CHAPTER FORTY-THREE #3
“It’s all chance. At least in the trials—whatever they hold—if I die, it won’t be for lack of trying.
But this? Who’s to say? Will I fight for my memories, or will they leave me peacefully?
And if it’s not peaceful, is it painful?
I can’t imagine it would be pleasant to have your soul shoveled out of you.
And those eyes. I can’t stop seeing them.
So wide, so empty. Stars forgive me, but I wonder where his soul is now.
Somewhere dark, and lonely, if I had to guess.
With no way to get back, or to ascend. Just…
eternal emptiness. That is what I fear most.”
Vayen sucked in a breath, the precursor to a heaving a sigh.
“On that pleasant note… we’re here, Alyssum.”
I looked past Vayen, deeper into the wood, until my gaze landed on the whirling fog that threatened to remove me from myself.
This time it was already dense, appearing very nearly corporeal with thick tendrils licking at the air around it.
It extended limitlessly, a definitive barrier between me and the people that sought to harm me.
A barrier that I had promised myself I would never lay eyes on again.
“I don’t know that I can let you do this,” Vayen whispered, her knuckles white as she clutched the tree beside her. She stared at the ground beneath her boots, her curls hanging in the air.
I focused on the Threshold, helpless to the terror slithering through me, thick and alive.
It was a vial of poison souring my throat, a seemingly endless current of fear spilling into my blood, contaminating the courage I so desperately required.
It was stronger than I could ever be, and so I let it pull me under, tears pricking my eyes and heartbeat stuttering and knees locking until I was little more than a wound exposed.
“I’ve always been afraid,” I choked out, brows pulling together.
“Of my father, of the Threshold. Of what my life would be like as princess, and eventual queen, of Hollowmire. I thought training as a Sentinel would ease that fear, but it only amplified it. When Rowland attacked me, and I couldn’t even unsheathe my dagger…
” I bit back the words, tilting my chin to the sky as an errant tear slithered down my cheek, leaving a bitter, icy trail in its wake.
“I didn’t have a dagger when the bandit attacked, but his was within arm’s reach.
I wasn’t strong enough to fight back, to seize the hilt and, and—” The truth was too big for pain lodged in my throat.
“I’ve survived, Vayen. I’ve spent my entire life just surviving, but I haven’t lived, and these men, they just keep… ”
It was an onslaught, but they weren’t merely memories.
No, I could feel the bandit’s dagger on my chest, slicing me open, as if it were occurring once more.
And those thick fingers, nails caked with dirt, clawing up my skirts and pressing into my thighs like my body belonged to him—rough and real, as though it were happening now.
Dark eyes flashing in my mind, belying an arousal fueled by hatred and rage so very similar to Rowland’s.
I had no choice but to release the cry that bubbled up my throat, sending it to the stars with abandon.
Vayen did not close the distance between us, as she had before. She stayed rooted to the spot, gaze trained on the ground, little more than a witness to my falling apart.
When my body had nothing left to give, I slumped against the nearest ironbark, pressing my forehead into the damp roughness of it. My throat was raw. My eyes refused to cry anymore tears. Yet my limbs settled, comforted only by the knowledge that I had survived the memory.
“They want something from me. They all want something from me,” I whispered into the tree, inhaling its familiar scent deep into my lungs.
Vayen approached me now, head inclined as she tried to meet my eyes. “What do they want, Alyssum?”
“The same thing you do. They want to make me their vessel.”
I could not see the muscles rippling beneath Vayen’s shirt, but I knew they had when her fists clenched.
“I am nothing like them,” she ground out.
“I know you’re not,” I said quickly. It was my turn to draw closer to her, and I did so despite her step backwards.
I captured her hands in mine, eyes fluttering shut momentarily as I took in the warmth of her, before opening once more to meet hers.
I could make out the shocking blue of my own, reflected in her silver-greens.
Her pupils expanded as we stared at one another, until only rings of silvered green remained.
“I know you’re not,” I repeated.
Her expression softened, anger giving way to something more vulnerable. As if her words had been a defense she didn’t fully believe herself, she muttered, “You sound so certain.”
“I am.” But Vayen’s features were crumpling despite my surety, so I trained my voice, thumbs ghosting over the backs of her fingers.
“You’re not trying to stifle my starlight, Vayen—you seek to free it.
I know that you need me to be Naeno’s Vessel, but I can also see plainly that you don’t want the power for yourself…
you want me to be powerful. What’s more, you’ve made me realize that I want it, too. ”
“You do?” Vayen said, disbelief rendering her words breathy.
“I do. I’m done feeling weak and incapable. We’re going to cross this damnable Threshold, and the next time I meet her, she’ll be the one frightened of me.”
It was a touch manipulative, saying what I knew she would resonate with most. But what I hadn’t expected was the spark igniting in my chest, a bright light of belief that had me wondering if maybe, just maybe, an unknown part of me had brought those words into existence because there was more truth in them than I was willing to admit.
“I do have one condition, however.”
“Anything,” she breathed.
“You’ll teach me about Morwyn and all of the things us Lunamorians aren’t privy to.
You’re also going to train me. Stars willing, it won’t be a full month before we reach Sor, but if I am what you believe me to be—what I’m beginning to hope I might be—then I can’t stay like this.
I need to become formidable. A woman that no one would dare lay their hands on.
I never want to feel helpless or incapable ever again, and I believe you have the ability to do that for me.
I’ll never know how you realized what I needed before I did, but this is the heart of it, Vayen. ”
She unraveled one of the hands I held, causing our fingers to lace together. My breath hitched, her grip increasing as promises spilled from her lips.
“I will train you, Alyssum. I will teach you everything I know. And I will protect you with my life, until…” She paused, the moment laced with hesitation. “Until you are capable of protecting yourself.”
“And what then?” I asked, sinking my teeth into my lower lip. As always, Vayen’s attention lowered immediately to my mouth.
“We’ll have to see.”
“I suppose we will.”
I studied the curve of her brow, barely visible beneath dark curls, and the way it inclined towards her nose.
I made note of the long lashes outlining those impossible eyes.
I followed her strong jawline, the muscle that fluttered there whenever I’d done something to perplex or annoy her.
I took in the entirety of her star-sculpted face, and the words escaped me before I could deny them.
“You’re quite beautiful, do you know that?”
I wasn’t sure what I had expected her reaction to be, but almost none was offered to me anyway.
If it weren’t for the swallow bobbing the long column of her throat, and the way she pressed those full lips together, I might have thought she hadn’t heard me.
In any other circumstance, I’d have wished desperately to plunge into Morwyn’s core and never lay eyes on her again.
But the very real and looming threat of the Threshold, and the fact that I might not remember any of this in just a moment’s time, disallowed my usual mortification.
Finally, she tilted her head to meet my eyes. They were narrowed in their scrutiny, and searching my face. Always searching me.
“I do know that, actually,” she said, her cockiness resurfacing. “But did you know—?”
I had never kissed anyone before. Of course I’d daydreamed about what it might feel like to be that close to another person.
To be able to breathe them in, to taste them.
To feel lips exploring one another with the raw emotional flame that I imagined engulfed two people when they were locked together, passion roaring where their bodies touched, and longing mounting where they did not.
But imagination so often did not align with reality, and that must have been why I did it; that was the only sensible reason for dissolving the scant distance between myself and Vayen.
Because how could I cross the Threshold without knowing what all the fuss was about?
Without forcing her to acknowledge the heat that had been simmering between us since we first laid eyes on one another? The answer was simple:
I couldn’t.
I silenced Vayen’s jest with my movement, only having to lift slightly on my feet to reach her.
I went in slowly. A palm on her chest—was that my galloping heartbeat, or hers?
—and my lips, a stumbling search, not quite sure where to land until finding that bottom lip.
Mouth working, hesitant, waiting for a reply that did not come.
She was statue-still. The spark I sought lay dormant, either uninterested or unwilling to ignite.
Then, fear. A tight coil, climbing for my throat. Had I misread her? Had I misread myself? But then she shifted, and all thoughts of withdrawing—gone.