Chapter 82
CHAPTER 82
Keldarion
“Y ou need to tell me which way, George. Which way?”
George’s eyes seek mine, but he can’t focus. He looks past me, body twitching on the purple stone of the
labyrinth. “Best to take the train. Slower, but better view. Best to take the train, yes, best to take the train. Though, we could travel coach—”
George’s condition has worsened rapidly, each mile we travel eroding more of his strength and cognition. Thankfully, we haven’t run into any more visitors or traps.
“Focus, George.” I shake his shoulders. I’ve let him sleep as much as I could, but we’re out of time. If he falls unconscious again, I’ll have no way to find Anya. His connection to her is our only compass. My sole choice would be to abandon the mission and use the seed Caspian gave us to escape. But I’m not leaving here without the Queen.
His eyes find mine, and he blinks. “Kel.”
“Yes.” I breathe a sigh of relief and lift his head slightly. “Which way, George? Feel inside. Where is Anya?”
A grimace crosses his features. “I can’t go on, boy. Everything hurts. I can’t think straight. Everything inside of me is rotten.”
I still my hands, which threaten to shake. “Don’t say that, George. Everything’s not rotten.” I place my hand on his chest. “You feel that? Right by your heart? That’s your connection to Anya. That can never be destroyed. She’s so close now, George.”
Tears stream down his cheeks. “It’s all so far away. I’m so far away. I’m lost inside my mind—”
I grab his hand and squeeze it. “I’m right here. I’m going to keep you tethered to me, okay, George? Keep listening to my voice. Anya’s waiting for you. Rose’s mother. She wants to see you and Rosalina.”
“I can’t remember anything,” George cries out. “It’s all messed up.”
“No, no, you remember. Like … like when you floated down the river on the wooden boat with Anya. You visited the big stone triangles. Remember that?”
His lip quivers. “The Pyramids. We went there a few weeks after we met. Then we sailed down the Nile …”
“Yes, yes!” I urge and pat his chest again. “And the two of you trekked through a great jungle and startled a huge spotted cat.” The memories of his life, gifted to me by Clio, flood my mind, as real as if they were my own.
“I was working a dig in the Amazon. Thought that jaguar would be the end of us.”
“Do you feel her?” I ask.
He closes his eyes and nods. “I think so.”
“And the wooden house in the woods? Do you remember that?”
“Our cottage in Orca Cove. I took her to the place I was born, and she said she wanted to raise our daughter there.”
I bring his hands to my lips. “You did. You raised the most amazing, wonderful woman in the world. You’ve got to tell Anya that. You’ve got to tell her how good her daughter is. How brilliant and funny and beautiful. Can you do it, George?”
George grits his teeth and attempts to stand. But he has no strength anymore. He can’t raise himself up. “I c-can’t …”
“Yes, you can,” I growl then lace my arms underneath him. With a mighty thrust, I heave George over my shoulders and stagger to my feet. He’s no small man, but I promised I’d carry him if I had to. I’m keeping that promise.
“Show me the way,” I breathe.
There’s a beat of silence, and I’m afraid he’s lost consciousness. Then: “Left,” George says assuredly.
So left we go.
“Follow along this wall then take a right.”
“Straight past the turns to the end of the chamber. Take the leftmost passage.”
“Keep on this path.”
I follow each of his instructions, occasionally giving him a shake or pinching his leg. “Stay with me, George.”
My shoulders ache from George’s weight, but I keep myself in fae form. I don’t want my beast to startle George when he’s drifting in and out of the present and the past.
Slowly, the maze begins to change. The purple stone shifts to a dark jade. Brilliant scars of emerald light cut beneath the earth, reminding me of the walls of the Chasm.
“There are no more turns,” George breathes. “Just keep going.”
The sharp turns have given way to a circular pathway. I realize we’re walking around a spiral. We’re almost at the end.
A high-pitched cackle rattles the air. I steady myself and reposition George over my shoulders.
I knew there would be one more visit.
Ahead, the walls shift into brilliant emerald spires that connect with a jeweled archway. A small figure sits atop the keystone, swinging her legs through the air.
“One more Fate to speak with, George, then we’re there,” I murmur to him.
George doesn’t respond.
The figure leaps off the keystone, hanging on to it with only her hands, then swings her body in a giant arc, somersaulting down to the ground.
“We’ve seen your sisters already, Melinora. We need no more gifts,” I call as she runs forward.
She’s short and slight, moving clumsily as if there are no bones within her. Perhaps that is true. Her skin appears made of straw, like a little doll woven by a fireplace. Two braids of multicolored yarn form her hair. Her eyes are big black buttons, and stitches hold her mouth in a permanent smile.
Melinora, the Mistress of Threads. My muscles stiffen at her approach. While her sisters unsettled me, there’s something far darker about this Fate. She doesn’t just see the past or the future; she sees the threads of life and cuts them when they fray.
Her joyous cackling echoes in the spiraling passageway. As she approaches, she dances in a circle around us, her limbs moving fluidly, bending in angles no fae could manage. “You’re here! You’re here! Never thought you’d get this far, no, I didn’t! Not that I know. What does Melly know? Nothing, nothing. Philly sees it all, Clio reads your past. I only hold your lives hanging in the balance!”
I try to step away from her, but she moves too quickly, caging us in. George gives a shuddering breath.
Melinora stops moving. Her limbs slacken. Though it seems impossible, her grin widens. “Two,” she says. “Two strings. The first.” She holds up her hand, revealing a dangling thread. It’s pale white but imbued with an ethereal blue glow. She strokes it across her straw face, and a shiver courses through me, like my bones are being licked clean.
“This one is so strong. Yes, so strong. Won’t be cut for a very long time. For a very, very, very, very, very, very, very long time.”
“Put that away,” I growl.
She holds it up before her face, button eyes popping out for a closer look. A flappy cloth tongue licks across her sewn-on lips. “I watch it for fraying. Melly protects it.”
“Put my thread away, Melinora. You don’t need it right now,” I say sternly.
She makes a sound that’s half-hiss, half-pout, then tucks it into the pocket of her colorful dress. Her button eyes look to George.
“Now, this one,” she says, “is a special one.”
The thread she holds up is not like a string at all, but the branch of a willow tree. It looks … familiar.
I step closer. The top of it resembles a frosted branch in the dead of winter, the bark icy white. It melds to rich, dark brown with a sprig of cherry blossoms, followed by a lighter ash brown with a brilliant green palm sprig. The branch is capped by orange bark, a single maple leaf hanging on. Lines of black run up and down the branch and through the leaves, as if a sickness has taken root.
This branch … It reminds me of Castletree.
“This is a special one,” Melinora repeats. “I’ve been ready to snip it for a long time. I watch it every day. Should have been snipped ages ago. Not right for it to go on this long. Not right for his kind.”
Beads of sweat form on my brow despite the cool chamber. I grip George’s wrist and leg tighter. Melinora’s button eyes focus on him as she swings the branch back and forth. “Not right. Not right! Look at him! It needs to be snipped!”
George’s thread is so different than mine. He shouldn’t even have one in the first place; a human’s life has no place being held by a fae.
“It needs to be cut!” Melinora shrieks. The stitches of her mouth rip open, and her jaw unhinges, chunks of red fluff falling out. “Cut! Cut! Cut!”
She whips up her other arm, revealing a pair of scissors sewn into the wrist.
“No!” I cry and lunge forward, nearly dropping George. But it’s too late. The blades of the scissors snip around George’s thread.
The branch doesn’t cut. Melinora throws her head back and howls with laughter. She snips wildly at the branch, but nothing happens. “Can’t cut it! Can’t cut it!”
My heart hammers in my chest. I shove past the Fate, sprinting now through the maze. George’s heaving chest rattles against me. I hardly feel his weight, my only thought to get us away from her.
When my lungs can barely take in air and my legs scream, I collapse against the wall, letting George slide to the ground. Every part of me shaking, I clamber over the old man and lift his back up until he’s pressed to my chest.
The thread of his life looked like a piece of Castletree. He had been so sick in the Autumn Realm, but had awoken suddenly, renewed and filled with vigor.
Right after we had given our strength to Castletree.
“You’re … you’re connected to it, aren’t you?” I whisper. Aurelia, you are filled with tricks.
For the love of her life, she would do anything. Just as I will, for the love of mine.
“Rosalina,” I whisper, knowing she’s too far away to hear me. “I’m going to save them. I promise you.”
George’s heart is weak, now. I don’t know how to heal like Ezryn or how Farron transferred Dayton’s life force back into Rosalina. But I’ve spent years giving my energy to Castletree.
Rosalina is my home, and by wandering into my castle uninvited, this man brought her into my life. In that way, he is a piece of my home.
“Anya’s waiting for you,” I whisper. “Let us finish this.”
Energy flows through my body like a wind through barren trees. I think of Castletree, of uniting my magic with my brothers’ as we poured it back into the home that shielded us. Magic ripples out of my body and into him.
George gasps, and I lean him away from me. He blinks, his blue eyes clear. “Keldarion?”
A delighted cackle sounds, and I look up to see Melinora holding up George’s thread. It shimmers with blue light, the black rot gone. “Such a strange little life!” Her button eyes turn to us. “Go on, go on, almost there now! Almost at the Golden Thread!”
George and I smile at each other. I help him to his feet, and he rubs his chest. “Anya.”
Then he takes off, sprinting as if he were a young man. I sigh, muscles sore from carrying him for hours, and follow suit. Round and round we run, the green spiral pathway getting tighter and tighter. Anticipation bubbles within me. With each breath, I feel the pulsing energy in the air, propelling me forward. I can’t even keep up with George.
We round another bend and …
The passageway opens up. An open-air chamber stands before us, punctured by four huge green crystals that emit a glow across the stone. Glowing, translucent green walls stand between all of the crystals, forming a box of phantasmal energy.
The world is silent. Neither George nor I breathe. Even my heart seems to slow.
There’s only one thing to do.
I fall to my knees in a bow.
Because trapped within the cage is Aurelia, Queen of the Enchanted Vale.