45. Elara
Chapter 45
“Princess,” Silas growled from the doorway, but I didn’t turn, I continued to stare at the inlaid wood carving on the side of the carriage, at the exact spot where the Boy had been only seconds before.
“Princess,” Silas barked again, sounding far more perturbed that time. I jumped, turning to Silas’s sour face, his disdain for me clear and fuming. “You have been requested.”
“By who?” I still didn’t turn, using the foolish question in an attempt to catch my breath.
“The Queen.” Was that a line of enjoyment I heard in his voice, an eagerness at some vile torture that was awaiting me? I didn’t want to think too much into it, not with the way a fearful heaviness had spread and took the last of the glittering beauty of the last few minutes away.
When I turned, however, Silas only stood there smiling, the look adding to my panic as the Boy leaned forward.
“Princess,” he sneered and I shifted, the dried blood on my dress cracking in places as I rose from the chair, glancing at the Boy whose hand was wrapped tightly around the snake head on his sword pommel.
There should have been more time, more time to convince him, more time to make a plan. I had no clue as to what was coming, but I could only hope for one more moment alone, when he didn’t have to be my shadow, not that he hadn’t been much more than that lately anymore. Not until just now.
I pressed my fingers to my lips, the skin swollen from the fabric of his kiss, from the need that was there. The Boy didn’t even seem to notice, he didn’t move another inch as I left the carriage, his focus only on Silas as if the last few minutes hadn’t happened.
It was only after the door to the carriage slammed shut behind me that I realized the Boy had not followed after. Silas’s hand was a claw around my elbow as he pulled me from the coach, two snakes rushing and holding the door to my carriage as the handle jiggled furiously, the sound of a boot against wood echoing from within.
“Wait,” I gasped, trying to turn as I watched the handle, the carriage rocking furiously.
Dread coiled around my gut and tried to pull, tried to stop, but Silas moved as though he didn’t even notice. No, as though he didn’t care.
“Stop. My Boy…” I tried again to pull from Silas’s taloned grip, but his fingers dug in deeper, and I winced, which only caused the vile snake to smile.
“He was not requested. Only you. Guards do not attend weddings.” His lips stretched with every word, with every step we took away from the carriage and toward the large billowing cloud near the back of the temple. The large dome of white stone rose from the poppies and moss, away from the main building and the winding stairs that led to the main Temple entrance.
The Boy’s exclusion from the wedding ceremony would make sense if they weren’t having to hold the door shut, if more and more guards weren’t swarming the door to my carriage, hands pressed against the door where the bright red of my blood had dried in long drips.
“He never leaves–”
“I have my orders,” Silas barked, still smiling with a smirk like a blade twisting through me.
I couldn’t breathe, I could barely think. The world had fallen away, leaving me stumbling over the dusty path and toward the side doors alone. I barely felt Silas’ tight grip against my arm as he dragged me.
The Boy so rarely left my side that with each step it almost felt as though something was being pulled away from me. That something bright and wanted was being ripped from my core.
Trying to swallow away a quickly forming knot as a wall of people stepped behind me, all of the others who had traveled in our caravan dressed in their finery as they walked and waved and smiled, looking for all the world as though they were simply going to a wedding, and not as though something was terribly wrong.
“Be proper,” Silas snapped, his grip making me wince as he pulled me forward again, the world coming back into focus, even as that pain continued to splinter and break over me. That cold that lingered in my blood was everywhere, it ran over my skin, tangling in my gut.
The snake forced me to stand taller, even as I continued to trip over my torn skirts. Not that anyone would notice with the amount of finery I was surrounded by, all of the perfectly prepped and polished royals and gentry nodding and waving and smiling at the peasants that lined the path to the temple and to the lower doors we were being led to.
This close to those smiling worshiping people, everything I had noticed before was even more apparent. Their clothing was torn and covered in dirt, the edges frayed, their feet bared. It was what I hadn’t noticed before that had caused my eyes to widen, the sharp tempo of my heart picking up so that it was all I could hear in my ears.
They were covered with gold tattoos. Swirling lines and designs covered all of them, even the children, the intricate work shimmering in the evening sun. It was beautiful, haunting and somehow familiar. They stood, their eyes as wide as mine as I faced them. Just as I noticed their tattoos in awe, they noticed the streaks of my blood that still covered my dress and cloak in horror.
The mass of dried red covered the peach of the dress in long streaks that had pooled and spread, the lining of the cloak stained and stiff from the blood that had poured from me. It was only then that I realized how bright it was.
How much it was.
It looked as though I should have died.
“Princess,” one or two of the peasants said as I was dragged past them, their eyes still wide as they moved into a curtsy, their gaze lingering on the blood stains. On my face, which was surely as dirty and smeared as my dress, on my hands which were covered in it, on my boots that were layered with dirt. I may have been dressed like a princess, like the perfect doll that Mother wanted when this journey began; but I looked like a lone survivor from a massacre.
I saw it all in their eyes, the usual confusion of who I was, and how a princess could look this way, to an expression that was something like awe.
All at once, the line of people lowered into a curtsy as though they were the waves that crashed against the shore. Each and every one of them dropped to a knee as Silas tried to pull me forward. All but one.
The same man as before.
He stood, that tattered cape billowing to the ground as he stood. Staring. Eyes of two different shades of blue digging into me, one like ice, one like water.
Something in the histories of etiquette that lived in my mind told me that I should look away, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t pull away from that stare, from the way the corner of his mouth was pulling up into a half smile, from the way those eyes poured into me as if I knew him. As if I had always known him.
Tobin. The name filled my head again, even though I knew it was wrong. It had to be wrong. Tobin was gone.
The pain in my arm vanished as I looked at him, replaced instead by the feeling of energy I had felt so often before. Except this was different. This felt as though everything was going to explode out of me.
No, as though whatever was in me was going to rush right to him, taking me with it. The tug centered in my chest and screamed through my bones. His smile vanished, his mouth parting as his eyes narrowed. He felt it too.
“Who–” My feet pulled me closer, my muscles winding as though I would simply take flight in my desperation to reach him.
What was wrong with me? Everything about this man screamed danger and yet I needed nothing more than to stand beside him.
“Come on,” Silas hissed and increased his pace, his hand tightening and yanking me down the quickly crowding walkway that led to the back of the temple and away from the man.
The snake’s grip was firm, his fingers hard against the still healing gash on my arm and I winced, hissing in pain as a few of the people closest to me gasped and mumbled in shock and worry. I turned to them, to tell them I was alright, that everything was all right, but I didn’t get more than a step in their direction before I was pulled further down the walkway, the man's hand painful as it pinched into the healing skin, the grip firm enough I swear the still tender wound on my arm ripped apart.
I would have slapped him and made up some perfect Princess story about how he shouldn't touch me, except I had seen his wicked joy when he left the Boy bleeding on the couch, when he had left me for the queen to slice apart. I doubted he would have any qualms about slapping me in retribution the second everyone’s back was turned.
Now was not the time, nor the place.
That would have to wait.
Silas pulled me down the path toward those wide doors that every wedding guest was being led into, sending my boots out from beneath me. I stumbled, nearly falling into the frosty stalks of grass I was being dragged through. By the time I stood, the cloaked man was gone.
Again.
What was he? A ghost? One moment he was there, and then the next gone as though I had imagined him. Perhaps I had imagined all of it. There was no warmth on my skin, only coldness as Silas finally pulled me into the wide open doors of the temple.
He did not decrease his pace, nor the pressure on my arm, he continued to drag me forward,
feet tripping over the smooth white stone that lined walls, floor, and ceiling of the long cavern.
The inside of the Temple was as blinding and billowing as the outside. Even though we walked on stone, peering down the endless hallway was akin to looking through the sky. It was as though we were walking on a cloud. I was surprised the floor did not give way to the texture of cotton and bubbles.
I looked back, half wondering if I would see that cloaked man again, but it was the same wedding party in all their finery, sneering in disgust at the dirt and blood that I was trailing behind me, the long streaks of color a stain against the white.
“Look what you’ve become,” an icy voice I knew all too well sneered as Mother stepped beside me, her nose wrinkled as she stared at the ground and the mess I was sure I was leaving behind. I didn’t give her the satisfaction of looking. I continued ahead, following Silas into the white. “This is why I say a Princess must be clean at all times, girl. Of course–”
“I am not a Princess,” I finished for her, twisting my face into the darkest scowl I could muster as I turned to her, careful not to let my steps falter.
Dalyah wore a dress so white she practically blended into the stone. Her pale skin, hair the color of a winter sun, and large glassy crown only completed the ensemble.
She looked like the Queen of ice and death.
I didn’t even give her a smile before turning back to the long hall, careful to follow Silas to who knew where.
“Exactly. It’s good to see my lessons are finally getting through that thick head of yours.” Any frustration at having been cut off faded as her lip twisted, her nose wrinkling in disgust.
I was well aware that she was prodding, trying to force me to rise and probably give her an excuse to ban me from the ceremony. I wouldn’t give it.
I would not rise, but I would not cower either.
I kept my features firm, defiant, even though everything from the tip of my nose to my toes was shaking.
“Are we calling them lessons now?”
“They always were, girl. You needed to know what your true place was somehow.”
The mask I had been wearing slipped as I flinched, the motion so slight before I put my scowl back in place that I was sure she would have missed it.
She smiled regardless, having nothing better to do than to come and see how deep she could slice against my soul.
“What do you want, Mother?” I snarled her title, knowing she would hate it. It was the best weapon I had right then.
“I wanted to see you. To see if you had survived, or if I would have to dole out further punishments to that Boy for failing me and my orders. Again.” She was inspecting me, like I was nothing more than a piece of meat. It wasn’t that that made my toes curl, it was the reminder that the Boy, that my guard, worked for her.
No, that he was trapped by her.
Her prisoner.
The fury that was boiling under my skin turned to an explosive, my palms ached with the intensity of it, my bones rattling with the force. As soon as it had come, however, it faded into an ice chill. I shivered, the slice of her grin as icy as the chill that was strangling me.
“Well, you will be overjoyed to know I am alive and well.” I turned slightly, holding my arms out in display, only to realize too late all I was doing was showcasing the blood I was covered in.
“Yes. I’m thrilled.” If the look on her face was any indication, she was something near giddy. Well, giddy if it had crawled out of the bowels of the underworld.
“Your clothes for the wedding will be waiting for you,” she continued. “You will be expected to be scrubbed, and dressed, and every bit of the princess I expect you to be for this wedding. Then, after that–” she paused as she came to a stop, one of the priestesses stepping away from the wall as though she had been carved from the stone. “You will be taken back to your carriage, and then once we return to the Runturin you will be escorted to your room, where you will remain.”
“But I–” I began. I wasn’t sure if I cut myself off or if she did with the look she was giving me. The words faded to nothing as her smile stretched and she lifted her hand, letting her magic dance over her fingertips in shards of ice that promptly fell to the ground and shattered like the most dangerous of tear drops.
“You got what you wanted, Elara. Bastian told you what was coming, none of this should be a surprise. It’s for your benefit, really. I would hate to think what harm would befall you if you were to step out of line.”
A single sliver of ice rose from her finger before it fell to the ground, shattering in a sound of deadly punctuation.
I could only stare at her, exactly what she was saying burrowing into me with as much pain and chill as the ice she controlled.
Bastian had warned me yes, and it was that warning that had led me to decide to leave. I would, tonight. I had a plan, and after that kiss I was sure the Boy would leave with me… but why did I feel like everything was melting and cracking like the shards of her ice that were left on the floor. The ice that was coating my bones.
“Do you understand?” I could only nod, my head buzzing as she turned, following the priestess into some dressing room.
“Good, the wedding will occur at sundown. I expect you to be bathed and dressed by then. It will be your last show, you better make it a good one.”
The faceless priestess closed the door, leaving me with the grumbling Silas in the hall, the small wet puddles on the ground.
Silas yanked me back down the hall to a priestess who stepped away from the wall on our approach. She pulled down that heavy ruched hood with spider-like fingers, eyes like coals twisting toward me as she smiled with lips nearly as pale and perfect as the rest of her features. She looked as though she had never seen sun.
“Princess.” Even her voice was wind, as though she wasn’t even there. She gave a slight nod, stepping to the side as Silas nearly threw me into the room.
The door closed before I found my feet, leaving me trapped inside a stone cloud.
Well, great. This was great.
I had wanted to go to Batian’s wedding, not get eaten by a cloud. If I hadn’t been driven mad by the events before now, this room would surely drive me toward madness and disaster.
“There are linens there,” the priestesses’ windy voice echoed from behind me and I turned, her spindly fingers pointing toward a slight cut away in the cloud wall where fragrant steam curled through the air, the scent of roses permeating through what I could barely make out as a door.
I could almost feel the tension in my core settle, a hot bath. A truly hot bath. I hadn’t had one of those in ages.
I turned toward the priestess who had followed me in from the hall, expecting further instruction or a hint as to what was going on, but instead of facing the same sunless woman as before I faced a man. A man with long blonde hair and a scar that ran down his face.
“Who…?” I began, before realizing I had seen him before, although then he had not had a scar. He was the man who had been outside of the banquet hall when I had been shut out of Batian’s and Aeinya’s feast. He stood in the white robes of the priestess, exactly where the willowy woman had been only seconds before. “Where is the priestess?”
I turned, expecting to see the priestess tucked into another wall, but it was only him, in her robes. He stood there, his blue eyes smiling as he stepped forward.
“Do not worry, she will be back soon.” He smiled as he had before, the look kind and calm and full of some kind of awe I didn’t understand. Nor did I want to.
“Do not worry?” I nearly choked on the words. “You emerge out of nowhere and…” I couldn’t make myself say it. “Who are you?”
“Vaelar. I am here to help you.” He stepped closer and I shifted back, the panic I had felt before returning like a thunder clap.
“Help me? How did you get in here? Who are you?” My boots left behind giant marks of brown dirt with every step I took over the white floor as I backed away from him. I raced toward where I thought the door was, looking for a seam, or a ridge, or anything that I could pry open.
There was nothing but smooth white stone.
Well, formerly white, my hands were as dirty as my shoes. Everywhere I touched left streaks of brown and red behind, the shadows of the dirt from when I slept under the wagon with Aeinya and was forced to relieve myself on the side of the road while the guard watched. It was the blood I stared at the most, however, the streaks of red from where my mother had sliced me open, so deep I was amazed she hadn’t killed me.
“I am what is known to my kind as a Vynari.” I froze at that, my hands flat against the cloud wall before I turned, those two words sinking into my soul.
“My kind?” I repeated them back to him as he lowered that white hood all the way, revealing two pointed ears. I hadn’t noticed those before, but I hadn’t exactly been looking anywhere but at his eyes.
“Fae.” I gasped the word, and he nodded.
Again, that same feeling as before took me, that I should be horrified. That I should fear for my life. But, like before with the Boy, I felt nothing but that weird calm, as though I knew him.
“May I have your hand?” He held out fingers that were nearly as long as the woman’s, although his were covered in calluses, and nearly as much dirt as my own. His hands didn’t seem anything like I would expect from someone who had once enslaved my people.
“I do not have much time, Elara, and I would like to remove the bind on your magic. You will need it, very soon.”
“The bind on my magic?” Again, he nodded, his hand still held out to me.
“Yes, I have released the bind before, but I had not assumed it to be placed again so quickly. You will need it for what is coming.” His hand remained between us, that pull to grab his hand, to place mine in his growing.
I really must be mad if I was considering it. But then, I had touched him before and nothing terrible had occurred.
Well, nothing except a tingling warmth followed by my magic exploding out of me for the first time only minutes later.
A bind… I pushed the thought away and forced myself to take a step back.
“How do you know what is coming?”
“As I said, I am what is known as a Vynari, or a Walker in your tongue. I move through time. I have moved through yours many times before, although you may not have lived them, yet.” He was so confident in what he was saying, but he might as well have been speaking a different language for all the sense that it made.
“Your hand, love. Our time is short.”
I stared at his hand, at those fingers. All of the stories and warnings told me not to trust this man, this monster. But the Boy told me otherwise. The Boy had proven otherwise. My hand shook as I stepped closer, placing my palm in his.
Just as before, the glittering light I had felt when he held my hand before rattled over my skin, it moved through my bones and made everything feel like stars and fire and wind and rain, as though everything in the world was dancing.
I gasped in breath, sure I had forgotten how to breathe as he stepped away, leaving me covered in warmth and light, and not a bit of that cold that had been everywhere before.
The cold that had chased my magic away every time I had felt the heat of it rise.
“My mother,” I whispered, holding up my hands, looking from the hand that he had held, that I was sure that must be glowing, to the hand that was still caked in blood. “She…”
“She will do it again,” he said before I could fully form the thought. “Very soon you will be faced with a moment in which you alone can change the course of time. Very soon the fate of magic will be in your hands. Do not be afraid to fight, Elara. Do not be afraid to release the light that you have held within you.”
“You aren’t making sense–” I began, but he stopped me with a smile, his hand wrapping around mine again as he lifted it, bringing my blood and dirt covered knuckles to his lips.
“It will soon, love. The next time I see you, it will all make sense. But for now, I leave you with the wise words you have given me so many times before.” He paused, that soft smile returning as his free hand reached up, pushing some of my hair behind my ear. His hand lingered there, one wrapped around my hand, the other soft against my jaw as he leaned in enough that every muscle in my chest tightened. “Go forward in bravery, my dear, holding good in your heart.”
“Words I have given you?” He had said that nothing about Fae made sense, but this was bordering on insanity.
“We will meet again, love.” He pressed his lips to my knuckles again, the soft touch whispering through me and sending everything back to starlight again. His blue eyes burned into mine before he dropped my hand, turning toward the door as though he was simply going to walk through the wall.
“Wait! You haven’t–” I grabbed his shoulder, turning him back toward me, but instead of the tall Fae male, it was the spindly priestess, her face absolutely affronted as I forced her back around.
“Your bath lady,” she said in that windy voice, those spider fingers pointing toward the bathing chamber again as though the last few minutes hadn’t happened. As though she wasn’t aware that anything had. “If we wish to be ready on time we must hurry.”
I could only stare as she bustled past me, leaving me staring at the dirty fingerprints on the wall, and the single word written in dirt right below.
Caspyn.
But hadn’t he said his name was Vaelar?
Who… or what… was a Caspyn?