Chapter 31 #2
The howling shadows receded back to the wall of light Garrick and Arielle had created, then that was gone, too. Everything returned to its previous state, as if all our efforts had been snuffed away and we'd never cast the spell.
“What in the hells is going on?” Arielle was the first to speak.
Wolfe was still looking at his hand, stunned. Garrick looked just as perplexed, and I was... I didn't even know what I was. To say I was confused and shocked sounded too meager to describe the feelings surging through me.
Wolfe crouched and felt over the parchment, checking it.
He straightened, looked around, disappointment hiding in the press of his lips and the corners of his eyes.
“It... didn't work,” he said more to himself than in answer to Arielle's question—the question that was on all our minds.
“What happened? It looked like it was working,” Garrick said, walking over to the parchment to inspect it, too.
“I don't know. I thought it was working, then something happened.” His voice was laden with hidden rage.
“Something must have gone wrong,” I offered.
Wolfe's gaze shot to me, assessing me as if I somehow had the answers. “Did you feel anything different?”
My breath hitched. Asking me that question was as good as getting me to break down the history of all the ages with personal details of everyone who'd ever lived.
“I... have no idea. All I felt was fear.” My stomach twisted as I wondered what in the hells we would do next.
“Fuck,” Wolfe snarled, squeezing his hand into a fist.
“Wolfe, calm down. We knew this could potentially happen,” Arielle offered. “That's why we planned out the time. In case we had setbacks like this.”
“No. You don't understand. I planned that time in case the spell didn't work at all.
But it was working. If it wasn't going to work, I expected nothing to happen. Not something in between. It was definitely working. The map was forming. It was showing us the way, then it stopped. Like something stopped it. And our blood...” His voice trailed off as he glanced at me.
Then he looked back at them, his expression tight with frustration and uncertainty.
“I've never seen blood return to its owner's body before. Have either of you?”
“No. I haven't.” Arielle shook her head.
“Nor I,” Garrick agreed.
“And we healed. We both healed.” Wolfe held up his hand. “That has to be something else.”
“Maybe it is something else. If the ring is on a different plane of existence, perhaps there's something more you need to do to breach the barriers to get there?” Garrick suggested.
His idea made sense, but Wolfe didn't seem to accept it.
“The dragon's parchment should have been able to breach any barrier,” Wolfe bit out.
Garrick fell silent and looked at Arielle, who was equally quiet. I took that to mean no one had any more ideas. Except Wolfe.
“We'll try again. And we won't stop trying until it works. The method works, so we have to push through whatever barrier is blocking us.” His eyes became feral, and he gazed heavenward, as though challenging some unseen malevolent force.
“Shields up, Garrick,” Arielle called out, raising her hands. A gust of wind instantly answered her call, lifting the ends of her hair around her.
Garrick went back in position, did his chant, and restored his light. Within seconds, he and Arielle had the wall up again.
Wolfe picked up his knife and met my anxious gaze. Before he could ask for my hand, I gave it to him.
He studied my face for a heartbeat before taking my hand and pressing the blade to my skin.
“It will be just like before. I'll block your pain so you shouldn't feel a thing.”
My heart stumbled. “You blocked my pain?” I stared deep into those dark depths and found that compassion I'd witnessed in him nights ago.
“I didn't want to... hurt you.”
His words and the too-tender look in his eyes left me breathless. My thoughts scattered, and for a moment, everything else faded. Then he looked away.
I composed my mind, feeling silly again. He wasn't being nice. Wolfe didn't do nice.
Back home, when Grandmother performed amputations, she didn't use mandrake poultice to numb her patients out of the goodness of her heart. She did it because it was part of the procedure. This was the same thing.
Wolfe sliced my palm, and at first, I felt nothing, but then pain shot through my arm fierce as a lightning bolt.
“Ouch!” I gasped, yanking my hand free. “What in the hells?”
Pain flowed up and down my arm, and my hand burned like fire had scorched my skin. I looked at my hand expecting to see blood pouring from my fresh wound, but the skin had healed up again.
“Elariya, what is it?” Wolfe took my hand and was about to say something more when he noticed I'd healed.
Seething, he released me and cut himself again, only for the same thing to happen. He healed, too. “What the fuck?”
Like a madman, Wolfe grabbed my hand and sliced my palm. Unlike last time, the pain came fast and hard with a force that knocked me to the ground.
I screamed from the agony, grabbing my hand. Wolfe moved toward me, but it was Garrick who got to me first. He'd broken the shield he'd made with Arielle and rushed to my side.
Holding my hand up to the light, he checked I was okay. “Are you hurt?” He continued inspecting me. “What is—”
Garrick didn't get to finish his question. A blast of power knocked him away from me, sending him reeling across the hall. He had to unleash his wings to stop himself from crashing into the wall.
I pushed to my feet, thinking one of the banished beings I was cautioned about earlier had escaped the dead planes and was attacking us.
Instead, I found a furious-looking Wolfe towering over me, looking like the devil about to release fire from the hottest hell.
My chest heaved. Not from the pain, but from him.
From the way he looked at me, then at Garrick as though he wanted to incinerate him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Garrick snapped, flying back to us. His wings disappeared the moment his feet touched the ground.
“I'm fairly certain I said don't break your focus.” The growl that tore from Wolfe's throat echoed around the room.
Garrick glared back at him. “You hadn't started the spell yet.”
“It doesn't matter.” Wolfe got up in his face. “I gave the order for a fucking reason, but you can't go one minute without thinking with your dick, can you?”
Arielle and I exchanged glances, her eyes wide with something close to fear. Or maybe recognition. As if warning me that a monster was about to unleash.
“What in the hells is that supposed to mean?” Garrick barked back.
Wolfe grabbed Garrick by the throat and hoisted him up into the air. “It means don't fucking touch my mage.” His voice didn't sound like him anymore. It dripped vengeance. Slow. Poisonous. Even his shadows fled from his skin, like cloaked souls.
My lungs seized, breath abandoning me entirely.
My mage. Wolfe called me his mage. And Gods... the way he said it.
Something primal stirred inside me, clawing at the surface, begging to be claimed even as my mind screamed with warnings.
I couldn't look away from him, from the rage that wrapped around him like armor and the shadowed devotion buried beneath it.
Heat surged through me, shamefully alive and unyielding, making me drop my guard again and want Wolfe Nightblade more than I should. And that terrified me more than anything else.
Wolfe released Garrick with a vicious shove. Then froze.
His gaze lifted, meeting silver threads shimmering above him. Ribbons of silver brushed his shoulders, spinning around him like starlight caught in a storm.
They were the same threads we'd both seen at the tavern in Stormfell the night we met. I’d seen them in my dream too when the Ruskiel tried to take me.
Mother called them Nyzith strands.
Garrick grabbed Wolfe's arm, pulling him in for a fight. “Wolfe, you're a fucking asshole. I—”
“Silence.” Wolfe's voice cracked like a whip as he shoved him away again.
Wolfe looked over at me, his face still twisted in rage as he pointed from me to the silver threads. “You. What are you doing?”
I frowned, glaring at him. “What are you talking about? It's not me. It must be you. They're all the way over there with you.”
“Maybe you're trying to save Garrick,” he bit out, his voice sharp with something that sounded like jealousy. Or something darker. I couldn't tell which, only that his tone was leached with accusation.
“The Nyzith strands aren't coming from me.” I shook my head vigorously. “I hardly have any powers. Do you seriously think I can conjure a room full of silvery threads?”
They'd multiplied substantially, covering Wolfe like a host of cottonwood seeds claiming the air in the height of spring.
Arielle stepped forward, looking from Wolfe to me, confusion marring her face. “What are you two talking about? Nyzith strands haven't been seen anywhere for decades. Yet you're talking about them as though they're here with us.”
“The room is covered. Can't you see them?” Wolfe snapped, glaring at her.
“No. I see nothing.” Arielle looked around.
“I can't see them either,” Garrick said, searching, too. “There's nothing here but us.”
Wolfe and I looked at each other, realizing we were the only ones who could see them. It had been the same at the tavern, but I'd assumed that was because we were the only two magic-born people in the room.
Now they were here again. And it really was just us who could see them.
As if they'd read my mind, the threads condensed and swirled as one, soaring toward me. Then they covered me like silver petals raining from the sky, gracing my head, my shoulders, my fingers, my feet.
Wolfe returned to my side, his gaze riveted to the strange silver threads while Arielle and Garrick watched, oblivious to what we could see.
The threads began to spin around the two of us, then they sang. A sweet, delicate melody flowed from them, echoing whispers of hope and dreams and love.
This was the second enchanted melody I'd heard today. Somehow, I felt that was no coincidence.
I held out my hand, and the Nyzith strands slid over my palms, soothing away the remnants of the ache I'd previously felt.
They glided away from us, gathering in a mass before they floated toward the door. The doors opened by themselves, allowing the strands to float out into the hallway. We followed them, leaving Garrick and Arielle behind, too stunned by what they couldn't see to immediately react.
The melody rose, growing louder, but not overbearing and daunting. It was still sweet. Still soothing. Still breathing every healing note into my soul.
I looked at Wolfe. He was already staring at me, watching how I engaged with the Nyzith strands.
“You can hear them, too, right?” I asked quietly, not wanting to interrupt whatever this was we were seeing. I also didn't want to seem crazy if only I could hear the song.
But Wolfe nodded, putting my worries to rest. “I hear them.”
At that confirmation, the Nyzith strands shot up to the high beams of the ceiling and soared down the hallway.
Suddenly, I remembered what Mother told me in that dream. “My mother said to follow them.”
Wolfe's gaze shot to me. “What?”
“When the Ruskiel dragged me into the sea, the impact knocked me out, and I dreamt about my mother. She told me I should follow them, and they'd lead me to my destiny.” That's what she'd said.
“Come.” Wolfe took my hand without another question, and we ran to catch up with them.
In a swarm, the Nyzith strands rode the hallway, then out they flew through another set of doors that led outside.
We followed, running out onto the balcony. There, the Nyzith strands pulsed in looping spirals, like they were pointing, calling.
They hovered over the distant cliffs, over the caves etched into the shoreline like old scars. The same caves where the dragons lived.
The same place I'd felt the pull not even an hour ago.
That same pull gripped my insides now, cold and sharp, setting every nerve alight.
“The dragon caves,” I whispered. “They want us to go there.”
Wolfe didn't answer. He just kept staring at the hovering strands.
Until they vanished. Gone in a blink, taking their song with them.
Wolfe and I looked at each other. And I knew whatever was waiting in those caves wasn't just calling to me. It was summoning him, too.
“Why would they want us to go to the caves?” I searched his eyes for the answer.
“I… I don't know.” His voice was low and broken, tainted by defeat.
And that defeat... it wasn't just about the caves.
It was about everything.
The spell.
The ring.
The bond between us.
And whatever came next.