Chapter 68
As I fell, freely, I knew that the thick, rumbling clouds covering the light grey sky were the last thing I was going to see. Earth and rocks surrounded my every side. A rocky vertical tunnel—I quickly realised where I was. And that’s when I knew I was soon to meet my death.
I vividly imagined Marshen’s body shattered alongside mine on a white, icy floor stained with a gory splatter of red. Would they leave our limp bodies there? Or would someone come later to discard them?
I pressed my eyes together. Perhaps now was the time I would finally join them.
I was ready. I was ready to meet my end—to meet them. A small part of me embraced the fall even. Perhaps the Seer was right; my deepest desire was not only to remember them, but to be forever reunited with them.
Will I remember them?
Will they remember me?
Behind the darkness, my last prayer, to whichever god I was not sure, echoed, “Let me remember them and let them remember me. Please.”
A cool surge surrounded me, some force of power enveloping me. I was sure I felt it.
Was my final prayer heard?
But then I heard him roar out my name. Aegir. And when I opened my eyes, I saw him, diving headfirst towards me. No.
I had never seen his face like that. Frantic. Grave. He grunted, his arms reaching towards me, but it seemed that no barrier could keep me from my fall.
A jolt of fear pulsed through me and I found myself trying to grasp and claw my way towards him. I reached and reached but I kept falling.
And when I was certain that I would soon find a floor made of thick ice ready to snap my bones, I was instead welcomed by an inviting bed of frigid seawater. Aegir’s doing, surely.
It let me in.
It greeted me.
It consumed me.
And so I kept falling.
And the more I fell, the lonelier it became. I was surrounded by cold obsidian, trapped in eerie silence. So. Cold.
The splitting pain in my head told me that I had opened my eyes, but blackness was all there was. I desperately searched the drowning void for him.
I wished I had the immortal flame; yet again, I wasn’t sure if I would have had the strength to use it. My bones, they felt so frozen.
The sea pulled me deeper and deeper into its cold depths, my lungs beyond the reach of air. I could do nothing but let the gelid darkness swallow my broken body as it pleased. Black waters embraced me and I kept falling…
But then I felt him. I felt him grab me by my waist, and I knew it was his touch and no one else’s. I felt his grip tighten, felt my chest against his own. And I could tell that we were no longer in the endless frigid water—I felt us soaring up.
Yet I couldn’t stop my fall.
His panting breath brushed my ear. I knew that he was rushing, still holding me close as he moved us in the crunchy snow.
I kept falling. Was I breathing?
Beyond his caress, the cool warmth of his healing power, I could hear one broken word, over and over. “Please.” Was it an echo or a repetition?
Then I heard voices, unfamiliar ones. The questions that lingered seemed those of concern.
“What happened?” someone asked.
“Get to my room. Light the hearth, heat the bath. She needs warmth.”
Footsteps.
The too-many voices murmured.
I could tell that the hearth was to my right; I could feel its warmth creeping in on me. Yet my skin, my bones, they remained gelid.
I tried to reach for him but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even twitch.
I kept falling.
The voices echoed, mumbled. They talked over each other.
“Get out! Everyone get the fuck out!”
Footsteps ebbed. Then silence. Then sound-barrier kind of silence.
“Cordelia.” I stopped falling. And it seemed it was always about the way he said my name. “Please wake up.”
I remained there in the endless darkness, hovering, unable to obey his plea.
His power pulsed within me. Always so ethereal, always so willing. It mended my bones. Caressed my lungs and my heart—wishing them to breathe, to beat.
“Please don’t leave me,” he whispered, just as I had once begged of him. He clutched my shoulders, shaking my limp body. “Don’t go all Lady Stonehead on me, please, wake up!”
“I’m sorry,” he choked. “I’m so, so sorry. But please believe me, I didn’t choose her. I choose you. Only you. Always you. Please wake up.”
With the gentlest touch, I felt my body turn bare, then it was covered with something heavy and warm, his powers never leaving my body—they intensified, reaching down to my very core.
I remained hovering, and despite the warmth that cocooned me, I felt completely and helplessly frostbitten.
“It was all a ruse, a bargain between Princess Maryam and me. It was my only way to secure the alliance. I once told you that I’d rather the whole world burned in your stead and I meant it.
But I got selfish, I wanted it to remain unburned.
I wanted it unburned so that I could live in it, with you.
I came so very close to losing you once, I couldn’t risk getting that close to losing you ever again and—and here I fucking am! I’m a fool!”
I could tell that he was furiously broken. I knew exactly what that felt like.
“I’m sorry it didn’t go as I had planned. I waited for you, to tell you about it, and to make you a promise that I was only yours. Please! I need my life back, please.”
He sobbed then.
I tried so hard to reach up to him but I couldn’t move…it felt as if I was slipping—as if death was near.
“Please.” His hands cupped my face, his powers coursing off his fingers with the lightest caress. I felt his lips brush against mine, his breath ragged as he wept. His tears fell into my mouth, their salt dissolving along my gums, my tongue. I swore I tasted truth in them.
“Please, Cordelia, my heart is yours; it has always been yours. And that day—that day I found you behind my bed, scared and hurt. That day, my soul knew it belonged to you.”
My own stirred. I willed myself to reach up. I willed myself to wake.
“My soulbound!” His voice wavered in pain, yet he claimed it with such pride, its sweet hymn wound its way through my skin, through my bones, through my soul.
And then I soared, my own fall urging me to wake.
My eyes sprang open.
Breathe.
My lungs filled with the deepest breath, but then the whole of me was stunned as I met and held his unwavering stare. There was such depth in his forest eyes—a meadow of green terrain. They widened as they stared back into my own.
The Seer’s song ripped through me, now spoken in the voice of another woman. A different woman. Dark, wise, and bound.
By the power of the lune and the main,
Nothing but the second shall remain,
All else hidden never to unveil,
Only when death is near,
A fragment shall reappear,
Ephemeral soon to disappear,
And when the intention is to claim,
And when blue sea meets green terrain,
Will the hidden truths be unchained.
“Cordelia,” he whispered.
“I remember,” I murmured.
I tried to reach for his face, but my heavy lids draped softly over my eyes, forcing me to slip into the realm of visions. I slumbered and wandered through an endless chain of vivid dreams. Except they were not dreams that I relived, but memories.
I remembered. I knew the Seer was wrong then—this was what I truly desired.
I remembered. I remembered her, my mother, her beautiful face, her kindness, her love.
My father, my teacher, my hero. I remembered.
I remembered that I was loved, I remembered that we exchanged such love and trust freely.
And then I remembered the sacrifice that had been made. I remembered a brown eye turning blue.