47. Chapter 43
Chapter 43
A world is a strange thing. It is an island within the Unending Sea, and each world has its own gateways, secrets, and rulers. Every world has at least one god. They are like the Conduits of Nyth. They are the creatures that created that world, the ones who needed a place to call home. Their magic gave their world life, and now that world gives them power.
~Rhaskar Thorne, The First Book of the Priests
Cole
The trees here are different. The bark reminds me of birch, but the branches aren’t so straight. They split and fork like oak trees, their trunks wide and strong like the ones near Aerwyn. Yet, their long, thin leaves, so similar to ash, fall to the forest floor.
And Bog climbs one of them to catch a bird. His gnarled and calloused hands move over the paper-thin bark with ease, and he makes barely a sound as he eyes the creature. His brown skin blends in with the trees, and the thin bit of mist that fills the air creates an ever-present mask over his movements.
The look in his eyes is one of pure attention, and Maeve smiles next to me as we watch him hunt the bird. She was raised to be a huntress, even though she rarely does so any longer, and she can appreciate the skill it takes to be successful.
Rivertail stands beside us, and I can’t help but think that they all look better than they ever did in Aerwyn. This is what they would look like if they’d been free in the forests. No matter how much Darian, Lee, and I tried to protect and provide for them, they were still hiding.
Here in Valinar, though, they aren’t hiding. They’re in another world where nothing bad can happen to them. They can farm or raise animals or have loud celebrations. Their homes can stretch above the trees if they want. There are no restrictions here, and they would never have had that freedom in Nyth.
Brenna created the thing that my friends and I never could.
But Valinar isn’t able to hold everyone. This is just to protect the people she cares about. It can’t protect everyone that needs protection.
For now, though, I’ll be happy to watch Bog be free for the first time in hundreds of years. I’ll be happy to see Rivertail drink far too much wine and sing songs far too loudly. This place is not the answer to the cruelty of the world, but I can be happy to see my friends live without fear in so many years.
Bog gets within ten feet of the bird. He crouches precariously on a thin branch, and instead of trying to scale the last ten feet, he leaps to catch it. The branch cracks under his feet, but it holds long enough for him to leap into the air. The bird sees him then, its bright red wings extending as it does its best to escape Bog.
He’s too fast, though, and his long, thin fingers wrap around the animal at the pinnacle of his jump. Then he begins to fall. Thirty feet from the forest floor, he plummets to the ground. I’m moving instantly, rushing to catch Bog from a catastrophic miscalculation.
He falls too fast, though. There’s no way I’ll get there in time. Flames explode from my hands and feet as I leap toward him, to meet his trajectory and possibly catch him.
He puts one hand out, and his rough fingers catch on a branch that he passes. His momentum forces him to spin around the branch as I pass right underneath him. Then he shrieks, and I see the red bird flying away from him.
Bog’s momentum slows, and he drops the last ten feet to the ground in front of me. “Nice jump!” he says. “If I could jump like that, I would catch so many birds.”
Maeve comes up behind us with a grin on her face. “What happened? You had the bird!”
Bog kicks the leaves under his feet and hisses as he looks in the direction it flew. “Sneaky little thing bit me. I ain’t seen no bird with teeth before, but that one had ‘em.” He raises his finger, and a spot of red drips from it. “Little bird teeth don’t hurt someone strong like Bog, but it surprised me!”
Maeve chuckles and Rivertail appears. “You should have brought your net. It wouldn’t have gotten away if you’d had it.”
Bog hangs his head. “I didn’t know we were going to be hunting birds. I didn’t know I should have brought my net when we went to collect firewood.”
A thoughtful expression crosses Maeve’s face, and I know that whatever comes next is going to be something ridiculous. It always is when Maeve and Bog get up to anything. She grins and says, “You need a net scabbard. Then you could carry your net everywhere, like Cole carries his sword.”
Bog’s eyes light up as he lifts his head. “A net scabbard? Is this real? Do you know how to make one? How could a hunter as good as Bog not have heard of a net scabbard?”
This is insanity. No one needs a scabbard to keep a net in, but Maeve is taking him as seriously as she’s taken our talks of war. She doesn’t crack even the slightest bit of a smile when she says, “This evening, I’ll draw it out for you, but it’ll be up to you to make it. You know how to sew, don’t you?”
“Does Bog know how to sew? What a silly question.” He gets a hawkish look on his face as if he’s offended. Maeve just raises an eyebrow. He scoffs, “Bog does not know how to sew, but Bog has many friends. Hazel has sewn me many things. She’s nice. I’m glad the Nothing ate your cousin.”
Maeve chuckles and pats his shoulder. “Good. Then you’ll have someone to help you make a brand new net scabbard while I’m gone.”
Bog beams and runs back toward town. Rivertail follows him after he throws a grin back at us. Then we’re alone again.
Maeve sidles up to me, and I can’t help but feel a little annoyed. Instead of wearing her midnight dress like she would have anywhere else, she’s wearing a soft linen dress. She says it’s because she doesn’t trust her shadows to protect her here when she’s not the strongest shadow wielder.
The thought of someone being stronger than Maeve with shadows bothers me. I’d assumed that Brenna would be since she was the Conduit for Shadows, but a fourteen-year-old girl? The thought irks me more than I like to admit.
Maeve may be the Queen of Earth, but she uses Shadows just as much or more than Earth.
“It’s almost time to go. You know that, don’t you?” she asks, her voice low. There’s a strangeness to her voice, a sadness that I didn’t expect.
“I would have liked to stay longer, but Gethin isn’t relaxing,” I respond.
She sighs as she moves in front of me and runs her hands around my waist and puts her head on my chest. It’s an intimate motion. Her body pressed against mine almost feels like a dream still. Everything was so confusing between us for so long. But now… now it all makes sense. Now everything is simple.
“My mother thinks we should move against Gethin as soon as possible. I know we can’t until Aric’s men are ready. They need to make thousands of crossbows and tens of thousands of steel bolts. We have a couple of weeks at most.”
Less than a month. It doesn’t feel like enough time. Until now, I’ve always known that I was strong enough, but we’ve stepped beyond the clarity of what I was raised for. I don’t understand how to fight someone who can wield powers from multiple Great Houses. Especially someone as old and experienced and powerful as Gethin. He could be stronger than me, or maybe even all of us. My father certainly hasn’t wanted to test himself against Gethin, and that was before Gethin had any powers other than Steel. Yet, the world demands that we find a way to kill him.
I look around myself at Valinar, at a world of peace, and I wish, more than ever before, that I could pull Maeve away from the conflicts of the world. I’ve spent nearly a thousand years feeling so alone that I didn’t think there was any other way to feel. Since the night we bound our souls together in a betrothal ceremony, I’ve known what I was missing all those centuries.
I want the woman dressed in linen when she could wear shadow or crystal armor. I want the woman who will design a net scabbard for a goblin so he can hunt birds better. I want the woman who captured my heart and showed me that power is less important than love.
She won’t run away from this war with me, but maybe… Maybe there is something she will do.
“Maeve, I know that there are so many details to work out and more things to do than we really have time for, but I… I want you to consider something.”
She frowns at me. “Anything for you, Cole.”
“Don’t say that yet,” I breathe. I hold up my wrist and show her the bright red and orange band. “I made you a magical oath in your mental landscape, Maeve. I promised you that you could have all of me, and I haven’t been able to completely fulfill that oath. There is more to me than the bed.”
She tries to interrupt me, but I raise my hand, silencing her. “Just wait. I thought you were going to die, Maeve. I thought you were going to let yourself fade into the darkness and become a shell. I would have done anything or said anything to convince you to heal yourself. I would have made this vow and then broken it if that’s what it took to keep you alive. There was only one thing that I wasn’t sure that I would do.”
I swallow hard and stare into those beautiful emerald eyes of hers. “What are you trying to say, Cole?” she asks. Her voice is soft and soothing, not angry at all. Then again, she doesn’t understand what I’m saying. Maybe in two seconds she’ll be furious with me for even considering this. It’s insane. It’s a terrible decision. My father would tell me I was the biggest idiot in Nyth.
But it’s the only thing I want. In a thousand years, I’ve never been truly selfish. I’ve never asked for anything purely because I wanted it. My life has revolved around everyone else, but this time… “Maeve, I want to marry you. I want to turn our betrothal into a true bonding. I want our souls to become one forever.”
She tries to talk again, and I stop her immediately. “I’m not done yet,” I say, rushing to get the rest of the words out while I still have the courage because I can’t ask for it without telling her why it’s selfish and wrong. “It’s a terrible decision, Maeve. Right now, if I die, it’s going to hurt you. We’re betrothed. You care about me, but you’ll survive. You’ll get over me. Maeve, if we bond our souls and I don’t survive, what are you going to do? Are you going to shatter again? Are you going to give up and fade into the darkness?”
I take a breath, and Maeve doesn’t try to interrupt. “Because if you do that, all of this will be for nothing. The world can survive without me. There are other Immortals that can sit on the Throne of Flames. More than that, people don’t follow me like they follow you. They don’t follow me out of love, and when this is over, that’s what Nyth will need more than my strength. The world will not survive you losing yourself.”
She’s quiet for a few moments. Her cheek presses against my chest, and I feel her breathe in my arms. I pull her tighter to me. The sound of her breath against my shirt is soothing, and I almost try to brush it all off. But I can’t. I need to know how she feels. I won’t do this if she’s going to let herself die if I do.
“What should I do, Cole?” she asks softly, her voice barely muffled by my shirt. “I love you more than anything or anyone. I could watch everyone else die again. I could go through it all over again, and I am strong enough to survive. My Da. Hazel. My friends. Your friends. Every person I have ever known. I would watch them die, and I could survive it. But you? Cole, you’re the only reason I came back. You’re my everything. How could you expect me to survive losing you?”
I sigh, glad that I have my answer. Part of me is happy that she chose not to bind herself to me. It makes things simpler. Now…
“I want to marry you, Cole Cyrus,” she says, interrupting my processing. “I want to marry you because there’s never going to be anyone else. I see my mother and my Da. She is going to outlive him. They both know it. She’s going to have a hole in her soul because she wanted to live what few days they have together as closely as possible. Her pain will come regardless, and there will be no getting over it for her. She knows that.”
Maeve stares up at me, those emerald eyes shining. “I know I won’t ever get over you, Cole. I won’t. You think I will, but you’re wrong. You don’t know how hard I love. You don’t know how much you mean to me. It has nothing to do with our betrothal and everything to do with the fact that you are my everything. Cole Cyrus, I will do what it takes to marry you, to bind my soul to yours forever. If you die, I will hurt forever whether or not our souls are bound, so we might as well enjoy every moment as much as possible.”
I suck in a breath, but I don’t try to dissuade her. I want to marry her, too. I don’t care about pain, and if she dies, my world will end whether or not my life does. Something inside me knows that Maeve Arden, my Wyrdling, is too strong for anything in this world or the next to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Including die.
But I can’t say the same about myself. “How will you make sure you survive, Maeve? The world needs you. I can’t go to war worrying that you’ll give up if I die. You know that.”
She raises her hand in front of me. The little tally mark on her wrist shines in black, the final debt she owes me. “Call in your debt. Make me promise not to give up if you die. This way, I can feel your flames forever. I will remember this moment forever, and I will remember your face as I promise you. I won’t be able to give up knowing that I’m failing you. Instead, I’ll feel your flames lick my skin, as they have so many times in the past.”
I hesitate, thinking about it. For my entire life, I was in complete control. I made every decision, treating people like cogs in a machine, tweaking them to get different results. I made decisions based on what I knew about them, guessing how I could push them to get what I wanted. Even Darian and Lee, my closest friends, were manipulated like this.
Magical oaths won’t work because the only repercussion for breaking them is death, the very thing I don’t want to happen.
I won’t be there to push her or protect her. I can only trust her word. It feels so human. Just as she’d trusted me when I promised to take care of the humans all those months ago on the day she first arrived in Draenyth.
All I can do is trust her.
“I call in the debt,” I breathe, and I feel the magic flowing through my words into her wrist. The magic that’s imbued into her skin flares to life. “I demand that you do not give up and fade into the void if I die. You must keep living.”
The waves of magic roll off my tongue as easily as the words do. Her tally mark flares for just a moment, and then Maeve says, “I will not give up if you die, Cole. I will live.”
I nod to her and take her hand in mine. “If that’s the case, then when can we do the ritual? There’s nothing I want more in this world than to be bound to you forever.”
She grins and runs her hand over my cheek. “I want it to be special. Our betrothal was done in dirty clothes after weeks of traveling. I want my marriage to have a little pomp and circumstance.”
I grin. “We can do that. How about in ten days? I’ll arrange everything. You just show up.”
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she just presses her head against my chest again, and I feel her smiling more than ever before. “I never thought I’d get married,” I say.
“Me neither. I expected to live alone in the woods with mice for company.”
My fingers dig into Maeve’s back as I cling to her. I spent my life living for other people's goals. I was my father’s blade and Brenna’s manipulator. I became strong enough that nothing could break me. For a thousand years, everything I did was for someone else. Not this time. Marrying Maeve isn’t for power or renown. It’s not to make more powerful children that I can use against other Immortals.
I’m being selfish. I want her. I want all of her, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. I want her heart and mind and soul. I want to bow to her as more than just my Queen. I want to be the one she dreams of and the one who makes her body quake in the middle of the night. For the rest of our lives.
It’s not logical, and both Darian and Lee would tell me I was being an idiot. But… But something inside me tells me that this is the last chance I’ll have. I’ve never been afraid of a battle. I walked into the House of Shadows and faced down the most powerful shadow wielder in the world without an ounce of fear.
But Brenna fought clean. Gethin… I don’t know what he’s going to do. I don’t know what powers he’ll bring to the fight. And I don’t know if I’m strong enough. For the first time, I’m not sure that I’ll survive this fight.
I need to share my soul completely with Maeve. If this battle is the one I don’t walk away from, I want to go to it knowing that I have done the only thing that truly mattered.
I need to know that I have loved Maeve completely. I need to know what it is to be a part of her, and that she is just as much a part of me. Then, in whatever world comes next, I will know that she’ll come to me. There is no till death do us part because she’ll be mine in the next world as well.
“I love you, Maeve,” I whisper. “More than anything in the world. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I hope you know that.”
She looks up at me, a sparkle in her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything. She just moves her hand to my cheek and lets her nails glide over my skin.
“I love you,” she finally whispers. A glimmer of shadows flicker from her fingertips, and it washes over my cheek, but the darkness feels different, dangerous almost.
“Ten days,” she says as she pulls away. “Ten days before we become one, and then nothing in the world can separate us.” The words are like what I’ve thought, but the tone behind them makes me shiver as a new kind of darkness rolls over me. Maeve was such an innocent and kind Wyrdling when I met her, but she’s changed. She’s become more of an Immortal than I think anyone understands, and I’m not entirely sure what she means by that response.
She gives me one last smile before turning and walking away, leaving me to puzzle it out.