Chapter 23
Elariya
“A Taste of Death and Darkness”
“Your hair will look pretty with this.” Mother placed a snowbell rose in my hair.
“Thank you.”
She gave me an enchanting smile and tilted her head, regarding me with adoration. The sun beaming off her lustrous hair awakened the deepest shades of fire in each strand.
We sat side by side on the bench in the garden. The weather was sunny and vibrant, with the scent of spring alive in the air.
Hope whispered through the rustling leaves, the newly bloomed flowers, and the feather-soft grass. It danced in my veins, making me feel at peace. And yet I felt so out of place. Like I shouldn’t be here.
Mother touched my face, stroking my cheek. “What are you going to do?” she asked, the shine in her eyes dimming.
“What do you mean?”
“You have to go soon, my love.”
“I don’t want to leave.” I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I knew I never wanted to leave her side.
“You have to. They’ll come for you.”
My breath stopped and fear coiled through me like a snake wrapping around my organs. “Who's coming for me?”
As soon as I spoke, little flashes of silver threads floated between us. The same way they had at the tavern when I first saw Wolfe.
Wolfe.
Wolfe Nightblade.
That name rumbled through my mind like thunder, and I instantly remembered I’d been captured.
The beauty of my home in Stormfell faded into nothingness, until just a gray expanse surrounded my mother and me.
Mother gripped my shoulders, and the silver threads danced around her.
“Follow the Nyzith strands,” she said, her eyes fixed on them.
“Nyzith strands?” I’d never heard the term before.
“Follow them, Elariya. They will lead you to your destiny.” Tears ran down her cheeks.
“Mother, don’t let them take me!”
She answered but I couldn’t hear her. Then I realized I couldn’t hear anything. As though someone had switched off the sound.
A gust of wind ripped her away from me. I screamed as she blew away, disappearing from my sight. Just like everything else.
A loud boom exploded around me, so strong it shook me to my core.
My eyes snapped wide, and I realized I was surrounded by water.
Lots of water, and there was salt in my throat.
The sea. I was in the sea.
In a flash I remembered what happened. The Ruskiel had me, and sharp, slimy tentacles were wrapped around my waist. I must have passed out when we hit the water.
The tentacle kept going down, down, down deep into the sea, then the Ruskiel surged up.
I broke through the surface, gasping for air, coughing the water from my lungs.
The Ruskiel made a hollow sound like a thousand ghosts screaming at once. I looked up and saw shards of magic rippling through the air above us.
It was the shield. It was broken and unraveling at the seams like thread on fabric. Through the splashes of water I saw what had broken the shield.
Not what. Who.
Wolfe soared up into the sky, his wings a cape of smoke blocking the moon.
With his sword raised and gleaming a luminescent blue light, he changed course and flew down, using the momentum to drive himself forward.
I remembered what he’d told me about his Aetherflame magic. I was seeing it now for myself.
The Ruskiel screeched back at him, creating sound waves that rippled visibly through the air.
“Go back to the shadows, Lord Nightblade,” she wailed.
Wolfe got caught in the rings of sound that pulsed upward, but still he kept coming. His sword clashed against another invisible barrier, but he broke through again and rammed it into the witch’s body.
I was certain that blow would have ended her. But it didn’t.
All Wolfe managed to do was cleave off her left side. The injury made her scream so loudly I thought the sound would kill me. She thrashed in agony for a moment, then composed herself and blasted him with balls of white fire.
Wolfe blocked each ball with his sword, striking back with all his might as they came at him.
I watched in horror, wanting to do something, but trapped in the Ruskiel’s tentacle, I was helpless. I could hardly breathe to keep myself alive.
Fate was so cruel to me. I’d wanted to escape and forget the day I met Wolfe. But not like this. Not taken by a demonic sea witch who wanted to take my soul.
Wolfe and the Ruskiel traded blow for blow until the witch bellowed another wild, hellish scream and plunged back into the depths of the sea.
I just managed to take a breath before being immersed in water again.
She dove deeper this time. So deep my head spun and I was losing consciousness again. Along with the ability to hold my breath.
We went deeper and deeper, then the witch stopped and floated in the belly of the sea. She seemed to be hiding. But Wolfe found her. Found us. Found me.
He'd plunged into the sea, blue light shimmering around him, illuminating the murky void of our surroundings. The crushing silence pressed against my ears, broken only by the hollow echo of our heartbeats.
Wolfe’s light brightened, steadying before us. Within the glow, I saw the Fae prince, but he didn’t look like himself. A living skeleton, like death itself walked toward us bathed in blue flames rimmed with darkness.
I recalled the other day after I woke from his spell and saw his powers. It didn’t feel like normal magic. It was something else entirely.
What was it?
What was he?
Though I lacked knowledge, I knew his power was beyond this world.
Seeing him like that again now made my soul shy away in terror. The Ruskiel froze, too, rigid with dread. Still, she attempted her screaming attack.
But it was to no avail.
Wolfe rushed through the water as if it were nothing but mist, his movements unnaturally swift. The sea parted before his blade, then he brought it down with savage precision. With a force that sent shockwaves rippling outward, he cleaved the Ruskiel in half.
There was no mistake this time. He’d obliterated her. I watched her body separate, dark tendrils of what might have been blood unfolding into the cold embrace of the deep.
She was dead, but her damn tentacle was still wrapped around me, squeezing the life from my body. And Gods, I couldn’t hold my breath.
I couldn’t hold it any longer.
I lost the fight to hold the air in my lungs. My mouth opened, releasing the air. Water rushed in.
My lungs filled up fast, then I felt death’s embrace once more. My luck had run out.
Not even a second passed before leeches broke out of the tentacle and sliced into my skin, crawling underneath. Death had truly come for me.
The last stroke of madness kicked in, a raw instinct to survive, and I screamed into the water, thrashing against the tentacle’s grasp.
My struggle only accelerated my demise, and I sank even deeper into the sea with the Ruskiel’s remains.
Blessed Mother, I wasn’t going to make it.
I was going to die here.
As soon as the thought pierced my mind and the world blurred, I saw him again.
Wolfe appeared before me, hacking at the tentacle.
The grip finally came loose and Wolfe grabbed me before I could float away.
Holding me against his chest, he swam upwards, his wings lifting us higher and faster. Still, I must have blacked out twice before we pierced the surface. Air hit my face, waking me up, and I tried to cough up the water. But I couldn’t get it out. Or breathe.
Wolfe flew back to the deck of the ship, dropped his sword, and laid me down.
He pressed on my chest and water flowed up from my lungs.
I coughed it up, but without air, my consciousness waned, flickering from dark to light and back again.
“Come on, Ziyka. Don’t you dare die on me,” Wolfe spoke in a voice that held too much emotion for a someone who was supposed to be my enemy.
I could barely see him, but what I saw …
Gods, he still wore that Grim Reaper skeletal face, but his skin had started to reform, showing he was badly hurt. Blood seeped from open slices across his face and neck, and the moonlight revealed dark, angry bruises.
He did something with his hands that heated my chest. It made the water flow up faster, but just as the water emptied, something thick slid into my lungs, sealing off my airway like a vacuum.
Wolfe’s eyes widened. “Oh, fuck. You’ve got to be kidding me. That fucking witch.”
It was the leeches. I could feel them inside me, wriggling violently as they emitted the same malicious energy I’d felt from the Ruskiel.
Dark shivers stitched into my bones and the little life that had kept me breathing drained away.
“Wol…fe.” I mouthed his name and reached for him.
He took my hand and held it as if he never planned to let go.
“No. Elariya, stay with me. Stay with me.” The desperation in his voice peeled back the layers of the devil, revealing the person beneath.
A person who looked at me as if I were more than a means to getting back his ring.
Wolfe looked at me as if I was his salvation. Something that transcended the situation that brought us together and I was no longer the daughter of his father’s killer.
“Stay with me.” The plea in his words reached past my failing body and spoke to my soul.
But I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t even tell him I had to go. The things inside my body were killing me.
“Elariya.”
A mass swelled in my chest, tight and burning, right before the witch’s ghostly laughter rattled through my bones.
“If I can’t have her, neither can you, Lord Nightblade.” The leeches answered in her voice, a thousand serpents hissing through my blood.
“We’ll see about that, witch.” Wolfe bared his teeth, the skeletal mask flashing over his face again. Then, Gods help me, he lowered his head and pressed his lips to mine.
A kiss of death.
A kiss of life.
A kiss of malice.
A kiss of vengeance.
I didn’t know which one it was. I just knew that he tasted like my undoing and my redemption all in one.
Blue light surged into me, raw and magnetic. It filled every broken part of me with warmth and life and hope renewed while he drew out the rot. I felt the moment the leeches tore free. The witch’s darkness ripped from my soul and flowed into his.
Then he flew backward like he’d taken a blade to the chest.
I barely registered Alaric and Garrick rushing toward him. In my frail, half-broken state, my mind reached for him, but I couldn’t move.
Tiny hands slipped into mine. I turned my head and saw Sirril crouched beside me.
“I’m here, my Lady,” he whispered.
But my gaze dragged back to Wolfe just in time to see the shadows writhing within his skin. They moved like living ink, twisting against the light now pulsing through him.
The blue fire burst again. An anguished cry tore from him, splitting the air, then darkness exploded from his body, breaking into smoke and embers that scattered across the deck before vanishing into the wind.
Wolfe collapsed. Alaric caught him before he hit the ground, barely keeping him upright. Even then, when he should’ve been unconscious, his eyes found mine.
And something shifted. Not just between us.
Something beyond him saving me.
Whatever it was, I knew it was something I couldn’t undo.
And I knew deep in my soul that I’d never be the same again.