Chapter 28
I fall asleep with my forehead pressed to my knees. The deathmare comes fast, like it always does. But somehow, this deathmare is worse than any of the others.
Bones cracked at odd angles. Faces contorted in screams.
The mangled bodies of my friends lying at my feet.
Ivander’s legs jut out, broken in multiple places.
Before I can try to help, my consciousness drowns inside each of them.
I jump from body to body, feeling the pain of each of their deaths.
It’s my turn to scream. The muscles in my broken limbs stiffen with pain.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Jaw-clenching, fiery-hot pain subsides into the cold numbness of blood loss. The precursor to death.
“Roe?”
The pressure of fingers digging into my shoulder forces my eyes open.
Ivander shakes me awake. He’s alive.
I uncurl from my slumped position. My fingernails are raw and bloody, and my neck stings. Gingerly, I touch the scratches on my throat.
Ivander watches me. His eyes dart to my neck but don’t linger there. “It was just a nightmare,” he whispers.
I don’t answer. I swallow hard and glance around our makeshift campsite. Alana’s curled in a tight, sleeping ball while Gray keeps watch. The weight of yesterday settles on my shoulders, heavy and tense. It’s too overwhelming to handle. I grit my teeth to keep the tears from my eyes.
Ivander stands and motions for me to follow him.
He doesn’t wait for me, which makes me curious enough to pull myself together.
Gray glances up when I stand and mouths “hurry back” before returning his attention to the trees.
I tiptoe away from the campsite after Ivander, grateful to see his legs are working just fine. He’s okay.
“Where are we going?” I whisper. He strides over fallen branches and weaves among trees, stepping over mud and kicking rocks out of the way. He walks faster, and I’m forced to keep up with him at a jog. Flyaway hairs stick to my forehead and sweat collects on the back of my neck.
Finally, he stops in a clearing and turns over his shoulder to look at me.
“Barely a day off the ship and you’re training me again?” I ask.
“I thought it might help get you out of your head. Moving always does for me.”
I suppress a smile. “You’re going to have to help me find a way to control my emotions that doesn’t involve physical activity.”
He cocks his head. “Why? If you need to move, move. Shouldn’t bother anyone else.” He bends down and unlaces his boots, removing his shoes and socks. He stands barefoot in the moist earth, like we’re back on the Celestial ’s stage.
He’s right. With sweat on my skin and my muscles stretched from exertion, I feel better. I feel alive. “It might bother my fellow council members one day.”
He crosses his arms. “Who cares? You won’t stay quiet to make them like you. You won’t do things like your father did. You won’t stay silent to make sure you keep your place.” He steps toward me. “You’re going to be impossible to ignore.”
“My brother used to tell me I was good at that.” I grin. “I’m very distracting.”
“Trust me,” he says in a low voice. “You are.”
The crisp early morning air raises the hairs on my arms, but I’m not sure it’s the chill that’s responsible for the shiver running down my spine.
I don’t look away from his face as I bend down and remove my own boots.
The soil squishes between my toes. After a month on the sea, standing in dirt is better than any luxury spa.
I close the distance between us, feeling my core heat up the nearer I get to him. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “For what you had to go through growing up in Aryndar.”
Ivander comes even closer, and now I can feel the heat from his skin.
“I’m sorry anyone ever said your gift wasn’t valuable.
When you brought back my grandfather … Resurrection is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
” He clears his throat. “I longed for the nights you came into the theater. Even if it was just to argue with you.” There’s a twinkle in his eye as he breathes in deep.
“You were so strong. I didn’t feel like I had to hide from you. ”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” The indent of his collarbone makes my heart somersault.
My fingertips tingle; I want to touch him.
To get as close to him as I was on the silks.
I swipe my tongue over my bottom lip. Ivander’s eyes follow the movement.
“I never told you what I thought about in the hallways,” I say, breathless. “Who I thought about.”
My chest rises and falls faster than it should, like I’m high up on the silks for the first time again. We’ve been pressed tightly against each other in the air, but this feels different.
“Can I touch you?” he whispers.
“I hoped you’d ask.” I nod, but I move first and press my lips to the crook of his neck.
He tenses at my touch but relaxes when my hands slide over his shoulders to his back.
His hands slip down my shoulder blades as he draws me closer.
I raise my chin to meet his gaze. His lips part as he waits for me to move.
My fingers curl into the muscles of his back, and I stand on my toes to press my mouth to his.
The smooth pressure of his lips sends a shiver down my spine, and I try to remember to breathe. My stomach flutters as I grow bolder, matching the rhythm of his lips. When we’re this close to each other, the warmth of his body envelops me. I can’t get close enough.
He kisses me back, harder than I expect.
His arms fold farther around me, gentle at first, then tighter, and end up on my hips.
He pulls me to him. The smells of the sage he burns in his room and the roses he receives at the end of performances still cling to his skin.
The tight curls of his hair tickle my fingers as I bury my hands in them.
Just as the morning sun filters through the trees, he pulls back from me slow and careful, as if he doesn’t want to stop.
His chest rises and falls with rapid breaths.
I’ve never seen him out of breath. I try to keep him close to me, but the stern set of his jaw reminds me we have to get back to camp.
“I wish we could stay here,” I admit. The taste of salt lingers on my tongue.
“Me too,” he says. “But because of us, the Celestial is a day away from destroying itself, and there’s so much we don’t know.”
Not to mention those crates we saw with my family sigil being loaded off the ship. My answers aren’t here with Ivander. They’re at home.
“Roe!” Gray’s unmistakable call interrupts our oasis. He must have come looking for me when I took too long. Damn his excellent tracking skills.
Ivander’s lips curve, sensing my thoughts. “We better get going.”
When Gray finds us, he lets out an exasperated huff and tells us it’s time to go.
By the time we get back to camp, Alana’s already stamped out the flames and scattered the remains of our wood pile.
She gives me a small, knowing smile when Ivander isn’t looking but hurries to mount her horse.
Gray unties his stallion’s bridle from the tree trunk.
I know Carodmoor Forest about as well as Gray does. We’re still one and a half days’ ride from the estate. “We need to move faster,” I say once I realize.
“You’re right.” Ivander adjusts his horse’s saddle.
His eye contact sends a flush of heat through my body as I remember the pressure of his lips against mine.
“I’ve been thinking. There are costs to using Morphia.
No magic comes without a price. But what if that’s just another excuse to keep Morphics from pushing ourselves? ”
I ignore Gray’s impatient cough urging us to hurry up with the saddles. “There is a price for using our magic.” We all pay it. All except alchemers.
“But what if we’re so afraid of the consequences that we don’t push as far as we can? Why are we so afraid?”
I snort as I swing up onto my horse. “Well, for one thing I’m afraid of experiencing death every night and seeing it when I’m awake. For another, your gift actually breaks your bones.”
Ivander shrugs, keeping his feet on the ground. “The bones don’t stay broken for long.”
Something about the gravity of his tone keeps me from firing back a retort.
Especially because I’m starting to wonder if he has a point.
The deathmares aren’t real. They feel real, but they don’t permanently injure me or anyone else.
They’ve always felt like a check on my power.
Like a stomachache after too much of Isla’s rich, sticky gortha pudding.
And the deaths I witness while awake are nothing more than events of the past. It’s almost as if my gift wants to show me the truth of how spirits died.
Perhaps it only bothered me because it never showed me Leith.
When I was a child, I never thought about the consequences.
I conjured spirits with reckless abandon.
I don’t really remember the deathmares, but maybe that’s because I don’t remember them being awful.
I even used to enjoy the time I spent walking through them at night.
Like my own dreams were a performance. I even found it interesting to exist in a waking deathmare.
I’d witness a death and marvel at how a life could be snuffed out so quickly.
It made me more appreciative of my own. True, I hated the feeling of spirit hands against my skin, but some touch is pleasant to me now.
What if I stopped being afraid of what I see when I go to sleep?
What if I learned from the deaths I witness?
Ivander must sense the change in me, in my posture, in the shift of my shoulders.
When he realizes my guard’s come down, he says, “I think you’re stronger when you use your Morphia without thinking.
Your body remembers. Of all of us here, your power is the most limitless. How might you get us home?”