Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Look at you,” a dark voice uttered.
Aela’s eyes flashed open, nearly blinding herself with her own light.
“Exquisite.”
The voice was coming from all around her, though there was no one within the force of light she created except herself.
The voice coalesced into a pair of liquid gold eyes framed by a face and male body wreathed entirely in shadow.
Aela trembled and she couldn’t tell if her mind was playing tricks on her or if this was the same figure who had appeared in her dreams.
“Please,” she gasped.
The dark figure reached a hand toward her. She had the same control over the strike that speared the shadowy figure as she had over the forks of lightning that destroyed the courtyard. Aela watched in horror only for her lightning to snap and coil harmlessly around the shroud’s hand and forearm.
“Interesting,” the shadow figure murmured. “Well, time to go.”
Caught off guard by his casual tone, Aela stammered, “Go where? The power. It’s too much… I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“It’s going to be alright,” the stranger wrapped in darkness soothed. “There are Cancerrans in service to Sagittarius. You left the social. No one can get close enough now for you to seriously hurt them.”
“What about you?”
The shadow cocked his head to the side, his golden gaze narrowing. “What about me,” he mused.
After a beat of silence, he extended fingers shrouded in darkness to her as her light flared and swirled around him.
“You can come with me, leave, or stay in this marvelous shield you’ve created, but you are emitting a magnificent display of power, Timora.
It will continue to drain you at a rapid rate, leaving you vulnerable and at a…
disadvantage.” He cocked his head again, this time to his other shoulder, studying her.
“Something I think you’ll want to avoid. ”
Something in his phrasing snagged inside her mind, yet it slipped away before she could examine it further. There was a lengthy pause before the shadow figure asked his next question.
“What’ll it be? Are you coming?”
Much to her dismay, Aela didn’t know how she made the surrounding shield.
She didn’t know how to dispel it; all she knew was that the restless energy she’d kept locked down her entire life had hemorrhaged.
The bleeding couldn’t be stopped. She would either fracture by draining herself of magic, she would go with him, or she would go back to Tarek.
Before she let herself further debate the merits of trusting a figure made of shadow internally, Aela grabbed his hand.
Though she couldn’t see his features apart from his eyes, she got the distinct impression that he smiled down at their joined hands.
With a slight tug on her wrist, the shadow figure pulled Aela close until darkness suffused her light. With a sigh, Aela closed her eyes as her power finally banked and settled back into her being. She was vaguely aware of someone shouting her name, but she tuned them out as darkness took her.
The realm washed past in blazing trails of light.
Her blinks were heavy, and despite the speed at which she flew through the cosmic air, every motion and thought dragged.
She felt like an impression of herself was being stretched across the sky.
The longer they flew and the farther away they went, the atmosphere pressed upon them. It felt… almost sentient.
As if it was watching.
Waiting.
Aela tried to lift her hand to touch the glimmers of light zipping by but was spared the effort of raising her arm against the pressure as the shadow figure readjusted his hold on her.
“The gravity is denser here,” he explained. “That’s why it feels different. Stay close to me until you get used to it, or you could very well drift off.”
That sobered her sluggish thoughts.
Not before long, the trailing lights smeared in elongated stretches as they slowed their trajectory, having arrived at their destination.
“You’re safe now,” the dark shroud said.
Aela blinked, but blurring light still marred her vision whether her eyes were open or closed. Her head lolled, and she braced herself further back into the figure behind her.
After a few more failed attempts to orient herself, the sensation of high velocity wore off. She floated away from the shadowy figure, and her eyes darted around at the blackness yawning out on all sides.
With a sharp breath, she tried to distract herself from succumbing to fear. “Where are we?”
The shroud shrugged as he drifted beside her, gracefully rotating in a slow orbit around her, assessing where he brought them.
“You don’t know?” Aela demanded.
He said I was safe. Where in the Fates am I?
“Why would you—”
Then she saw it. In the distance ahead of them, a rock hovered in the cosmic expanse. At a distance, it appeared oblong. Not questioning how she could do so without a tactical suit like the other celestials wore to move freely within their warded cities, Aela propelled herself closer.
Maybe because there are no wards…
Indeed, she felt no depression on her breath, no containment. It was expansive, a bit wild. Untapped and untested.
The floating rock became a massive asteroid as Aela drew nearer.
This was not like the pale rocks of The Spine.
There were craters, and it reminded her of the rough crystals she’d unearthed from the mines, no two sides or edges the same.
Rough. Uninviting, its harsh porous surface seemed to repel anyone from landing.
Drawn to the inhospitable surface, Aela touched down.
The shadow watched her from his higher vantage, floating above her.
Aela bunched the skirt of her dress in one hand as she hiked over the asteroid, marveling at how gravity kept her on the surface, yet with just the slightest force, she was airborne again.
She took jumping strides across the surface, and a small smile inched across her face.
But it didn’t last.
Her smile ushered in the tears she knew would come after reliving her nightmare yet again, and she sagged onto the jagged rocks.
The shroud floated down beyond her onto stone steps she hadn’t noticed.
After climbing the narrow stairs, his darkened form disappeared through a slim opening—one she would have missed entirely had she not just seen him vanish deeper into the side of the asteroid.
She scrambled to follow, wiping her tears.
The hem of her dress frayed on the rock behind her, and she used her hands to steady herself on the stone steps. She slid between two sheer sides of uneven rock and found smooth, even flooring beneath her feet.
Devoid of light, the entrance was cave-like, funneling her into a wider chamber.
Soon, soft light beckoned her path, and Aela’s shoulders relaxed when the entrance delivered her into a cavernous space with filtered light bouncing off the smoothed dark gray walls.
The shadowy male was waiting for her in the center of the circular chamber with more tunnels branching off from the main area.
“What is this place?” Aela asked.
“I thought it was obvious? It’s an asteroid.”
Aela didn’t have the energy to do more than raise a lone eyebrow at him. The amount of power she had exerted and the flight through the realm were catching up to her.
Either that or I can finally rest now that I’m away from Tarek.
A pang of guilt followed swiftly after that thought.
Arche. The Taureons. Tabitha. Zosma.
She left them all behind without a second thought. Vexed at the path her mind took, she sucked on a tooth.
“And what exactly are we to do in this asteroid? Is there anyone else here?” She had more questions, but her mind was becoming smoke. She needed to lie down.
“I believe you’ll find sleeping arrangements through there,” he gestured offhandedly.
Aela wasn’t sure which tunnel he meant and was about to ask when he spoke again.
“There is a rare magic here. It will provide for your needs.” With that, the shadow faded away, his last words his only farewell.
“Wait!” Aela called.
The shroud materialized again in a thinner black vapor. “Yes?”
“Who are you? Why do this? What do you want from me?”
“Rest, Aela. We’ll discuss what I need when you have recovered. For now, take what you need.”
His parting words proved true, and Aela blindly picked one path from the main cavern and followed the hall around until it opened into yet another domed room.
A massive bed lay facing the opening where she supposed a door would be if it were a domestic space.
Laden with thick cream comforters and fluffy pillows, her bones ached just looking at the awaiting bliss.
“Whatever ward or magic this is, thank you,” she said to no one, her shadow companion having left. Aela climbed onto the soft bedding and groaned, still wrapped in her damp, frayed dress as she nestled beneath the blankets. Her dreamscape awaited.
Aela’s body slumbered deeply, yet her eyes sprang open into her dreamscape.
She was in the asteroid. She sat up in bed and looked down at her frayed dress.
It was a shame, really, that the dress had been ruined.
Aela got out of the bed and grimaced at the sheets only to find them unmarred.
She swung her legs over the side and padded barefoot around the room.
A sunken pool that hadn’t been there when she arrived was situated in the center of the cavern.
It was mostly round, and the water glowed with a luminescent light.
Her gaze trailed over the rest of the space, noting the absence of furniture.
She turned back and saw the bed still there, now flanked by a pair of end tables.
As her eyes climbed up the gray walls of the cavern, her breath caught at an opening.
She trotted closer to the pool to get a better look.
Craning her neck over the edge of the pool, she turned her head to view the cosmic night sky.
Silenced celestials or perhaps stars that were created only for their light and beauty shone down on her.
Looking down at the steaming water, she caught her murky reflection.
Her hair was a tangled mess. She stripped out of her dress before lowering herself into the glowing water stemming from crystals lining the bottom of the spring.
An undignified groan escaped her parted lips as warmth enveloped her. She had read about these—hot springs, they were called. Aela swam into the center of the pool and floated on her back, her skin pebbled from the cool air that whispered against her exposed flesh.
Through the rough cavern opening, she could see her constellation above her, set in the eternal tapestry of night. She’d recognize her Line’s pattern anywhere.
Tears burned and drained down her temples into the water as she lifted a hand, tracing paths between the prominent stars of her House.
While she knew she wasn’t beneath their true location, a broken cry choked out of her at the proximity.
Her dreams had once held safety for her.
Now, it felt like her mind had laid her failure before her constellation for them to flay her soul.
Warm water spilled into her mouth as she sank to the bottom of the pool.
Aela howled into the water—her despair, her rage, her fear. She wanted it out. She couldn’t contain or control all the conflicting emotions within her. Through the air bubbles from her scream, she saw a murky figure standing on the side of the pool.
Aela shot out of the water. Water sluiced down her naked body as she grasped them by their neck and pinned them on the ground. Her wet hair hung around their faces. Jaelin reached up a hand and brushed a section of slick hair behind her ear.
Jaelin.
Steam roiled off her body, her waterlogged skin instantly soaking his clothes.
“Jaelin,” Aela’s voice sounded detached. “You’re dead.”
Jaelin only swallowed beneath her grip, prompting her to jerk her hand away. She sat down on her heels and wrapped her arms around her knees, staring at him lying on the stone floor.
“Aela?”
She flinched at the sound of her name on his lips.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Not my fault? I should have saved you!”
“There’s nothing you could have done.”
“You don’t know me,” she said, standing. Her skin began to glow. Shifting the outcast crystal miner into a steaming Goddess of untapped sorrow and fury. Lightning danced in her turquoise irises, and the surrounding air dampened. Jaelin stood slowly, not wanting to startle her.
Good. He should be afraid.
“No, Timora, I do know you.”
Aela’s shoulders slumped, and fat drops of rain showered inside the cavern. “I don’t know how to control it.” She knew he was dead. She knew this was a dream. Just as his words on Prente moments before his death made no sense then, the two of them speaking in her dream made little more.
“I’ve been trying to get home, but have I? I’ve let things pull me away. I feel like I’ve betrayed them!” Aela fell to her knees with a sickening crack against the stone floor, and Jaelin rushed to her side.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her through the rain and back to bed. When he laid her down, the bedding was just as warm and dry as when she first settled into it. She sobbed at the sensation.
I don’t deserve comfort. I deserve to—before her thought finished forming, Jaelin grasped her jaw, shifting her gaze to his.
“No,” he growled, leaning over her. “You have betrayed no one, Aela. Not your family, not me, and not yourself. And don’t forget for one moment that you are here for a reason.”
Something shifted in his gaze, as if the words he said pained him in some way. Aela’s uneven breaths from crying steadied as she looked into his brown eyes.
“Make me forget.”
And he did.