Chapter 36
Rosabel La Rouge
Present day
The water spit me out like it had a taste of me and decided I was the vilest thing it had ever touched.
I slammed against the hard ground on my side, barely breathing, wet, afraid, half paralyzed by the cold, by the lack of air in my lungs. They burned now when I breathed. They burned and it was ice-cold, but the need to see Taland was too strong, so I blinked my eyes against it all. The need to know what the hell had happened overrode everything else I was feeling, the pain of that fall included.
Then the sound of something falling the same way as I had made me raise my head—it had come from somewhere to my left. My entire body shook as I pushed myself up on all fours, forced my eyes to blink faster, to see what that was, who it was, and I finally did.
White.
There was no light here because there was no darkness wherever we were. The sky over us was white—like a single, thick cloud had stretched and stretched to expand across the entire globe. The hard surface I’d fallen on wasn’t ground—it was ice. White-grey ice was everywhere underneath me, every inch of where I looked covered in it.
But he moaned, and I forgot all about the cold and my wet clothes and the ice shards three times my size that rose to the sky from the ground, as if water dripped upside down in this place. Gravity worked the other way around for it.
I forgot everything and I went to Taland on all fours because it was him. I recognized his black clothes even if I couldn’t see his face yet. I recognized his moans.
“You made it, you made it, you made it,” I kept on chanting, my limbs numb, my body shaking. But I went all the way to where he had landed, and by then he’d turned on his back.
He was on his back, half-open eyes on the white sky, and he was smiling.
I grabbed his jacket, sat down near his arm, and I burst out crying—just for a moment. Just to let the relief wash over me and be done with it—because the game wasn’t done with us yet. But I still needed to let it out, so I cried a few (dozen) tears, and eventually Taland looked at me and raised his hand to my face. I grabbed it with both mine and held it against my cheek.
“You made it,” I said again, just once more to convince myself of the fact.
“So did you. We did a good job,” said Taland, and he sounded…strange. Like he was drunk.
My heart jumped. “Taland, are you okay?”
I let go of his hand and I began to inspect his chest before I remembered that the spider had caught him on the shoulder. On his right shoulder.
I thought about moving around him but decided it was too much trouble—and too damn cold—so I basically fell on top of him until his lungs emptied. I rolled over to the other side to inspect his wound while he moaned.
“ Mhm, mhm, sweetness, that felt good, ” he kept muttering, giggling under his breath, eyes closed now.
The wound was right there, but it was barely two inches long, and by the looks of it, it was superficial. I pulled his jacket down lower and leaned in to see it better, just to make sure.
“You should be fine. It’s a superficial wound. It’s?—”
“Oh, how good it felt to swim. I smell like lemonade, baby. Won’t you add some sweetness on me?” he cut me off, and then he began to laugh out loud.
“Taland, you’re scaring me,” I said because he didn’t look like he was joking.
In fact, his cheeks were flushed and his eyes bloodshot, his lips almost blue.
“Something’s inside me,” he then muttered. “Something fast and something warm… tada-dada-da… ”
I bent over him again and inspected the wound—could it be that the spider leg had drugged him or something?
Or…maybe her cuts were venomous?
Goddamn sonovabitch!
I lay down on my stomach on the ice, wrapped my lips around the wound, and I began to suck as much blood out of him as I could.
Meanwhile Taland laughed his heart out every time I spit on the ice. If that spider had put some kind of a drug— please, Iris, let it be a drug —in him, I could still get some of it out .
If it had been venom…
Well, then we were both going to die, I figured.
In the last fucking challenge—which was comical, don’t you think?
I must have sucked and spit out his blood at least ten times before my mouth turned completely numb and my body let go of me.
Yes, the spider leg had definitely leaked something in Taland. Now it was in my mouth, too, and it had numbed it worse than a dentist would.
When I tried to sit up, my hands slipped and I fell on Taland’s chest. He moved, I thought maybe to push me off and get more comfortable, but instead he wrapped an arm around me. Tightly.
“We made it,” he whispered against my wet hair, and I realized we were freezing. Both of us.
My eyes were so heavy. So, so cold…
“Just so we can die from the cold,” I thought I muttered.
That, or from spider venom.
“We won’t, we won’t,” said Taland, like he was singing, and then he whispered, and I had no clue where in the hell he got that strength.
But he whispered, and then there was warmth all around me, wrapping me up in a cocoon. Wrapping us both up like a fuzzy blanket, and though our clothes were still wet, we were no longer shaking.
Just like that, his Blackfire magic saved our lives again.
I released a long breath and my muscles no longer clenched. I rested my whole weight over him, and I was going to sleep right away. It wouldn’t be difficult. No matter what hid in the Whitefire challenge, it was going to have to wait because I couldn’t keep my lids open a second longer .
Until Taland spoke.
“You never asked me why.”
My eyes opened all the way then, and my stomach twisted because I knew what he was talking about. I always knew exactly what he was talking about.
I said nothing.
“But you know what the worst part of the whole thing was?”
No, no, no…
“Rest, Taland. You need to rest. Heal yourself and rest.” If I had magic right now, I’d be putting him to sleep.
But Taland didn’t care about healing or resting. Whatever state that spider wound had put him in, he was a different man right now from the one I knew—both before I betrayed him and after.
He was… raw.
“But you must hear it,” he said, his voice wavering, but the words came out. “The worst part is that all you had to do was ask me to stop.”
Tears in my eyes again, and they fell right on his jacket.
“ Just ask— that’s all you had to do. Just ask me to stop, and I would have.” Laughter, so bitter it cut me wide open. “I’d have done anything for you if you’d have only asked me.” His arm around me tightened. “I was addicted to your sweetness, and I’ve beaten myself up over it—but how was I supposed to know that it was poison?”
The tears kept on falling, and Taland no longer laughed.
I’m sorry, I thought, but didn’t say. I’m sorry I didn’t ask. I thought it wasn’t you…
But my own mind asked me, what does it matter now ?
Then he said, “I’m not going to lie, I was a bit surprised by this new you. You have become so much… more. More than even I could have imagined. ”
He paused. I didn’t breathe at all.
“I just wish I’d been there to see the small, every day changes.” He pressed his lips to the top of my head—just pressed them and killed me a little more. “I wish I’d been there with you, sweetness.”
I wished you were with me every second of every day, too. I’d wished it with all my heart.
Taland was silent for a little while after that.
I was glad for it, thought he was done killing me alive, and maybe he slept. For a good moment, I hoped he had, but then he fidgeted like he couldn’t quite make himself comfortable.
I tried to move, to give him some space, but he didn’t let me, put me down on his chest again.
“Do you need anything?” I whispered. “Maybe water?” Because my mouth was dry, too, and I could find us water if I searched. After all, this place was entirely made out of ice as far as we could see.
“Yes,” Taland said, and I thought, I can do it. I can get up and go find us water and come back and rest.
But Taland had other ideas. “Yes, I do need something, sweetness.”
“Okay. I can—” I made to sit up again, go find that water.
Then Taland said, “A lie.”
I stopped.
“A very specific lie.”
I waited, heart in my throat…
“Tell me that you love me, won’t you?”
Just when I’d stopped crying.
Gritting my teeth, my muscles clenched tightly again, but this time it wasn’t from the cold of the ice. It was from the storm his words created inside of me that was freezing the blood in my veins.
“Come on, sweetness,” he said after a moment. “A little lie won’t hurt. It’s nothing to you, is it? It’s a lie you’ve told before.”
“Taland, please,” I whispered, but if he heard me, he pretended he didn’t.
“That was the only time I’ve ever felt worthy, you know that? Like I could conquer worlds.”
There he went, laughing again, breaking me piece by piece.
And I needed it to stop so badly, so I said, “I love you.”
The words rang true because they were. Those fucking words that had been stuck in my throat from the moment I saw him again, that had been yearning to come out.
There. You’re out now.
Taland didn’t breathe for a good few seconds, and I could tell because I was lying on his chest.
“Goddess, you’re good,” he ended up whispering. “There can never be a better liar than you, sweetness. You’re so, so good at it.”
“Taland…”
“I never suspected. Not since the time you said you fell for me the first day.” Laughter, stabs at my heart. “Which, I hate that phrase, by the way,” he continued while I cried, curled up against his chest. “ Falling in love implies there’s a bottom to fall to. An end. A limit to love—there isn’t.” My goddess, I could hardly breathe. “But if we must fall, then I guess that fall is never-ending, and people should really specify that, don’t you think? Just so we know what we’re getting ourselves into.”
My eyes closed. I’d never once heard Taland talking like this before and maybe that’s what made it all the more painful .
He didn’t say anything again for the longest time, as long as it took me to fall half asleep—because falling asleep did have a bottom to reach. And I needed to escape so, so badly.
“Rose?” His voice was slow, barely a whisper.
My eyes didn’t open “Yes, Taland?”
“Lie to me again.”
No more tears in my eyes. “I love you.”
I slept.
“Rise and shine, sweetness.”
The clothes on my body were dry—that’s the first thing I noticed. And what I was lying on was hard and ice-cold.
Memories came back to me and I sat up with a jolt and a sharp intake of air that had my lungs near freezing. I blinked, and at first, I thought I just needed a moment to see color, but there wasn’t any. Only white around me, over me, under me. Only white—and Taland behind me, with his hands on his hips looking out in the distance.
Awake and okay and standing as tall as always.
“Are you…are you okay?” I said, my voice dry, and I pushed myself to stand, too. My gun was there, on the ground where I hadn’t even noticed dropping it.
“Good as new. That venom did a number on me, but you’re so good at sucking, sweetness. You got most of it out.”
He turned around to show me his grin, and though my cheeks flushed, I still smiled. Asshole.
“You’re welcome,” I said, pulling the Bluefire key from my back pocket to store it in my zipped one. Four. I had four keys in there. Almost done .
“Wait—what am I thanking you for? For sucking the venom out of me or for stepping in front of a giant spider and shooting it in the face?”
I looked up at him—was he joking? He’d saved my life a lot more times, and he knew it. That’s why I didn’t need to say anything.
“Don’t do that again, sweetness.”
I turned my head to the side and rolled my eyes just so he could see it. “Don’t patronize me, Taland. We’re not done with the game yet.”
“I will put you over my knee and give you a good spanking no matter where we currently are, sweet Rose. Don’t make me.” All the while he smiled as he said this, and I knew he meant it. I knew he meant every word.
I flushed harder. He was definitely okay—back to the Taland I was getting used to in this game.
“Can we please just focus on the challenge?” I said because no matter how much I wanted to keep going at it with him, I knew I wouldn’t win. He’d put me over his shoulder again and have his way with me, and chances were I wouldn’t be able to even resist a few seconds in. Picking my battles here.
“Certainly,” Taland said. “We seem to have fallen in an ice wasteland. Let’s see what our friend Light Face has to say about it, shall we?” He rubbed his hands together. He was dry, too. Guess I should have thanked him for that as well because I’d be a hundred times as cold right now if my clothes had been wet. “Come forth now, Mr. Clue. Tell us what you got.”
At the mentioning of the word, the face and torso of the man made of light popped right in front of us, perfectly visible even against the white background.
“Greetings, players! ”
Same voice, same colors, same feeling in my gut that whatever he was about to tell us right now would be bad. I wouldn’t like it one bit.
“Congratulations! You made it to the Valley of the Roc. Whitefire coven welcomes you!”
The Valley of the Roc was one of my all-time favorite bedtime stories. It was the stuff of legends, a place that some said actually existed a long time ago, though nobody can tell exactly where—but I digress.
I looked up to the white sky, wondering if we’d see an actual roc flying over our heads.
They weren’t going to seriously put us against it, right? If rocs had ever really existed, they’d gone extinct a long time ago with reason. They were the biggest birds to have ever flown in the sky, so big they could carry a grown whale in their talons—or so the stories said.
If they actually made and raised a roc for this challenge, there really was no point in even trying.
“You’ve asked for your clue, and I am happy to deliver it to you,” the hologram continued. “The way to complete this challenge and find your key is to cleanse the soul of your diseased bonded.”
My stomach fell all the way to my heels. What the fuck?
“They will call upon you and will lead you to where they rest, and once you find them, it is your duty to set them free by ending their suffering in whichever manner you can.”
I looked around us, half afraid and half excited to find the vulcera somewhere, running for me.
But the hologram continued.
“Remember, your magics won’t work for their condition. You cannot complete this challenge if you do not have what it takes to do the right thing. This part of the game is not about you , players, and we do so hope that you make the right choice—for your bonded.”
Wait, wait, hold on a second…
“Find them and end their suffering, for the brightest colors in the world await the worthy victor,” he said. “We wish you the best of luck, players. Iris is with you.”
The light disappeared just as fast as it had appeared, and Taland and I didn’t move or blink or even breathe for a good moment after.
Then he looked back at me and I saw just how scared he was.
For the first time since we met in this game, Taland was actually scared.
“We’re screwed,” I whispered because something told me that this was going to be fucking painful— possibly the most painful challenge of all.
Then I felt it.
The pull was there, right there below my breasts, in my gut, deep inside me, into my bones. It took my breath away and I choked, thinking someone had maybe stabbed me from behind. Thinking maybe someone had put magic on me or something because the feeling made no sense.
But Taland choked on thin air, too, and when our eyes met, we both knew.
It was exactly as the hologram guy said—our bonded animals were calling us, and I could have sworn I heard the vulcera’s cries in my head.
Taland could hear those of his bonded eagle, too, I was sure.
“Sweetness,” he whispered because we knew we needed to follow that pull.
“Run. I’ll meet you when we find them,” I promised him.
The next moment, we were both running.
Taland was faster than me, though he tried to slow down as much as he could because we were running in the same direction. I couldn’t tell you which direction that was because it all looked the exact same to my eyes, but we were running, and the rubber soles of my boots held wonderfully. I didn’t slip, and neither did Taland, and the movement warmed me up in no time.
The vulcera’s face, her moss green, wide eyes were in the center of my mind, and I couldn’t tell you how I knew which direction to go, but I did. My feet knew the way, and luckily, so far, Taland was right next to me.
A while later, what could have been ten minutes or thirty or even an hour, the view began to change.
A massive structure was in the distance, something that looked like a frozen mountain. More players around us, running as well, and one had stopped near one of those large ice shards that rose from the ground. He’d stopped and was on his knees in front of something that was…bleeding.
My foot almost slipped. There was blood on the ice-covered ground in front of his knees, and on a creature with dark fur. I couldn’t see what it was, but it was an animal, all right. A familiar.
And the man kneeling in front of it was shaking. Sobbing— out loud.
The thought that I was going to find the vulcera bleeding all over the ice made me move twice as fast. Made me want to set this entire place on fire and burn it to a crisp. I was close, so close I could feel it, and the more we ran, the bigger those ice shards became. Some were even shaped like C ’s, and more animals were near them, like that ice was there to shield them .
The animals were all motionless, like they were already dead .
No, no, no, no…
Taland turned to look at me when we were close to the mountain—which wasn’t a mountain at all. My goddess, it was an ice statue of an actual roc with large wings half spread, an enormous beak, and talons on its feet that were bigger than my entire body as it rested on an ice cube the size of a three- or four-story building.
No wonder I’d mistaken it for a mountain—it was gigantic. It would make Madame Weaver look like a normal sized spider in comparison, and it was surrounded by a different kind of ice—bluer.
That’s because there was a lake underneath it.
Fuck, they’d created an exact replica of the Valley of the Roc from stories and history books.
“I’ll find you!”
The voice pulled me out of my trance, and I looked to the side to see that Taland was running farther and farther away from me. Still in the same general direction, but we were already at least fifty feet apart because the pull in my gut was leading me west, while he moved more to the north by the mile.
“I’ll find you!” I called back to Taland because right now it didn’t matter that we would be separated. What mattered was that we found our familiars before our guts exploded right out of us—because they would.
Then I saw her.
When the feeling got so heavy that I couldn’t breathe easily, and when I lost Taland in the white canvas completely, I looked ahead and found a creature with black scales resting against a piece of ice that had curved almost all the way around her body .
It was my vulcera, I knew it in my bones. It was her, even if she wasn’t moving. Even if I couldn’t see her face until I was close enough to realize her eyes were only half open and her chest was rising and falling rapidly.
But she was alive, and she wasn’t bleeding.
Something inside me snapped and my legs gave up on me. I hit the ice on my knees, my body about to collapse from the sudden exhaustion. My cheeks burned, my lungs could have been frosted over—but she was here and she was alive still, even if she couldn’t move her head at all while I crawled the few feet to get closer. And there was no doubt in my mind that I would do everything in my power to find a way to heal her.