Chapter 54 Jude
Jude
Jude awoke sprawled out on a patch of scrubby grass. The ceaseless beat of waves came from somewhere nearby and, underneath, the hiss of frantic whispering. He peeled his eyes open. The sky above him wavered as the smell of the sea ate away the lingering smoke in his nose.
‘Maeve,’ he croaked. His throat ached.
Her ashen face appeared above him, the hand on his shoulder stopping him from sitting up. Tears tracked messy streaks down her scrubbed pink cheeks. Her gaze darted between him and something to her left. ‘Just… just rest a bit longer. Okay?’
His whole body throbbed, a rhythmic pulsing that originated in his lungs to travel down each limb.
He turned his neck to better see where he was lying.
To his surprise, Elden stood beside the low stone wall separating the grassland from the beach beyond.
His shoulders were curled inwards, eyes wide as they searched across the sky. An emptiness blanketed his face.
A look Jude had seen before.
‘He’s not well,’ Maeve whispered. ‘We’re not sure his memories were returned like everyone else’s.
He doesn’t know where he is. Who I am. He only recognized you.
’ She moved her hand to his lower ribs, thumb circling lightly until his focus returned to her.
Her voice dropped even further. ‘He carried you from the basilica. He saved your life.’
Jude swallowed past the burning in his throat. ‘What happened?’
She wet her lips. ‘I lost you in the crowd leaving the basilica. All the icons were burning. The smoke was impossible to see through, to breathe—’ Her hand moved further up his stomach to rest over his heart.
‘By the time I made it out of the Abbey, you were gone. I couldn’t find you anywhere.
’ She clapped a hand over her mouth as a fresh bout of tears rushed down her cheeks.
‘Maeve,’ Jude started. Tears brimmed in his own eyes. ‘I’m right here. We’re both safe.’
She nodded, steadying her voice. ‘Then I saw Elden come running out of the basilica with you in his arms. You’d passed out, and he’d found you.
He ran right past me like I wasn’t even there.
He… he punched a guard.’ She loosened a damp laugh.
‘Felix and I followed him here. I think he wanted to put you somewhere safe, where the guards or elders wouldn’t find us quickly. He won’t leave your side.’
Sure enough, Elden had drifted closer as Maeve spoke. His gaze was fixed on Jude, yet he didn’t think he really saw him. His brows were furrowed tightly, lips moving around silent words.
‘His mind has been in the Abbey’s grip for a very long time.’
Jude startled, turning to see Felix standing to his left. Felix stared at Elden with a burning, gut-wrenching sadness in his eyes before his gaze peeled free to land on Jude. He knelt by Jude’s head.
‘Longer, even, than either of us,’ Felix continued. ‘He doesn’t have the magic we do. His mind isn’t able to shield against the Abbey’s control. There was nothing of him to take, only space to fill.’ He scraped his teeth over his lower lip. ‘I think we… you can help to undo it though, Jude.’
‘Me?’ Jude asked, incredulous.
Felix nodded. ‘You… you know him best, now.’
Did he, though?
Elden had betrayed him more egregiously, more painfully than anyone ever had before, even Ezra.
He’d taken the fragile shards of trust Jude had given him and shattered them completely.
He’d lied, deceived, and manipulated his way into friendship, only to turn Jude over to the Abbey in the final hour.
But. But.
Buried deep beneath the hurt and the anger was the seed of knowledge that just as Jude had been manipulated and deceived, so had Elden.
And he needed to know why. Needed to cut off the final thread of the Abbey’s malignant touch once and for all.
Find a way to move on, if there was even anything remaining to be salvaged.
But how?
It came to him slowly, in bits and pieces, until a picture formed in three parts.
The first was his books. How he’d learned to press his hands to their pages and give of himself. He knew how to search his brain for what he wanted to uncover and dredge it to the surface with the precision of a surgeon. A skill he had won with time and stubbornness and desperation.
The second was of Maeve in that cursed Abbey classroom, laying her hand over his eyes until his vision was restored. Using her magic to help him remember how to see, as she’d put it.
And the third was of Bethan. Her magic, so pure and good to her, was a gift she’d long tried to convince him to cherish. He’d never been able to see it as anything less than a burden.
Perhaps it was time to change his outlook. Time to use his magic for good.
His arms trembled as he levered himself upright. ‘Elden? Can you come here?’
His eyes drifted across Jude’s face. Slowly, as if controlling his body from somewhere far away, he bent his legs and sat. Maeve shifted to give him space, the hand on Jude’s chest moving to his thigh. She squeezed encouragingly.
Jude forced himself to take Elden’s hand.
His work-roughened skin was clammy and cold, fingers slack.
Pushing past the discomfort, Jude closed his eyes.
Like he did with his books, like he had accidentally done so many times before when his emotions were high, he allowed his magic to leap forward between him and Elden.
At first, he could only see fog. Gold and white with a sickly sweetness that slunk into his nose, down his throat. He fought a gag. Pushing down towards that soft, confusing place where his magic lived inside him, he pictured a strong gale coming from the sea, salt-tinged and refining.
A steady warmth filled him as he called upon his magic.
It flowed freely, leaving behind an almost euphoric energy in his limbs.
Was this how it was always meant to feel, free from the Abbey’s touch?
Was it always meant to be something so pure, so clarifying, like the first gasp of air after drowning?
Jude focused, letting it fill him – happy, for once, to be consumed.
Slowly, the fog inched back. Somewhere deep in Elden’s brain, his memories trembled.
Real memories.
Jude pressed harder, commanding his magic to remind Elden he had a body, he had a mind – preferences and opinions, likes and dislikes.
Pieces of a person that made up a whole.
As the haze continued to roll back, a strange sense of peace swept in its place.
The steadiness of a cup of tea at bedtime, a walk in the moors.
A rag for his hands when he came in from the garden.
You, you, you, Jude begged. This is you.
Elden’s hand slipped from his, his body jolting. He panted, looking around wildly until his gaze fell on Jude. He stilled as recognition coloured his features.
‘Jude,’ he murmured.
‘Ah good, you’re back.’ Jude pushed himself fully upright, trying his best to quell the instinctual softness he felt towards Elden and focus only on his anger. If Elden was here, if he was lucid, he could answer his questions. ‘I’m owed an explanation, Elden,’ he said. ‘At the very least.’
Maeve’s hand on his thigh stiffened before pulling away completely.
Elden took a deep, shuddering breath. He reached towards Jude, dropping his hand back into his lap when Jude flinched. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am.’
Jude wouldn’t let the pain in his voice sway him. ‘You’re Ezra’s son.’
‘I – yes. I am.’
‘And your memories are back?’ Jude asked.
Elden’s chest moved roughly up and down. ‘Yes. All—’ he cleared his throat. ‘All of them.’
‘What happened once Felix and I helped you escape all those years ago?’ Jude asked, pressing forward no matter how much it hurt. ‘Did you always plan to betray me, or was that something you decided after getting to know me? A fun little side diversion, perhaps? Something to keep the boredom away?’
Elden’s only reaction to his acerbity was a slight tightening of his mouth.
‘I was a woodsman for many years. Hiding from the Abbey. From… from my father. Then, the winter before I came to ánhaga, I fell ill. A horrible fever. They found me then, when I was too weak to fight back.’ His gaze flicked to Felix’s, leaving just as quickly.
‘The Abbey’s hold was immediate. I couldn’t defy it.
Couldn’t even remember what was happening until just there now. ’
Maeve inched closer, laying her hand on his forearm. Elden smiled at her faintly.
Jude cleared his throat. ‘And then what?’
‘I was sent to ánhaga as an informant. A spy. I tampered with your research, library, your life. I did all those things, reported them all—’ he cut off.
His eyes flew heavenward as anguish turned his face briefly unrecognizable.
‘There were hours… days, even, when I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing.
My fingers would be ink-stained, or there would be mud on my boots despite not having written anything or left the house.
I’d receive mail, open it, and forget immediately what it contained, no matter how many times I reread it.
And I couldn’t… I didn’t know how to stop it. ’
The full impact hit Jude like a battering ram.
Elden continued doggedly—‘Then, Maeve came, and it only got worse. They were interested in you, Jude, always.… But Maeve.’ His gaze fell to her.
‘With your iconography skills, they wanted you somewhere you could be watched. Once I told them you had painted Jude’s icon, they wanted you to return to the Abbey as soon as possible.
And when it wasn’t fast enough, when I told them about what you had figured out, they sent someone to kill Siobhan.
’ He heaved a breath. ‘I tried to stop them, but it was too late. I was too late.’
Jude shut his eyes briefly. The worry that Elden had been the one to kill Siobhan had haunted the furthest recesses of his mind, something he had refused to think about too deeply, knowing it would wreck him. Hearing that it hadn’t been Elden brought indescribable relief.
‘And then, in Whitebury, I had meant to—’ Elden’s voice cracked with the strain. ‘I was supposed to lock you both in the room at the inn. But it didn’t work out as planned. Jude was taken, and Maeve was not. And I was too unwell to help any further. I was no longer useful.’
‘The Abbey was controlling your memory? Your actions?’ Jude clarified.
‘Not the Abbey,’ Felix whispered. ‘Ezra. His father.’
Jude whipped around towards him. ‘You knew?’
Felix paused. His throat worked with a swallow. The gut-wrenching anguish was back in his eyes as he stared at Elden, a downturned softness to the corners of his mouth that Jude remembered from when they were boys. It seemed to take effort for him to clear it away and focus on Jude’s question.
‘I knew,’ Felix replied. ‘My mother is… was living in the Goddenwood. Each day there worsened her mind, and there was nothing I could do. Nothing. But if I complied and helped Ezra find Elden, convinced him to go to ánhaga and inform on you, they told me they would cease praying to her icon. She would be allowed to leave.’ He studied the ground beneath him.
‘It was a lie, of course. She’d been dead for over a decade.
I thought she was alive all this time. I only just remembered… ’ he trailed off, clearing his throat.
Jude rolled his lip between his teeth. Felix’s involvement stung like a thorn just under his skin. He understood what it was like to be manipulated, to be trapped under the Abbey’s thumb, but he couldn’t deny hearing about his role in Elden’s deception was a difficult reality to swallow.
‘Saints,’ Maeve whispered. ‘Is there no limit?’
‘What happened after the Abbey guards took me?’ Jude asked.
At this, an unexpected smile pulled at Elden’s mouth as his gaze shifted to Felix, like his words were for him alone.
‘Brigid found me. She used her magic to break some of the Abbey’s control, at least for a little while.
I got some of my… best memories back.’ He shifted, rubbing a hand over his chest. ‘There’s something else. Brigid – she’s my mum.’
‘What?’ This time, it was Felix who gasped. ‘I had no idea. This whole time?’
‘That’s generally how it works, yes,’ Elden remarked with a smile.
‘No one knew. Not even me. Her continued loyalty to the Abbey and her promise to keep quiet about my parentage were the only things that kept Ezra from seeking me after I escaped. If she remained at the Abbey and did her work, didn’t try to harm the Abbey with her knowledge, I would be safe.
’ He raised a brow. ‘Until, of course, Ezra decided to find me anyway. Keeping promises isn’t one of his strong points, I’d reckon. ’
‘Brigid,’ Maeve whispered, wonder in her voice. ‘Elden, that’s…’ she checked his face. ‘Good, right? She’s family. Someone to rebuild your life with.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I think it is.’
Silence weighed down, heavy and suffocating.
The weight of betrayal hadn’t left Jude’s chest. He didn’t know if it ever would, both towards Elden and Felix for his involvement.
But neither would the view of Elden, laying his darkest secrets out for his forgiveness, unflinching in his honesty.
Jude wanted to believe him, wanted to believe that the Elden he knew hadn’t been a fabrication.
The memories they held together, both as boys at the Abbey and as men at ánhaga, weren’t a lie.
He could learn to trust him again. It might even be easy.
The part of Jude that longed to forgive stretched its limbs. It hadn’t been Elden’s fault. Like Jude, like Maeve and Felix and every saint who had come before them, every person the Abbey had crushed beneath their feet, Elden was a victim, too.
Slowly, Jude reached out a hand.
Elden’s warm palm met his, squeezing tight.