34. Far Too Long – Elias
Far Too Long
ELIAS
Something prickly tickled my cheek, and I almost sighed against the simple sensation. I breathed in deeply, the air tasting crisp as I groaned, not yet ready to open my eyes to the next world. Something growled nearby, and a jolt worked through me.
"Lift him slowly."
"Is this a sleeping curse?" a deep, familiar voice asked, and I tried to place it but couldn't. It couldn't be who I thought it could, could it? It had been so long since I'd last heard him.
"No, this is different. It feels like a stasis. As if his body is being healed." She paused, then gasped slightly. "The magic is powerful, and it feels like... it feels like Rosie. I'm sure of it."
Rosie. My Rosemary. I needed to wake up.
I had to tell them what had happened. They needed to know that the unseelie queen had taken her.
But every limb felt like lead. I screamed and thrashed within the confines of my mind, but my body refused to move.
I broke a sweat but finally managed to get my eyes open.
I shifted slightly, lifting my head up only an inch before I froze, the sharp press of steel present at my throat.
"Where is she? Don’t think for one second that I won’t slit your throat," she snarled, though, unlike her sister, her hands trembled slightly as she pressed the blade to my neck.
A century of sleep hadn't dulled her protective instincts, but her movements carried the uncertainty of someone still remembering how to be awake.
"Careful. Leave him be so he can explain, my love," the male's patient voice said.
My heart slammed against my ribcage and my mouth went dry. Pale blond hair fell in gentle waves down her shoulders to nearly her waist. Soft, blue eyes, so like her mother’s had been, held my gaze with a fierceness. But just over her shoulder... I almost forgot how to breathe. I had given up hope.
Darius stood tall and as muscular as the last day I'd seen him.
His hair roughly shorn, the same black-blue hue as my own.
His eyes, unlike my steely gray gaze, were the freshest green, like the dawning spring.
He smiled that grin that meant he knew I'd gotten into some trouble, and that after he chastised me, teased me relentlessly, he would help me get out of it. I’d missed that look.
"Brother?" I asked, my voice rough and breaking on the single word.
"Good to see that you're not dead, little brother," Darius said, cocking a hip to the side as he folded his arms over his chest.
"I died, did I not?" I asked, my body still feeling the heaviness of death's embrace.
"Unfortunately, no," Briar growled, glaring at me.
I jerked to the side, my hand slicing upward quick enough to disarm her.
My movements weren't precise though, so I caught the blade under my finger, tearing my flesh open along her blade as I pulled it from her grip.
I climbed up onto my elbows, groaning against the lingering pain within my body as I did so.
"We need to go. Now. Rosemary is in danger," I said.
Briar's boot landed with a thud in my stomach, and I sputtered up air, choking on nothing as I glared up at her. "Dagger," she demanded, her hand held out in waiting. "Now!"
"What is wrong with you, you freaking hellcat? We need to get her back," I replied, grumbling as I put some space between Briar and myself.
"I'd be careful what you call my mate, brother," Darius said, a low rumble of something feral from within him and a flash of darkness behind his green gaze.
Dragging my fingers through my hair, I straightened until I stood at my full height. I stared at my brother, noticing for the first time how I now stood a few inches taller than he. "I will be careful as long as you don’t get in the way of me rescuing mine."
"Where is she?" Briar demanded, pulling another dagger from her boot. "I don't give a crow's piss what you think you are to her. Where. Is. My. Sister?"
The tattered remains of Rosemary's pack lay scattered in the grass like wilted memories.
Torn sketches fluttered in the breeze, powdered herbs crumbled into the soil.
All of it… gone. My eyes drifted downward, catching the glint of the elixir she had let slip from her grasp.
I stooped to retrieve it, cradling the small bottle as if it were some fragile remnant of her heart.
Of ours. “We found the flower she wanted to—” I paused, the words catching as I looked from Briar to Darius, the weight of it all pressing against my ribs.
I tucked the elixir into the pocket of my trousers as I asked, “How are you here?”
Out of the corner of my eye, the fur of wolves glinted through the trees, one of a familiar gray and one russet.
“Though they will return later, they say their debt to you is paid,” Darius said, nodding toward the retreating wolves. He cast a weary look through the woods. “We need to get going. These woods aren’t safe at night.”
"If you could explain how you’re both here, that would be great."
Briar picked up the dagger I had discarded. "Tell us everything," she demanded. "Then I'll decide if I should kill you or tell you."
Darius sighed. "The curse was broken."
"Obviously," I deadpanned. "But what happened that made it break?"
"We were hoping you could fill us in," Darius admitted. "One moment I was a crow watching over Briar, the next moment I was not a crow, and Briar was awake."
I love you, damn it. I forgive you. Just don't die.
“She.” I rubbed the hair along the nape of my neck as I stared around the forest blankly. The memory of her words as I was dying. "She broke the curse."
She had known everything then. Rosemary had known who I was, that I had lied to her, that I intended to betray her, and still she’d admitted her love for me. She had lost everything, and still...
She broke the curse.
Briar laughed. "Of course she did, you idiot. Who else would?" She rolled her eyes. "Took you both longer than I thought it would. Far too long."
"I’m sorry that it took too long to break the curse. I didn’t even know she was alive until just a few years ago. Now, if you both don’t mind, perhaps we can go get her now? I’m sure you both remember how Mother is."
"Mother has her? Fuck." Darius tipped his head back and looked up to the sky. "Calm down, brother. We will rescue her, but we will need to adjust our plan."
“Your plan?” I cast a look between the two of them. “Why are you both here right now? You didn’t come to find me and Rosemary, did you?”
“We followed your path through the woods hoping we would find you along the way, but no,” Darius said, his teeth clenching even as I watched Briar’s chin give a slight nod of encouragement for him to continue.
“Briar and I were on our way to end this once and for all. We found your allies along the way and learned of the hard journey you both traveled, but we didn’t know you had become separated until we found you alone.
The wolves caught your scent a mile back and let us here. ”
“So, you have a plan of attack?” I asked, finding comfort in his words. When they both nodded, I said, “Good.”
We moved deeper into the forest, away from any potential scouts, until we found a defensible position among a cluster of ancient oaks. Darius produced a map from his pack, one I remembered from our childhood explorations.
"How long has it been? How long was I on the ground like that?" I asked, studying our surroundings more carefully. The remnants of Rosemary's bag seemed fewer than I remembered, as if most had already blown away.
"We found you covered in magic. Powerful magic. It felt like Rosemary," Briar said, studying me intently. "I think she saved you, but the way it feels here, the residual emotions, I don't think she knows what she did. I think she believes she failed you."
"It took us three weeks to find you," Darius added.
Three weeks. Terror flared as pain seized my chest. "We need to go now. What if she’s already dead? What if Mother took her back to make an example of her?"
"If you'd secured your bond, you'd know without a shadow of a doubt whether she lived or not," Darius said quietly.
“How?” I asked, already placing a palm against the fast thud of my beating heart.
“Focus inward and find the bond. It will feel like her. It will either be there warm and alive, or it will feel like an icy pool of slowly spreading acid. You’ve been under some powerful healing magic, so there is a chance you haven’t felt the pain yet if it has been numbed under the enchantment,” Darius explained.
I focused inside myself, feeling around for the bond. Soon I felt it, there humming within me connected over a long distance to my mate. To Rosemary. I caressed it and promised her, I'm coming, Rosie.
"She's alive," I breathed. "Barely, but alive."
Briar spread the map on a fallen log, her finger tracing potential routes. "The castle has been reinforced since we were children. Your mother's paranoia has grown."
"Security checkpoints here, here, and here," Darius pointed out locations. "New guard rotations every four hours instead of eight. And she's added something else, echo sentinels at key passages."
My blood chilled. "Echo sentinels?"
"Bound echoes. They can't move from their posts, but they'll alert every guard in the castle if they detect unfamiliar minds."
"That’s why we need the distraction, just like we planned," Briar said, her voice taking on the tactical tone I remembered from strategy lessons. "Something big enough to draw attention away from the dungeons.
"This is war," Briar announced suddenly, standing straighter. "A war that should have been fought over a century ago."
As if summoned by her words, figures emerged from the forest. Seelie scouts, their armor gleaming despite the shadows. Behind them, Queen Mab materialized in a shower of pixie dust.
"Your Highness," the lead scout said, bowing to Briar. "The seelie army awaits your orders."
“The seelie army?” I asked, hardly able to keep up. “Rosemary made it seem like her people had been lost…”
“They were under the same sleeping curse as Briar, deep within the seelie lands. They made their way to the border of the Everland Forest when they awakened, and the pixies informed them of the state of things,” Darius explained quietly while Briar addressed the pixies.
Briar's transformation was remarkable. The uncertain young woman became a queen before my eyes. "Send word to all our allies. Once the signal lifts, we follow the plan. Tonight we end this."
Queen Mab fluttered closer, her expression grim. "There's something else you need to know. The queen isn't just holding the princess prisoner. She's been using her for experiments."
"What kind of experiments?" I demanded.
"Curse refinement. She's using torture to test ways to siphon power from the princess—building stronger curses, ones designed to spread beyond individual targets to entire bloodlines, entire kingdoms."
The weight of this revelation settled over us like a funeral shroud. This wasn't just about saving Rosemary anymore. Mother was planning something that could destroy every magical bloodline in existence.
"She's building an army of the cursed," Mab continued. "Using the princess's power to fuel curses that could turn allies into enemies with a single touch. If she succeeds..."
"She won't," Briar said with steel in her voice. "We won't let her."
As we prepared for the assault, each of us grappled with our deepest fears.
I pulled Darius aside. "What if I'm too late? What if by the time we reach her, there's nothing left of who she was?"
"Then we love whatever remains," he said simply.
The thought was a knife to my heart, but I knew he was right to voice it.
Nearby, Briar checked her weapons with methodical precision, but I caught the tremor in her hands. "Hey," I said softly. "What's really frightening you?"
She looked up, and for a moment I saw past the warrior facade to the sister who'd just awakened from a century of sleep. "What if I'm not the sister she remembers? What if a hundred years of watching her suffer alone has changed me too much? What if we can't go back to how we were?"
"Then you build something new," I said. "Something stronger."
Our approach to the castle was fraught with tension. Twice, we had to duck behind crumbling walls as patrols passed closer than expected. Once, a guard's torch beam swept within inches of where Briar crouched.
"Someone knows we're coming," Darius whispered as we waited for another patrol to pass. "The guard rotations have doubled."
"Maybe," I replied, "or maybe Mother's just being extra cautious with her prize."
But as we reached the outer walls, Darius’s suspicions were confirmed. A line of guards stood at attention, far more than usual. And they weren't just watching outward. They were scanning the forest, searching.
"She knows," Briar breathed. "Somehow, she knows we're here."
"Then we make this count," I said grimly. "One chance. If we fail—"
"We won't fail," Darius said with conviction. "We can't."
The signal came, a massive plume of crimson smoke curling into the air and the crack of thunder splitting through the night. Battle cries erupted from multiple directions as our allies launched their coordinated assault.
"Now," I said, and we ran for the walls, knowing that our princess's life, and the fate of all the realms, hung in the balance.