Chapter Thirteen
The moon is our devoted guide through the dark of the night, the stars her faithful followers.
According to Eliaz, who trudges on around ten feet ahead of me, the Divide is located half-a-mile south of Daegon Manor.
I keep my arms tucked away in my borrowed cloak as we weave through the winter-bare trees, stumbling every so often over hidden rocks that make the path uneven and unpredictable in the absence of daylight.
There isn’t an ounce of me that is interested in engaging in any more conversation with the king than I absolutely have to, so I traipse behind him with my preferred silence, rolling my eyes at the melodrama of the grunts he keeps pushing out to let me know how much he loathes being alone with me too.
A slight tugging of doubt pulls at my chest it rises and falls with the shallow breaths of physical exertion. I follow the king who has done nothing but cause me anguish deep into the woods, alone, with the hesitant belief that he truly does need my help, just as I his.
I cross the fingers on one hidden hand, desperate for some sort of action that will make me feel better, more in control. The gesture that calls on the Virtuae Gods. An unspoken prayer for guidance. For hope. It has been a long time since I felt worthy of an answer.
As the space between each tree becomes greater and the moonlight brighter, I infer that we must be getting close to our destination. We walk for another five minutes before we clear the woods completely, coming into fields of tall grass that rustle with the subtle breath of winter.
I search the length of the scenery for signs of the rippling mirror I vaguely recall from the journey over, a lifetime ago. If not for the faint whirr of energy that tingles my skin and raises the hairs from my arm, I would have no idea that I stand before it.
Eliaz is stopped two steps from my side, he looks down at me, our height difference I have only just noticed. He must be at least half a foot taller. The space between his thick eyebrows is etched with a furrow.
‘You look puzzled,’ he says, the first uttered words in the last half an hour.
I turn my gaze back on the empty air where the Divide should be. ‘In the memory you gave back to me of us passing through the Divide, it was much more… visible.’
Eliaz shoves his hands in the pockets of his fur-lined coat, his breath detectible in the air.
‘Our side is not like yours,’ he kicks a rock from where he stands. ‘I don’t quite know why. Perhaps, your father wanted to block out any reminders of what exists on the other half of the Isle.’
‘Hmm.’ I squint my eyes, trying to see if I could see even a hint of change in the night, a reflection, a ripple of energy. But nothing.
The king pivots towards me. ‘Give me your hand, Princess.’ He slips one of his from his pocket, offering it to me. Smoke rises over my senses. Hot and ashy.
I shoot him a look of scepticism. ‘Is this the point where you drag me from consciousness?’
He laughs. ‘I said you’d just have to find out. I don’t make promises.’
I roll my eyes even though I’m sure he can hardly see it in the gentle moonlight.
I take the chance I might soon regret and place my hand in his.
A soft gasp escapes my lips as my fingers are met with a warmth I had not expected from him, with all past interactions involving an absence of it.
It’s almost as if he is becoming more real and alive with every meeting, like he is finally allowing the nightmare version of himself that he had created especially for me, to slip away like a dream upon waking.
All light escapes us as the smoke closes in and the Umbrian king leads the way to the Divide. The whirring reaches a pinnacle within a few seconds, and the atmosphere crackles with pure energy as we infiltrate the separation of two kingdoms, two vastly different lives possible of being lived.
My very flesh becomes infused with the power of the air, tingling and buzzing as it seeps deeper inside me. As soon as the purring in my ears ceases, a humming begins in that cold, empty furnace lying dormant in my stomach. A flickering of something coming to life. The return of power.
I exhale in relief as the smoke dissipates, my hand slipping from Eliaz’s as I bring it up to my face, feeling the heat of light on my skin. A laugh follows before I can help it, being back in the presence of magic – of the Relic – is like an ecstasy provided by the gods themselves.
‘I feel it,’ I say. Eliaz doesn’t answer. In fact, he most likely doesn’t hear, considering the fact that he’s already walking the direction of the castle light in the distance.
I curse under my breath as I sprint to catch up with him. He doesn’t bother to look at me when I reach his side, panting.
‘Someone’s in a rush.’
‘Anything to spend less time in your company,’ he grumbles.
I can’t even feign offence seeing as I share the same desire to get this over with as soon as possible.
‘You don’t have to come to the castle with me, I’m quite happy to go on alone. I only needed you to take me across the Divide.’
‘Two pairs of eyes are better than one.’
So, we walk onwards, the castle looming larger with every step. But, with still at least a twenty-minute trek ahead of us, we grow silent once again. Only this time, I don’t welcome it. I rack my brains of questions to ask but find I seemed to have already asked them all, access to answers denied.
Like he’s read my mind – something I can’t yet be certain he’s not capable of – he speaks.
‘I can’t make someone unconscious.’
I glance up at him, taken aback by his offering. ‘Sorry?’
‘Back there you said something about dragging you from consciousness. My power does not work like that.’
I think hard for a second, it is crucial I am very careful with what I ask, for one wrong wording could cause him to retract his sudden openness. It is important I learn more. ‘So how does it work then? It certainly feels like sleep.’
The king gives a sigh, but not out of exasperation. No, the drawn-out breath that ensues the release of his chest indicates something else, like he has been reminded of a lingering shame.
‘It is manipulation of the senses. I can block them completely, which mimics sleep yes, but is not quite the same. And I can also place things within the senses, smell, touch, sight – like hallucinations or whatever you’d call it.’
‘But you can make me dream. You’ve done it multiple times already, I swear. I was definitely asleep when Lillienne appeared in my bedchamber that night anyway.’
Eliaz stops dead, barring me from any further steps with an extended arm. In the glow radiating from the castle, I am able to follow his gaze. My blood curdles when my eyes land on what has him frozen.
Four Reyheni guards stand in a row, staring us down like snarling wolves ready to pounce as a pack. Only in place of flexed claws, their hands are raised by their side, the iron blades of their swords glinting like a tongue trailing across teeth.
‘And what do we have here?’ a guard with ears like batwings calls out. ‘A man of darkness and a woman of blue.’
I scan my body as the guards to, seeing what they must. Traditional Umbrian dress. Not the typically donned by the heir to the throne of Reyhen. There’s also a high chance that these guards have yet to have laid eyes on the princess, not that I look myself in the light of the moon.
‘Come on now boys, where’s that warm Reyheni welcome you’re all so well known for?’ Eliaz holds open palms out to them, no hint of apprehension in his voice. Only a playful taunting.
The guards glance at each other in a ripple of confusion. Who dares speak to Royal Guards with such a careless tone? The King of fucking Umbra, that’s who.
‘You have no business here. Return to where you came from if you do not wish for death.’
I can hear the smirk in Eliaz’s laugh. ‘I bring you your princess, all safe and happy, and this is the reception I get? I mean I didn’t quite expect champagne and a party, but I’d appreciate a thank you or something of the like.’
The guards squint at me, eyebrows raised, unsure.
‘Prove it,’ the dumpy one furthest to the left, says to me.
‘You dare ask your princess to prove her birthright?’ I don’t need to pretend to be angry, it’s already alight inside me. My body burns. ‘You have nerve.’
‘Our princess would never keep such low company. She would never deign to share her presence with any form of Umbra scum,’ Bat-wings-for-ears spits.
How brazenly he speaks of a girl he does not know, a version of me he has never seen, and yet, is so sure of. He expects his princess cold, unsympathetic and arrogant. I am not sorry to disappoint. I have never and will never be cold.
I dig inside me, the fire within rising to meet me, like an old friend, my soul-tied partner in crime, readying to unleash chaos.
Heat surges down my extended arms and erupts from my fingers in ten strong currents of flame, which I direct towards the ground in front of the four guards. It takes to the stone in a clean line. The guards flinch backwards. Eyes lit with fire. Mouths agape. Swords clatter to the ground.
I huff slightly, out of breath from the effort. Unfit.
Eliaz brings his hands together in three slow claps.
‘Brilliant. My turn.’
The two guards at either end burst into shrill shrieks, slapping their bodies uncontrollably, as though trying to smack a thousand bees dead from their skin.
‘Get them off! Get them off!’
Eliaz smiles. ‘Sorry guys, that’s just my warmup.’
The two middle guards drop to the ground, faces dipping into the fire before they throw them back from it. All four men are screaming, tearing at themselves, seeing things I cannot, on them, around them, above them.
Blood trails their clawing motions, as they scratch through their eyes and down the skin to their neck.
I too, scream at the horror of the scene. The relentlessness of Eliaz, who looks on, amused.
‘Stop! You’re hurting them.’
‘Nothing they don’t deserve.’