61. Chapter Sixty-One
61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
BASTIAN
T he absence of another person was an uncomfortable pressure that had me rolling my shoulders to relieve that tension. Arden hadn’t offered me a seat, and I didn’t take one. Didn’t make myself comfortable as I waited. Instead, I stood, looming over the girl who sat awaiting her fate.
Had she seen this coming? She claimed she was a Seer after all; is that why she agreed so easily?
Elodie’s hand rose to her chest in a way I remembered seeing before, brushing against the fabric before dropping back into her lap, twisting at the bangles around her wrist instead in practised movements. She wasn’t looking my way, her focus on the flames behind me, a vacant look smoothing her features.
Snapping my fingers to pull her from wherever her mind had taken her, the thud of a door marked Arden’s return. I caught the look of annoyance she directed my way before she turned to Arden, a bundle of items held in his arms as he made his way to us.
He paused by the fire, throwing in a handful of something that had the flames spitting and hissing as they consumed whatever it was. A sharp scent filled the room as they did so.
Arden began placing an assortment of crystals in an intricate pattern on the low table before us. Large chunks of clear quartz were positioned beside carved amethysts and lapis lazuli. All crystals, I realised from my years of learning under his tutelage, to help relax and open the mind.
From the sheer number he had heaped on the table, I knew he wasn’t expecting this to be easy. And from every encounter I’d ever had with Elodie, I doubted it would be.
“Drink this,” Arden said, offering her a small vial filled with a dark green liquid before sitting back in his chair. “It will help your mind open to me. Considering your level of power, it won’t be long before your magik burns through the potion and tries to kick me out. When that happens, Elodie, you’ll need to fight it. You can’t kick me out until I’ve finished.”
Elodie nodded as she studied the vial, and he placed a large candle at each point in the pattern he had made, two dark purple and the other two yellow in colour. With a stick of white chalk, he marked the table with lines and runes that were too complicated for me to follow.
Arden’s hand flicked, and the lights in the tower dimmed to barely a glimmer, the candles igniting at the same time, providing the only way, aside from the fire, to see by.
“Drink,” he instructed, and she pulled off the stopper, swallowing the liquid in one gulp, grimacing as she did.
Arden held out his hand and slowly she placed her into it. I hadn’t seen the small knife until he pressed it into the pad of her thumb, the sharp blade slicing through her skin as drops of blood dripped over the markings on the table.
“Are you ready, my dear?”
“I haven’t exactly got much choice in the matter,” Elodie replied, pulling her hand back, her focus on Arden but those words meant for me. Bloodied thumb beading a single crimson drop she pulled in a steadying breath.
“Then we will begin.” Arden’s eyes narrowed as he flicked them to me for a moment before he, too, settled back, and I stayed standing beside them. Watching. Anticipation pulsed through my body as I waited for them to begin, their annoyance towards me easy to ignore when we were so fucking close.
Whispered words fell from Arden’s mouth, so quiet and fast, I had no chance to catch them, but I could feel the spell he was weaving through the room. The brushes of magik that were building a connection between the two of them. It stroked across my cheek, leaving a blazing trail in its wake.
I felt the energy flowing between them heighten, a physical entity in the air around us. A harsh breath left Elodie, her lips parting slightly as she sat so small in that chair. Magik stirred within me, willing my attention to focus solely on her as it tried to reach for her, seconds away from brushing across her cheek before I reigned it in.
Elodie’s eyes were darting backwards and forwards under their lids, fingernails now digging deep crescents into the velvet arms of the chair. The overwhelming urge to cover her hand in mine, offer her comfort, buzzed through my body. The need so unfamiliar, I stood frozen, towering over her, watching as her body tensed under the intrusion to her mind.
A short, sharp inhale of pain fell from her lips as her back arched into the armchair, mind still held in the grip of the magik Arden was using as her own poured from her in retaliation. Slicing whips of energy were cracking through the room. As one bit down on my shoulder, I clenched my teeth against the hiss of pain it brought.
Before I knew I was moving, I had crossed the distance between us. Dropping to the floor in front of her and ignoring the searing touch of that magik that still lashed against me. Our faces were level, the light from the fire casting the shadows of her eyelashes to stream down her cheeks like trails of dark tears.
“Stop fighting, Elodie,” Arden pushed out through gritted teeth.
I glanced back at him, his face creased in pain as he doubled down his efforts, a red welt blooming across his cheek.
Elodie cried out, chest heaving with punishing breaths, hands leaving the arms of the chair to claw at her hair, her head. Like she could break through and release the agony that was very obviously coursing through her.
I reached for her hands, gently extracting them from the tangles and clasped them in mine. The soft touch of her skin under my own calloused ones had fire burning in my veins. Magik trickled through me in a heady, intoxicating wave at this tiny point of contact that had me wondering how it would feel to touch more of her. There was a rush of pain there, too, and I winced as the sharp points of it dug into me, but I didn’t let go.
Crouched before her, I ignored the way energy was singing under my skin. Elodie’s breath began to even out, the power in the room calming with each inhale she took until it was no longer a suffocating force smothering us.
That was what Arden had been waiting for. As her shoulders lowered and she pulled in a deeper breath, a wave of magik passed by. The weight of it heavy on my chest as it swept over me and sunk into Elodie. Her grip on my hand tightened, the pressure on me lifting as she took it on, agony transforming her face as she pushed through whatever battle was raging within her mind.
Her lips were moving, eyes still wandering under their lids as the magik worked its way through her.
I kept her hand within mine, my mind reminding me of the last time I had offered her my touch. It had been our hands that had met then, too. As we ran from The Darkness.
As I saved her life and brought her into my kingdom.
I snatched my hands away, something within me hollowing as I pushed to my feet. Those emotions I worked so hard to overcome swarmed me once more. Towering over her small frame, her head shook slightly back and forth as our contact broke, and any small sense of warmth I felt towards her was replaced by the fury she fed my soul.
And I watched gladly as Arden broke into her mind.
I had saved her. Housed her. Fed her. Sure, Kaius clothed her, but she was here and safe because of me; she owed me this.
I owed the kingdom this.
A chance of a solution, a way to save them all.
To get them all back.
Heavy, sharp breaths fell from Elodie’s lips, the current of magik in the air lessening. Her eyes flew open, the energy that had once surrounded us falling away just as sharply leaving a vacuum in the ether that chafed against my skin. The candles extinguished under a phantom force as she stared into the shadows that were now heavier than before.
Arden’s own harsh breathing came from behind me, but I ignored him, unable to pull my attention from her. From the promise of what she now held within.
“What did you see?”
“I…” Tears welled from the corner of her eyes, dripping down her cheeks, as she blinked a few times as if clearing her vision before looking up at me, brow scrunched and eyes searching for something she wouldn’t find from me.
I was still close, closer than I should have been for merely an onlooker, and I had no idea if she was even aware of the moment of madness that had come upon me when I held her hands, or if she had been as lost within herself as she seemed.
This was it, the moment she would be of any use. The moment there would be any point to everything that’s happened over the last few weeks. Excitement thrummed through my body, my being set on the outcome of her answer.
“Tell me,” I demanded, moving forward and placing both hands on the arms of her chair as I took up her field of vision. She pressed back, but I was close enough that the heavy breaths she was taking caressed my face, soaking into my skin like summer rays.
It didn’t distract me from the need for answers, from the truth that was hidden in her mind if only I could crack it open. I’d needed to let Arden try. I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe I had more experience than him in this situation.
I just wanted it more.
I studied her caramel eyes as emotion after emotion flashed past them, too fast for me to catch as her lips stayed frustratingly closed.
“Tell me what you saw!” Elodie’s eyes tightened, as sharp as the blade that had cut her, as my words cut through whatever fog she had been lost in. She wrenched from the cage of my arms, pushing up into my space so I had to take a step back, or risk our bodies being pressed together.
It wasn’t hard now to read the anger directed at me.
“No.” She practically growled, and my own anger rose, hungry to meet hers.
“Enough games,” I spat.
I was so fucking close; she couldn’t keep this from me now.
She stepped away, keeping hold of her secrets as the gloom of the tower threatened to conceal her from me. I started forward, shoving the nearest chair to the side as it blocked my path, uncaring as it toppled to the ground, and an angry caw rattled through the room.
“That’s enough, Bastian, she needs time to process whatever she’s just seen.” Arden’s voice was clear as he rose, the light’s reigniting in time to see the last of her silvery hair whip from the room. The thud of the door burrowing into my bones as she fled from the answers I was owed.
I didn’t care about what she needed.
What I needed was what mattered here. What did I care for feelings when the kingdom I had been put in charge of was perched on the edge of a cliff, and the answers in her head were what would haul it back onto solid land?
We couldn’t continue like this, with the threat of The Darkness hanging over our heads. Never knowing when it was coming or how to stop it. Having no way to protect the people who were looking to me, their prince, for answers. To keep them safe in their beds, to not wake and find their children torn from them.
I barrelled from the room close on her heels, gritting my teeth as my magik flared around me in a way I wasn’t sure I had control over.
I didn’t have time for ‘no’.