Chapter XXXIV. Ellery
XXXIV
ELLERY
WINTER
The phone rang in the dead of night, rousing Ellery from her uneasy slumber.
She fumbled for the light. After returning from Nordmere, no sooner had she changed out of her traveling clothes and curled up with a magazine than she’d promptly passed out on her living room couch.
Although she’d lived in her Order-subsidized apartment for a month, it still didn’t feel like home.
The three days they’d spent in Nordmere had been an utter nightmare.
But even after their confrontation with Julian and Kester, Hanna had insisted they remain in the city until they’d combed through nearly every alleyway in search of Summer’s traitor, of Kythion, of anything that might prevent the trip from being a failure.
But multiple visits to the alban tree from Maltherius’s vision had proven fruitless, and the journey back to Gallamere had been a tense, near-silent affair.
“Hello?” she answered the phone.
“Hey. It’s me. We need to talk.”
It was the first time Domenic had called her since before the border’s fall.
Ellery reached for Iskarius on the coffee table, then hesitated. She longed to feel his closeness, but after Nordmere, she didn’t know if she could bear it.
“Oh, now you want to talk? After you confessed all those feelings at the bar and then haven’t even made eye contact with me in days? Why should I care what you have to say when you’ve made it impossible for me to ever believe you? So good night, and—”
“No, no, no, don’t hang up! I know I’ve been avoiding you, but that’s because I’ve been keeping something from you.”
The direness of his tone kept her on the line. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”
As he spoke, time seemed to slow. She was suddenly, acutely aware of the tiniest of sensations: her bare feet on the hardwood floors; the snow that had blown in through the open windows as she slept, clinging to her collarbones; the rustle of her silk slip against her skin.
The receiver trembled in her hand. Oblivion descended, not the quick slash of a scythe but a cruel crush of inevitability. She felt eerily, pristinely calm.
“So that’s it, then,” Ellery said once he finished. “We were never supposed to be heroes. We were supposed to be martyrs.”
“You’re sure?” Domenic whispered.
“What Hanna told you didn’t leave much room for interpretation.”
“I know, but you really think this is what we’ve been meant for? Something … something terrible?”
She chuckled darkly. “I think part of me always knew.”
At last Ellery understood the final wall between her and Glynn. If he’d suspected all along that she was Chosen, then he’d always known that one day, destiny would ask her to die.
“If you’re so sure,” Domenic said weakly, “then I guess I really have just been kidding myself.”
After that, neither he nor Ellery spoke for a while, instead only listening to the other breathing, still breathing, at least for now.
“I wanted it to be different,” she said matter-of-factly, as though she were talking about someone else. It almost felt like it. “I wanted it so much.”
“So did I. If only the cataclysm had come that first night of Winter. I would’ve made the sacrifice then. It would’ve been easy.”
“I would’ve done it, too. It’s a simple equation, isn’t it? Just us, so that everyone else can be safe. Only us.”
“So you’re ready, then?”
The question hung dreadfully between them.
At last, Ellery reached for Iskarius. She felt Domenic instantly, a warm caress across her cheek, her neck, as though he’d joined her on the couch. The lamps throughout the room brightened. The snow-clogged fireplace sputtered to life.
It was a lovely ache to feel his presence, so familiar and comforting. But it melted her eerie calm along with the frost.
“I-I don’t want to die,” she admitted. “And I know how selfish it is, how pathetic, but—”
“It’s not any of those things,” he cut in. “It’s not … it’s not fair.”
She wished Domenic was truly beside her, so they could touch each other, hold each other. Maybe that would be enough to ease the pain of every opportunity they’d wasted, to mourn their useless dreams of a future that would never come to pass.
“If this is all we’ll ever get, then I’m done caring about being noble,” she said. “Do we have to be heroes tonight?”
“No,” Domenic murmured. “We don’t.”
Ellery brushed spare snow off her lap and fixed her hair, as if this was just another of their late-night calls, commiserating about the paparazzi sleeping outside their doors or Sharpe referring to the fifty-one-year-old Prime Minister as a “girl.”
“I almost forgot how it feels to talk to you like this,” he said playfully. “With your magic this close, it’s like you’re right here, lying next to me.”
Ellery flushed. “So you’re in bed, huh?”
“I might be. Where are you?”
“I fell asleep on the couch.” She fiddled with her necklace. “You know, for all the time we’ve spent together, you’ve never actually visited my apartment.”
“I imagine it as Gallamere’s finest. A penthouse. Huge windows. Posters of Kent Sinclair all over the walls.” She was impressed—finally Domenic had remembered a movie star’s name.
“So you’ve been imagining it, then.”
“More times than I care to confess. I’m almost jealous. You, a Chosen One, living it up in the best accommodations the Order can buy. Then there’s me, a Chosen One, sleeping in the same bed as when I was thirteen.”
“Well, it seems only right after you gave me a grand tour that I return the favor.” Ellery enchanted her phone cord until it elongated and piled on the floor.
Then she wandered through the apartment, her footsteps muffled on the plush carpet.
“There’s a fireplace I don’t use, a kitchen I don’t cook in.
A study filled with books I’ve never read.
The dining room, for all the entertaining I do. And the walk-in closet.”
“Your favorite part, I’m sure.”
“It certainly gets the most use.” Ellery strolled inside it, admiring the racks of designer clothes, the jewelry drawers, the shoes lined in neat perfect pairs along the floor. It was more than anyone could reasonably wear in a lifetime. Not that Ellery had much of a lifetime remaining.
“Now I’m thinking about you in that dress from the Solstice Gala,” Domenic drawled. “I remember the color of it, that bluish-purple. You look quite striking in Valmordion’s filter, you know.”
Though he couldn’t see her, she felt suddenly, tantalizingly exposed in her lace-trimmed slip. His warmth kissed her bare shoulders, and a heat kindled in her center that had nothing to do with Summer’s magic.
“Sorry,” he said, sounding anything but. “Did I fluster you?”
“How can you tell?”
“I don’t feel the cold of you breathing.” His words had an oddly serious weight. “Do I look different to you when you hold Iskarius?”
She pondered that while she wistfully dragged her hand down the clothing rack, relishing the softness of cashmeres and wools and satins. “You’re … vivid.”
“Oh?”
“There’s pink on your cheeks, gold on your brow, red on your mouth, purple beneath your eyes.
It’s like you’re somehow brighter than the rest of the world.
And I know we crossed paths sometimes at school, but from the first time I looked at you, really looked at you, I’ve been unable to look away.
As if my eyes are drawn to you. As if you’re a… ”
An intrusive thought needled in her mind, in Kester’s voice:
A target.
“A what?” he pressed.
“A focal point,” she managed.
Ellery had tried to dismiss the idea that she and Domenic might be on opposing sides of a thousand-year war. But after so long without another prophecy piece, she needed to explore every possible path, no matter how desperately she wished it to be a dead end.
“Now it’s your turn,” she said coyly. “How do I look to you, when you hold Valmordion?”
“Hm, fair is fair, though it’ll be hard to find the words to do you justice,” he said.
“You look like … like a diamond. Every slope of you is like a cut. Some parts of you, your cheekbones, your hair, your eyes, they shine a thousand shades of silver. But your shadows, the ones across your neck, your jaw, they have layers and layers. The entire world is dull in comparison, as if I’m supposed to notice you.
As if I could find you no matter where you are. ”
The heat in her kindled more brightly. Yet just as Ellery was ready to cast her doubts aside, Domenic added, “You know, maybe we should’ve realized it as soon as I found you under the alban tree. That we were…”
“What?” she blurted. “What were you going to say?”
The silence between them shuddered. Ellery had spent weeks learning the patterns of his breathing. Now he exhaled against her cheek—slow, deliberate, measured.
He knew what she was doing. Except rather than accuse her, he answered, his voice oddly smooth, “Smitten.”
He was fishing too. Which meant he’d also considered that they were supposed to be enemies. Which meant that after weeks of playing their parts for everyone else, this entire conversation was built on a ruse.
She should call them both out; clear this bullshit aside. But even if they were wrong, merely voicing the possibility would be crossing a line. They would never be able to take it back.
“So, to resume the tour,” Domenic ventured finally. “Is there anything else in your apartment to show me?”
“I suppose all that’s left is the bedroom.”
The warmth of his magic heightened, as if she felt the very flush flooding over his skin. Apparently even their faux flirting could have a real effect.
“Sorry,” Ellery echoed him from earlier, pushing open her bedroom door. “Did I fluster you?”
“Fluster, no. Intrigue, maybe.” Then he tossed out, “So what was my giveaway, dear?”
“Your heart. It’s pounding.”
The lamps on the nightstands flickered—he’d noticed the strain in her voice. Anxiously, she held her breath, but of course he could sense that, too.
“Lie down,” Domenic commanded, and she didn’t know if his intensity was from want or worry.
Ellery curled up on the bed and tucked the phone beneath her ear. Her heart hammered in more ways than one.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed. “Where do you feel me?”
Her eyelids fluttered shut. His breath skimmed across her cheek, as if he lay inches away.
“You’re right beside me,” she answered. “You always are.”
“And are you lying on your back?”
Ellery turned over.
Immediately, she understood the point of his suggestion—she’d never considered the specifics of his presence, only that it was always so close, tantalizingly close. But his magic swept down the back of her neck.
She’d never wondered why, if they were meant to fight side by side, his presence was always behind her.
Her magic chilled, crackling beneath her skin as she clutched Iskarius.
Domenic didn’t acknowledge it. He didn’t need to—he felt it. Just like she felt his.
“Imagine me touching you,” Ellery spoke next.
The heat suddenly heightened enough to burn. “In any particular way or…?”
“Imagine I’m kissing your neck.” A twinge of longing escaped with her words as she remembered their kiss at the solstice. They’d felt so invincible then. “How does your magic feel?”
“It feels stronger when you touch me. But stronger’s not a good enough word for it.
It’s like my magic flares when you’re near.
Like my every sense is magnified. Like a fight-or-flight response.
” Domenic must’ve caught how that sounded, because he chuckled hastily.
“No, I’m not doing a good job at describing it.
Because I—I love it. How couldn’t I? It’s electrifying.
Your magic pours over me like ice water, but inside, I burn like a star. ”
His excuses only deepened her dread.
“Imagine that I sweep your hair aside so I can return the favor,” he went on. “I trace my finger down the back of that dress. How does your magic feel?”
Ellery let the fantasy play out. Her body responded, so alert, so alive. She wanted to melt in his arms, but she wasn’t sure she should. Suddenly the delusion shattered, and Ellery pictured herself engulfed in a brutal blaze, charring away to ash.
“D-do you hear what we’re saying?” she gasped. “Are we wrong to like this? Are we really meant to be—”
“No, don’t say it,” Domenic choked. “Please.”
“But we’re both thinking it,” she countered. “You’ve been fishing just as much as I have.”
“Only because I’ve been looking for proof it isn’t true.”
“And did you find any? Because all this conversation has done for me is make it harder to deny. Maybe we’ve only been fooling ourselves from the start.”
“I … I know how this looks. Believe me, the thought of it’s been torturing me for weeks.
But this traitor business, champion business—it’s all just getting into our heads, making us consider things that don’t even make sense.
The original prophecy called for peace. So please, El.
Tell me you see how wrong this is. Tell me you’re still sure we’re in this together. ”
Ellery touched the empty space across the bed, the duvet still perfectly made.
“I have a confession,” she said despairingly. “I know I told you Gallamere was my home, but I think I was wrong, Dom. I think it’s you.”
He uttered a fragile, hopeful sound.
“I’ll come over,” he said urgently. “I’ll leave right now. Because we’re in this together. Of course we are. So say the word, and I’m there.”
Yes hovered on the tip of her tongue. But she couldn’t be with him like this, doubting, dreading, wondering if they would die alone, or together, or in each other’s arms, or on each other’s swords.
“Don’t,” she forced out, and hung up.