18. Almost Unmade
ALMOST UNMADE
The wind carried the sour tang of old ash, clinging in the hollows of Malec's nose.
He couldn't bear the stillness, so he paced the ruined courtyard, his boots crunching grit with each deliberate step.
Back and forth, then pausing, then again.
His fingers kept reaching for the same places: brushing the ridge of his sword hilt, tugging at the cuff of his glove, raking once more through his hair.
The repetition didn't soothe him, but it kept him from unraveling.
Then the air shifted.
The pressure in his skull lifted, sudden and violent, like surfacing from deep water. The tether, dormant and muffled and suffocated for weeks, blazed to life.
Malec staggered, one hand flying to his chest as the connection roared back into existence. He could feel her. Not the ghost of her, or the faint tremor. Her. Alive. Present. Real.
The relief was staggering. His knees nearly buckled.
His breath came in ragged, uneven gasps as his body remembered what it meant to be tethered, to be connected, and not be screaming into the void.
Focus returned. The haze that had clouded his mind for weeks cleared, sharpening the edges of the world around him. He could think again—breathe again.
But with the relief came the guilt.
Kirelle's body beneath his hands. The emptiness of the act.
Allora's name falling from his lips like a prayer while he betrayed their bond.
And beneath the guilt, the rage. White-hot and vicious.
She had chosen another. Let another male plant himself where Malec could never take root.
She had shattered their Vash'telor and left him to rot.
His fists clenched, magic sparking faintly across his knuckles.
He swallowed it all. Pushed it down. Locked it behind iron will. He would deal with those feelings when he had her in his arms. When she was real and solid and his again. While he could look into her eyes and demand answers.
Now was not the time for emotion.
Now was for the hunt.
Malec turned slowly, his sand-colored eyes tracking eastward. The tether pulled, insistent and clear. She was there. Close.
Surian, who stood in her calm, watchful way against a broken wall, straightened.
Her pale blue eyes tracked his every movement, counting his tells: the way he rubbed his thumb against the center seam of his glove, the way he rolled his shoulders as though shrugging off an unwanted presence, how his breath came shallow before he forced it steady.
"Malec?" Her voice was careful, uncertain.
"She's near," he said, his voice scraped raw but certain. "The wards are down. I can feel her."
Luko shifted in his saddle, exchanging a glance with Surian. "You're sure?"
Malec didn't answer. He dragged his pipe from his belt, tamping the bowl down with more force than necessary.
His hands still shook, but with purpose now.
Pack, light, breathe. He didn't smoke it; just held it against his lip, grounding himself in the familiar feel, the bitter scent.
His rituals were armor, thin as paper but better than standing still with nothing but the weight of her absence clawing at him.
They had been here two hours.
Malec returned to pacing, his fingers worrying the same places again and again: sword hilt, glove cuff, the tangled ends of his hair. The tether pulled east, insistent and clear, but the exact location remained maddeningly out of reach.
Surin stood against a crumbled wall, watching his son with the quiet intensity of an Awyan who noticed too much.
Color had returned to Malec's face, faint but undeniable.
The hollow-eyed wraith who had torn through the wilderness for weeks had regained a fraction of substance.
The tether's return had done that. Given him focus.
Pulled him back from the edge of complete dissolution.
Surin's jaw set. He knew what that meant. What was coming.
Surian shifted beside him, her cloak rustling as the wind caught it. Her breath came tight with quiet dread. Even she could see it now, the look in her brother's eyes. That bone-deep certainty that no one, not Leira, not gods themselves, could take from him.
Malec would camp here. Burn the rest of the ruins if he needed to. Tear up every root of the forest until the truth bled out from under it.
Then Luko straightened in his saddle, pointing toward the tree line. "Someone's coming."
All eyes turned.
From the thick brush, a rider emerged, cloaked in dark gray. The horse looked heavy with long travel, breath steaming through flared nostrils.
Malec stepped forward, his hand instinctively brushing the hilt of his sword.
Surian straightened, the wind pushing back her hood to reveal her pale, alert face.
The rider approached at a measured pace, and beneath the hood, dark brown chestnut hair caught the light, shiny and thick, cascading in perfect waves down the front of a fine gray cloak.
Leira.
Looking not a breath out of place. Her cloak was unwrinkled and posture perfect. She rode like someone who had nowhere better to be and no guilt weighing her down.
Malec's hands curled into fists. His voice came low and dangerous. "Start talking. Now."
Leira dismounted with unhurried grace, boots meeting the ground without sound. She adjusted her red scarf, eyes sweeping across the assembled group with cool assessment.
Then her gaze landed on Surin.
The air between them turned electric. Hate radiated from her like heat from a forge, barely contained beneath her composed exterior. Her lips remained curved in that practiced smile, but her eyes burned with venom so pure it could have stripped flesh from bone.
Surin met her stare without flinching. His posture shifted subtly, weight redistributing, one hand drifting closer to his belt. Calm and ready. He knew why she hated him. Had always known. And if she chose violence, he would answer it.
But Leira only smiled wider, that terrible, cutting smile, and turned her attention to her son.
"She is alive," Leira said, her voice steady and direct. No preamble, she knew Malec had no patience for it. "Unharmed. I've taken care of her this whole time. She has had shelter, food, physicians. Everything she needed."
Malec went very still.
A hundred emotions warred across his face. Gratitude that Allora had been cared for, that she hadn't suffered alone in some dungeon or worse. Relief that his mother, for all her cruelty, had kept her safe.
But beneath it, rage. White-hot and barely leashed. His own mother had kept him from his Vash'telor. He knew she had watched him from her perch somewhere as he tore himself apart, watched him spiral into madness, and lose every fragment of sanity he possessed, while saying nothing.
He forced his voice steady, civil. He would not give her reason to change her mind. "Where is she?"
Leira tilted her head, studying him like a predator assessing prey. "Close."
"If this is a false trail," Malec said softly, each word precise and deadly, "I will burn you alive. Mother or not."
Leira's smile didn't falter. "I believe you would."
Surin moved then, stepping forward and placing a firm hand on Malec's shoulder. The touch was grounding, steadying. "She's telling the truth," Surin said quietly, his voice certain. "I can tell."
Malec dragged a breath through his nose, tension coiling tighter, and gave one stiff nod.
Then it hit him.
Not words. Not a voice calling through the tether.
Feelings.
A wave of emotion crashed into his chest with physical force. Pain, explosive and visceral, like knives twisting deep. Fear, raw and animal, the kind that made prey run blind. Anguish, thick and suffocating, drowning everything else.
Allora.
Allora was in pain.
Malec lurched as though he was pulled forward by an unseen force, one hand flying to his chest as the sensations tore through him. His breath came in ragged gasps, pupils dilating as panic seized him.
"She's hurt," he choked out. "...terrified. She's?—"
Another wave. Stronger. More desperate.
"Gods, she's dying." His voice broke, raw and stripped. "She's dying and I can't—" He spun toward his horse, hands shaking violently as he reached for the reins. Without a second thought, he whipped his horse north and charged.
“Hold on, little dove,” he growled. “I’m coming.”
Behind him, Leira watched her son vanish into the trees like a shadow set free.
The scream tore out of Allora's throat before she could stop it, raw and animal, ripping through the stone corridors of the chateau like a sound that had no business being human.
They had forced a bitter liquid down her throat hours ago, holding her jaw shut when she tried to spit it out, pouring more when she swallowed.
The cramping had started almost immediately, vicious twists in her lower belly that made her double over.
Her body wasn't ready for this. The midwives had said as much in their clipped Awyan, examining her with cold fingers before deciding to proceed anyway.
Now sweat soaked through her skin, her wild curls plastered damp against her temples and cheeks.
Her eyes felt hollow, scraped out from the inside, every blink taking more effort than she had left to give.
Each contraction wracked through her body like a storm tearing down fragile walls, and when she looked down, blood streaked her thighs in dark rivulets that made her stomach turn.
Her belly tightened into a hard, vicious knot. It felt like her body was trying to split itself open from the inside.
Cold hands gripped her arms, steadying her, holding her down.
The midwives' pale faces hovered above her like masks, serene and detached, their movements mechanical.
They smelled of crushed herbs and iron, the scent thick enough to choke on.
Their soft Awyan whispers floated around her, more ritual than comfort, syllables she couldn't parse.
None of them met her eyes. None of them touched her with anything resembling warmth.