Chapter 46
“Are you absolutely certain you want to go back in so soon?”
Lunara looked up from Fern’s supine form, Hedda hovering over her like a fly on shite. “Yes. And for the hundredth time, you should go. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I’m not leaving you to that thing. Not again. Since you already kicked Nyri out, you’re stuck with me.”
“Of course I kicked Nyri out. She’s basically a child. What any of you were thinking letting her be so close to me, I’ll never know.”
She’d woken sometime in the middle of the night, tucked into her bed, the young Demon cuddled up beside her. The absolute horror of it was still fresh in her mind. Something could have happened. She could have snapped, or had a moment of madness, or done something she couldn’t take back.
And she was absolutely ignoring how she’d probably gotten into that bed in the first place.
Sure you are. You’re doing a fabulous job. Not thinking about him at all.
“I’m not a child!” Nyri called from the other room.
Lunara rolled her eyes. Of course, kicking her out had been relative. Nyri’s meddling damned king had ordered her to stay here, so banishing her to the other room was the best Lunara could do. It at least gave her a chance to escape if it all went sideways.
Again.
“Wait.”
Lunara eyed Hedda’s hand, now clenching her own above Fern’s breastbone. “Why?”
“Have you thought this through? Like, really thought about what happened the last couple times and aren’t just jumping in to do the same dangerous thing?”
“Before the rest of you idiotic arseholes interrupted me, I was most of the way through pushing whatever it is out of her!”
She’d been literally blind with agony, so completely wrecked that her mind had detached itself from her body and she hadn’t even known her own name, but still. Even though she really had no idea what it was or what she’d been doing, it had been working.
Mostly.
Sort of.
“Whatever it is was violent. Your magic protected Brand, and Araxis shielded the rest of us, but it was still awful. Are you sure we should loose it?”
“There is no we, Hedda. And it’s that or leave it inside her, which I won’t do.”
Lunara ignored the flicker of hurt on Hedda’s face. Or, at least, she tried to.
Dammit, you’re supposed to be getting out of here as quickly as possible, not solidifying friendships! If that’s even what it is.
Right. Be cold. Leave it all behind. No problem.
It’s fine. You’re fine.
She wasn’t, but it didn’t matter.
The only thing keeping her here was the almost inherent compulsion in all Nachthellians to see their deals through, and she needed her payment. Lunara could never go back to her cottage. Not when Araxis knew what she was and could use Cordelia to find her.
Hopefully, she wouldn’t turn into a bloodthirsty, murderous abomination and kill all of her friends before she could finish and get the fuck away.
“Lunara, please. I’m scared for you.”
Stars and arses, Hedda was going to make it as difficult as possible.
“I already lost one person to this kind of thing,” Lunara admitted. “I’m not losing another.”
It wasn’t quite the same as the chasm’s darkness, and not exactly what had been happening within Meliora, but it was close enough. Personal enough.
Hedda did have a point though.
You know… If you had Illamiata…
No. No, no, no. Not even fucking going there.
“If you’re willing, we might try something.”
It was hard to even consider, knowing the idea came from time spent with him.
Hedda’s hand tightened on her own. “Of course. What did you have in mind?”
Her swift acquiescence almost brought Lunara to tears.
Ignore, ignore, ignore.
“The other times, I’ve jumped in and had to be rescued after I was already locked in with the darkness, which hurts you. If I had a tether though, someone to sort of hold on to before I went into Fern’s mind, it might work to keep things under control.”
She’d done something of the sort with Brand when she’d healed Fern’s physical wounds, not that he’d known it. Shite, she’d hardly realized it until after the fact. When they’d… they’d…
Weeping moons, she was going to cry.
Get yourself together. You’ll have the rest of your lonely life for crying, eejit.
Right. Sure. Easy.
Fuck.
“What do I need to do?”
“Nothing in particular,” Lunara answered, swallowing. “Just stay close and keep a hand on me. I’m going to tie a thread of my power to you, and pray to the Sisters it doesn’t backfire. If it does, just get yourself and Nyri out of here, okay?”
“I’m not going anywhere, and you can’t make me.”
Lunara’s head snapped up, Nyri on the other side of Fern’s slab.
“Nyri, no! Shoo!”
“Why does she get to be the tether?” Nyri grumbled. “I’d make an excellent tether. You’d hardly even know I was here!”
“Absolutely fucking—”
“What if you used both of us?”
“—not.” She spun on Hedda. “Are you actually out of your stars-damned mind? Did it get scrambled the last time you had to wrench me away from Fern? Or was it the first time?” She stuck an admonishing finger out at Nyri. “No. Um… no, again. And… Oh, look! Still no!”
“Lunara.”
She shuffled back, pressing shaky hands to her clammy cheeks. “Everyone in this whole place has gone mad. I’ve been worried about myself, when I should’ve been worried about the rest of you all along!”
“We haven’t gone mad, Lunara,” Nyri said softly. “We trust you. There’s a difference.”
And there were the waterworks she’d been trying to suppress.
“You saved Bal. You saved her.” She pointed to Fern. “And Hedda told me what you did in the chasm and after. I know you won’t hurt us. You need to start believing it yourself.”
Lunara scoffed, angrily swiping her tears away. “Believing it? You know what I am. I—”
Hedda reached out and gripped her upper arms. “We know who you are. Everything else is just stations and titles.”
“No. A title, I could live with. The others… They went insane. Had to be killed. And I’m one of them. I won’t have your blood on my hands. I can’t—”
“Oy! How many of the other Keepers were handed Illamiata as children? How many of them were pampered, spoiled Elder Tier Sorcerit without a worry in the world? How many were given free rein because no one cared what they did with it as long as they carried out their sacred duty and delivered power to the Evesong?”
Lunara’s spiraling mind screeched to a halt. “How the fuck do you know all of that?”
“It’s my job to know things like that. I’m not just a gorgeous Demon with a wicked axe hand, you know.” She gave a little squeeze, her voice quieter when she said, “How many, Lunara?”
She’d never thought about it like that. Had never considered that upbringing and mindset could play a part in a Keeper’s ultimate outcome.
No, no, no. Don’t start getting ideas. No.
“A-all of them,” she finally answered, a little dazed.
“Exactly. And you are none of those things. That hurt you carry around—it’s as much a tool as it is an injury, Lunara.
You can either let yourself bleed out, or you can use it.
Let it be your failsafe. Let it bolster you.
You won’t allow Illamiata to do to you what it did to them, and you won’t hurt us.
I know it. She knows it.” She bent closer, almost nose-to-nose with her. “We all know it, except for you.”
“Trust us,” Nyri said, rounding the slab and wrapping her arms around Lunara’s waist. “Hedda was there when you found her. I’ve kept watch over her. We care almost as much as you do. Let us help.”
Don’t fall for their pretty speeches. You don’t need them. You don’t need help. You’re enough on your own.
She wasn’t though, was she? If she’d been enough, Fern would have been free of the shadows and flitting around by now.
Lunara could hardly believe it when she said, “I will only do it if someone else—no, two someones—are in here with us. Just in case. Not Brand.”
That would be too much for her. Just because she was willing to trust Hedda and Nyri for a time, had begun to love them almost as much as she loved him, didn’t mean she wasn’t leaving. She didn’t need it to be any harder than it already was.
“Are you sure?” Hedda shared a look with Nyri. “He’s dying to see you.”
It was torture. Absolute, fucking torture.
“I’ve never been more positive in my life.”
Liar.
Nyri sighed, pushing her lips into a pout. “I’ll get whoever’s in the hall.” Her tone was flat, despondent, like she was the one being torn from her mate without a choice.
She returned a moment later with Faldir and Magnus in tow.
Shitting stars. How had she never noticed how starkly the brothers resembled one another before?
Magnus was golden, where Brand was fiery, but they looked almost exactly the same, retaining more similarities through their Blessings than they had with their other brothers.
Same nose and square, bearded jaw. That same dramatic arch to their brow and matching crinkles around their eyes.
Oh, Sisters, she couldn’t do it.
A sob exploded out of her, snatched back with a gasp as quickly as it had left her.
“Ach, witchling. It’s alright, lass, come here.”
“It isn’t safe,” she cried. “It isn’t—”
His arms were around her before she could get away.
Before she could talk herself out of accepting the embrace.
It was like they’d coordinated the whole thing to cripple her determination.
Planned every word and touch to do the most damage to the walls she’d been fortifying since she walked away from Brand.
“Nothing has changed except the knowledge in your head, Lunara,” he murmured. “You know you’re the Keeper now. So what? You were the Keeper the day before finding out, too. And the month before that, and the years before that. Nothing has changed. You’re still you.”
That only made her sob harder, soaking the fine linen of his embroidered robe as she pressed her face into it.