eva’s mouth twitched. “I believe that we can win. Even if Aviel does beat us to Adronix. I won’t use what I know, even then, unless I’m absolutely sure there’s no other way to stop him.”
It was a careless truce. But one I could live with.
“Though don’t expect us to entirely let this go either, or to take our eyes off you until this is over,” Rivan added with a dangerous smile.
Eva let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can convince you otherwise?”
Rivan’s smile widened. “Not a chance in hell, sweetheart.”
Yael chuckled grimly. “Now that that’s out of the way, I suppose it’s time to talk about what comes next.”
“When we get to Adronix, we need to get Eva to the Seeing Mirror so she can complete the Choosing,” I said, having run through these steps in my head as we rode so often it felt strange hearing them aloud. “Then defeat Aviel’s army, isolate him and drain his magic while doing so, and imprison him underneath Adronix where he belongs.”
“One impossible thing at a time,” Eva added with a slow smile.
I grinned at her.
“I’ve been thinking about how to better drain his magic,” Marin murmured. She reached into her pocket, withdrawing a familiar oval stone. “The way our mother’s invention works is to draw power from that which shouldn’t possess it, such as the magic-blocking bands you two wore.” Tobias and Eva let out an identical wince as she gestured at them both. “But she originally made it to be used on those cursed with unwanted magic. It should be able to drain Aviel of the magic he’s stolen.”
“Hopefully, it will protect whoever uses it on him if he tries to steal more magic from them,” Yael added. “Or at least long enough to incapacitate him.”
Marin held it out to Eva, who shook her head. “Keep it for now. If he finds us while I’m off wherever the Seeing Mirror takes me for the Choosing, I won’t leave you all unprotected.”
“And if Aviel beats us to the mountain after all?” Quinn asked pointedly.
A muscle flickered in Rivan’s jaw. “Then our first priority is to keep him from reaching the Seeing Mirror.”
“But if he does, Eva isn’t the only one who can make it through the gate,” I said. Tobias nodded gravely, obviously following my train of thought. “So Tobias and I will do whatever we can to keep him from going through the Choosing long enough that Eva can claim her birthright.”
I refused to think of the alternative—the one where he already succeeded in stealing my anima ’s crown.
“And take him down any way we can, short of killing him,” Tobias added grimly to a chorus of nods.
There was a restless sort of hope in having a way forward, despite the many ways it could go wrong.
Eva’s mouth twitched as she looked around the circle. “As much as I’m enjoying our late night gathering, I didn’t realize my fallback plan merited an intervention.”
“You’re our High Queen,” Yael said. “But more importantly, you’re our family.”
“And we’re not letting you go without a fight,” Quinn murmured, shivering slightly as a cold breeze tore through the trees, a shimmer of snow falling from their branches. Tobias shifted closer to her, as if he might shield her from the chill.
“Come on,” I said, reaching out a hand to pull Eva to her feet. “We should all try to get some rest before tomorrow’s trek.”
Eva let out a long breath as we ducked into our tent, her shoulders slumping. She had been silent as we walked back to camp, looking into the night as though it might look back. I cupped her face, coaxing her gaze back to mine.
I half expected an argument, but she simply lifted up onto her tiptoes, her teeth grazing my earlobe.
“Are you trying to distract me?” I managed as her mouth worked its way downward.
She laughed softly, her breath caressing my neck. “Is it working?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
Gods, I wanted her— needed her. Wanted to make her feel anything but the looming dread trickling into a suffocating stream down our bond. Needed to lose myself inside her for the same reason, the primal urge to feel her around me outweighing even the ceaseless building exhaustion from so many days of travel, worry, and limited sleep.
And somehow, I let myself be distracted. Somehow, I found myself distracting her in return from the horrible truth of what we would soon have to face, losing ourselves in each other’s bodies until she was all there was.
Our bond was free of worry, hers and mine, as we finished. Sleepily, her eyes drank me in, her fingers tightening against my chest like she was as afraid as I was that she would slip away.
“Stay,” I whispered, my voice thick. “Right here, with me. Whatever happens, we’ll fight it together.”
Please don’t make me watch you die.
Eva looked at me, eyes more golden than hazel in the lantern light. “Always.”
She settled against me, and I held her against my heart, the love shining across our bond warming me from the inside out.
“I’m yours,” Eva whispered, that dimple deepening. “And you’re mine.”
“Always,” I repeated, my fingers trailing down her side in leisurely strokes.
Her breathing evened out as I traced our names against her skin with my fingertips. As if the act itself was as magical as writing words upon our palms; a silent plea to forever keep us as entwined as the invisible looped letters I continued drawing until I went to find her in my dreams.