2. A World Between
Chapter 2
A World Between
5 th Day of the Blood Moon
Aravell – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Calen paused at the door to Ella’s room, the handle cold against fingers still warm from the bath. He’d only bathed long enough to scrub the blood and dirt from his skin and hair. He could still see dried crimson beneath his nails. No amount of scrubbing would ever truly leave him clean.
The smell of lavender stopped him in his tracks as he entered. That scent always reminded him of home. Sure enough, sprigs of lavender sat in a terracotta vase upon a small table to the left of the door. Calen had no doubt Elia had left it there. Despite everything she’d been through, everything she’d suffered, all she ever seemed to do was care for others. He supposed it was a motherly thing, though he’d known some that hadn’t shared the trait.
Tanner Fjorn – who sat in a tall chair by Ella’s bed with his legs outstretched and his arms folded – lifted his head.
Calen found it hard to look at the man and not see Rhett’s face. They were so similar they could have been father and son instead of uncle and nephew; the same jet-black hair, the same broad shoulders, the same look in their eyes as though they’d known you their whole life.
Aside from Tanner, the enormous mound of fur and muscle that was Faenir lay curled into a ball at the foot of Ella’s bed, his snout resting on his paws.
The wolfpine lifted his head, a soft whine sounding in his throat as Calen approached.
“Calen.” Tanner straightened himself in the chair, smiling softly and unfolding his arms as he stood and grasped Calen’s forearm. His eyes were bloodshot and ringed with purple. “How did it go?”
“We were ambushed.” Calen reached out as he spoke, scratching at the side of Faenir’s head, the rough hairs of the wolfpine’s outer coat bristling against his skin. He forced himself to look down at Ella, taking her hand in his and running his thumb across her knuckles. “Uraks. They must have come down from the Lodhar Mountains.”
“Did we lose many?”
“Almost three hundred.” He squeezed Ella’s hand gently. “With the glamour gone, the Blood Moon in the sky, and so much of the Darkwood burning, they’re testing their limits. The Nithrandír should hold them back from the city.”
“This is it then,” Tanner said, folding his arms.
“This is what?”
“The North is burning. The Darkwood is burning. The southern provinces are in rebellion. The Blood Moon has come again. We now stand in the heart of this Age’s great war.”
Calen sighed, looking down at Ella. “It’s not like the stories.”
“Nothing is ever like the stories. If the stories told the truth, people would never pick up swords.”
A moment of silence passed between the two men, broken by Calen. “Where is Aneera?”
Tanner nodded over Calen’s shoulder to the back of the room behind the door. “She’s been like that since the sun rose.”
Aneera sat on the ground with her long, fur-covered legs folded beneath her, eyes closed and clawed hands resting on her knees. At first, Calen couldn’t understand how he hadn’t noticed her there, but the Angan were like shadows when they wanted to be.
The last time Calen had seen Aneera, she had told him she would reach out to others of her kind – and the druids. It had taken Calen more than a second to process that. There were more druids alive. According to the Angan, what happened to Ella was not the first instance of such a thing. And there were those who may be capable of bringing her back to the waking world.
Calen allowed his gaze to linger on Aneera a moment before turning back to Tanner. “Elia says you’re to go down for some food and rest. I’ll stay.”
For a moment, Tanner looked as though he was going to argue, but instead he gave a short nod.
“And Tanner.”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
“Rhett was my family,” Tanner said, resting his hand on Calen’s shoulder. “He loved her fiercely, and I can see why. That makes her family too. Your sister has a fire in her, Calen. When she decided to come find you, there was no stopping her.” Tanner squeezed Calen’s shoulder. “She will find a way back.”
Tanner let out a soft sigh, then stepped from the room.
With Tanner gone, Calen dropped himself into the chair beside the bed. The closer he looked at his sister, the more the worry gnawed at him from the inside out. Beneath her shifting lids, he knew her eyes were white from edge to edge.
Before Haem had been forced to return to the knights, he’d told Calen that Aneera had said Ella’s mind was fragmented. That it had shattered and split between two worlds: the mortal plane and a place called Níthianelle – the Sea of Spirits. A world between worlds.
Calen had no idea what that meant. All he knew was that he wanted his sister back, he wanted her to be all right. He’d only just gotten her back, and now she was taken from him once more.
He leaned forwards, taking Ella’s hand in his. An anger bubbled within – an anger at Haem for leaving him alone again while Ella needed them – but he held it down. Like everything else that seemed to be going on around him, Calen didn’t understand Haem’s oaths, but he knew the knights had suffered great losses when the Blood Moon had risen. And one thing he did understand was being there for the people who fought at his side. Haem could do more good with them than sitting here by Ella’s bedside, twiddling his thumbs. Even still, he prayed to Varyn – or more rightly to Achyron himself – that it would not be long before he set eyes on his brother again.
Letting out an exasperated sigh, Calen lifted Ella’s hand and kissed her knuckles. “Please come back to me…”
Darkness.
Everywhere Ella looked, all she saw was unfaltering, unending darkness.
No sounds reached her ears. No scents touched her nose. She was falling. How long had she been falling? For some reason she couldn’t remember. She could barely remember anything at all. The passing of time was a blur. An hour might have been a day, might have been a year, might have been little more than a second. She could have been falling for a lifetime or no longer than the blink of an eye.
Her only memory was of panic flooding her, consuming her, yielding to despair in a hazy blur. But now… at that precise moment of awareness, something was different. Something had shifted in the fabric of this place, and she was conscious.
“Please.”
The voice echoed endlessly. She couldn’t tell if it came from the world around her or from within. All she knew was that she recognised it.
“Come back to me…”
The second time was clearer, the voice stronger, the words resounding.
“Calen?” Ella called out with all the strength in her lungs. It had been her little brother’s voice. She was sure of it. “Calen?”
Ella’s call echoed as though she stood at the foot of a mountain, a great valley opening before her, but no answer came. And still, she fell.
The darkness was a physical weight on her soul. It pressed down into her, flooded over her, choked her. It threatened to swallow her whole, to devour everything that she was.
Something burned deep inside her, something screaming from her core. No, not screaming. Howling. Clawing. Fighting.
Her jaw twitched, blood burning as the wolf rose within her. A part of her fought it. A part of her called it forth. The wolf was as much a piece of her as the soil was of the earth, and it heard Calen calling just as she did – their family. Their pack. They would not go quietly into the darkness.
Ella closed her eyes, drawing in deep breaths, focusing her mind. As she did, the wolf howled in her blood, growing ever louder, a red mist slipping over her eyes. Her muscles tensed, the cry of the wolf rising to a crescendo until it consumed everything she was. Her skin itched and burned, her blood boiled, her lungs choked.
And then, without warning, the world stopped falling, and Ella found purchase beneath her feet.
Her entire body trembled, chest heaving as she dragged in ragged breaths. Slowing her breathing, she opened her eyes.
Before her, Ella’s fingers and hands shimmered with an ethereal white light, wisps of luminescent smoke trailing as she waved her hand back and forth.
“Níthianelle,” she whispered. The Sea of Spirits. The world between worlds. She looked down over her body, seeing it glow with the same light, wrought not from flesh, but spirit itself. But why was she there? How was she there?
Ella tried to think back, but everything was a blur. The last thing she remembered was the battle in Aravell. She had shifted with the dragons and flown to help Calen. Memories flitted through her mind: fire, lightning, claws, blood. Everything was jumbled, untethered, unstable. What had happened? Why couldn’t she remember? Was Calen all right?
She tried to reach out and feel her body in the waking world, as she had before. But she felt nothing… nothing at all. Panic flared in her heart. Was she dead? Why couldn’t she feel her body?
Ella’s chest tightened at the thought, her lungs feeling as though her ribs were trying to crush them. Her lungs pulled at the air, but each breath caught in her chest. She had to resist the anxious urge to claw at her skin. She crossed her arms, clasping her shoulders and trying to steady her heartbeat, trying to calm her racing mind.
Ella had only felt like this twice in her life: the day she learned Haem had died, and the day she watched Rhett bleed into the dirt. It was a feeling like no other. Like the world was collapsing and burying her beneath its weight. Like the oceans had risen around her and she kept swallowing water, scrambling to keep her head above the surface.
That was it… She was drowning.
“That’s it, Ella,” she remembered her mother whispering as they sat on the bed all those years ago when Haem had been taken from them. Ella had lain on her side, curled into a ball, her knees tucked to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs. She had cried for so long and so hard that her eyes had burned, and her head had pounded with a fury. Even breathing had hurt.
“Listen to my voice. Focus on my words.” Freis had moved to lie behind Ella in the bed, gently draping her arm across Ella’s shoulder, sheltering her from the world. Ella could still remember the warmth of her mother’s breath on the back of her neck, the tenderness of her voice. “You are strong, my girl. We will get through this, together, as we always have.”
Even just remembering her mother’s voice helped settle Ella’s mind, her breaths slowing.
“But he’s gone… he’s…” Ella’s sobbing had smothered her words.
“He is never gone, Ella. Your brother is too stubborn to ever leave us. We might not see him, but he is there, watching over us from Achyron’s halls.”
Back then, all Ella had seen was her own loss, her own anguish. Her big brother had been ripped from her and she’d never even had the chance to say goodbye. Haem had always protected her and Calen, had always been there whenever they’d needed him. And then, one day, he was gone, and he had left Ella to take his place, to look after Calen. She had been furious, and distraught, and broken, and empty… and just… numb. So many emotions all at once.
It was only now, as she stood in the void of Níthianelle, her memories the only thing keeping her from being swallowed whole, that she realised how strong her mam had been.
Freis had lost a son that day – her eldest son, her firstborn, life created from her own blood. And she had turned her agony inwards so as to protect Ella and Calen from its touch.
“You are not ready… You will not give up.”
Those words sent a shiver through Ella. They were not a memory. Her mother had never said that.
Shaking, Ella pulled her hands from her shoulders, watching the white light pulse and wisp as her fingers trembled. “Mam?”
“You will not give up.”
The words were spoken in a whisper, and yet they echoed, moving around Ella as though resounding off walls.
Ella’s mouth grew dry, her heartbeat slowing to methodical hammering thumps. She spun, seeing only emptiness wherever she turned, a never-ending sea of black. The last time she had entered Níthianelle, she had been able to sense the souls of all the animals around her, been able to feel the essence of the world. Now, she felt and saw nothing.
“Mam?” Ella roared, lungs burning, eyes stinging. “Where are you?”
“No daughter of mine…”
It was her mother’s voice, of that Ella had no doubt.
“No daughter of mine lets the world control her.” The voice grew clearer, firmer. “You are strong, Ella. Just as you were then, you are now. You are strong.”
Ella continued to turn, searching the ocean of black and finding nothing. She let her voice drop to a whimper. “I don’t want to be alone…”
“You will never be alone.”
“Mam… what am I?”
The wolf howled in Ella’s blood as she asked the question, scratching at the back of her mind. She looked down to see claws lengthening from her fingernails, forged from white light.
“What am I?” she whispered again.
“You are a Blooddancer. A guardian of the gods.”
Ella’s heart stopped, the hairs on her arms and neck pricking. Those words had not echoed, not resounded in her mind like a ghostly whisper. They had been spoken aloud. They had come from behind her.
Ella turned slowly. “Mam?”
Calen jolted awake to the sound of Ella screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Mam!” Ella was writhing in the corner of the bed, her eyes open, white as clouds. Faenir stood over her, hackles raised, snout crinkled in a snarl.
“Ella!” Calen threw himself forwards from the chair, his knees cracking against the floor, the pain dulled by worry. He reached for Ella but yanked back his hands as Faenir snapped at him.
A deep rumble resounded in the wolfpine’s throat, golden eyes shimmering as he stared at Calen.
“Faenir…” Calen swallowed hard, reaching out tentatively, his gaze flickering from Faenir to Ella – who now convulsed at the edge of the bed against the wall. “It’s me.”
Calen stared into Faenir’s eyes, the eyes of the creature who had been ever-present in his life over the past five years. But something was different, something had shifted in the wolfpine. The way he stood over Ella, the way he protected her. Faenir would kill anyone or anything who dared to come near Ella.
In the back of Calen’s mind, Valerys roared. Pain seared through the dragon as he cracked his wings, trying to lift himself into the air. Calen urged Valerys to stay in the Eyrie, but doing so was like trying to stop a hurricane with his bare hands. He could feel the dragon’s talons raking the earth, wounds cracking and bleeding as he attempted to haul himself airborne. Valerys’s rage seeped into Calen, but Calen pushed back against it, his stare flickering between Faenir and Ella.
The door swung open behind Calen, bouncing off the wall with a crack . Footsteps charged in, voices shouting and calling.
Yana Veradis – Tanner’s partner – was the first to Calen’s side, her eyes wide with panic, her arms spread. “Ella!” she roared, looking from Calen to Ella to Faenir. She grabbed Calen’s arm. “What happened?”
Lasch and Elia Havel followed after Yana, Tanner just behind them.
“I don’t know.” Calen stared into Faenir’s golden eyes as he spoke. “I fell asleep?—”
“You fell asleep?” Yana pulled at Calen, cold fury in her eyes. “How could you fall asleep?”
“Yana.” Tanner placed a hand on Yana’s shoulder, but she swiped it away and pulled at Calen once more.
“How could you?—”
“This isn’t about me.” Calen cut Yana short, his voice like steel. “Or you.”
The woman’s mouth hung open, but she didn’t speak. Calen turned back to Ella and Faenir. Ella had stopped writhing and now lay still and slumped in the corner, her eyes closed.
Faenir stood tall over her, his head bowed, hackles still raised, teeth still bared.
Beside Calen, Lasch Havel had taken a few steps forward and opened his arms with his palms out. “It’s all right, boy. Easy.”
Calen moved to stop Lasch from getting any closer, but the man moved past him and stared into Faenir’s eyes.
“Easy now. We need to make sure she’s all right.” Lasch’s words held a calm and level tone, as though he were speaking to a child and not a wolfpine that could rip him limb from limb. “All we want is to keep her safe.”
Calen inched closer, his pulse pounding. But then, as though the air had suddenly changed, Faenir lifted his head, his eyes softening, his snarl fading. The wolfpine whimpered and leaned forwards, pressing his snout into Calen’s open hand.
Calen closed the distance to Faenir in a heartbeat, pulling the wolfpine’s head to his chest and scratching at the back of Faenir’s skull. He looked past Faenir at Ella.
Yana, Elia, and Tanner rushed past Calen and fussed over Ella, checking her for injuries and pulling her lids back to peer into her milky-white eyes.
With all the care of a mother wolf, Tanner picked Ella up – one arm behind her head, one arm beneath her knees – and placed her back in the centre of the bed, pulling the sheets up to her stomach.
With Faenir still whimpering against his chest, Calen turned his head to look at Aneera.
The Angan sat cross-legged in the same spot, betraying no sign that she had even heard Ella’s struggle. Calen prayed to Varyn that she could find a way to bring his sister back.