34. AND THEN SHE FELL #2
The woven tapestry of Gwen’s dream shudders, like a spiderweb thrumming messages to its weaver.
The distant glint of gold becomes copper, becomes a flame, becomes a racing shadow.
In a rush of heat and terror and fire, the dragon is there.
Filling the tunnel, surrounding them in the acrid heat of its breath, it laughs an ancient, hideous laugh.
Isobelle screams – she cannot help it – and Gwen looks back at her. Wordlessly, she takes one hand off her sword and holds it out. With one long stride, Isobelle steps to her side.
Their fingers intertwine around the handle of the torch.
But before they can raise it, the dragon catches Gwen’s eye.
Her body goes rigid, like a hero of old turned to stone. Isobelle can’t bear to take her eyes off Gwen’s face; can’t bring herself to look at the thing consuming her beloved. She covers Gwen’s hand on the torch with hers, takes a long, deep breath … and turns to face the dragon.
Its massive eye is waiting for her.
She’s pulled into the empty, slitted irises like driftwood in a riptide. The dragon’s mind is tearing at Gwen’s, holding her suspended, hanging from a cliff with one hand, dangling over a pit of endless darkness. The dragon’s claws and teeth are despair and hopelessness.
The only thing that saved Gwen when she first faced the dragon was to think of Isobelle.
She held up Isobelle’s brightness like a shield.
But there came a moment when she knew the girl she loved was out there, somewhere, preparing to challenge the beast. Preparing to make an opening for Gwen to strike at it.
Now, suspended over nothingness, she faces that decision once more. If she lets herself think of Isobelle while the dragon is in her mind, the dragon will know Isobelle is there. The dragon will kill her, too. So she does the only thing she can do to buy Isobelle more time.
She lets go.
For a moment, Isobelle is frozen, watching her heart tumble through the darkness towards the abyss below.
I’ve got you.
She runs, sprints, flies across the span of the memory, breathless, her blood singing in her ears, willing herself to move just a little faster, a little faster …
She reaches Gwen in time to catch her, both sprawling down together. Gwen claws at her, certain she is the dragon come to finish her – Isobelle cries out her name, and Gwen turns the blow she’d aimed into a stumble. They crash together, Gwen shivering.
This is how it kills me, she thinks, and Isobelle hears the words though Gwen’s lips don’t move. Every time, this is how it kills me.
Isobelle’s breath catches. In the dream, Gwen chooses to fall, again and again, and every time she wakes before she hits the bottom.
She sees Gwen’s thoughts, reliving the moment she chose to fall, her fear rising up to choke her.
A fear that maybe the fall is all she is, now – that it’s the only thing the dragon left behind when it stripped away her soul.
And yet … when Isobelle sees her make her choice, the only thing she sees is an act of unimaginable bravery.
Gwen knew Isobelle was out there. Gwen protected her and put her trust in her.
Isobelle’s hands creep up to cup Gwen’s face, bring her wild gaze back, stroke her cheekbones. ‘Oh, my love,’ she whispers, heart aching. She understands, suddenly, fully. ‘My love … a leap of faith is not a fall.’
Gwen’s eyes go wide and fix on hers as the words echo between them.
A leap of faith is not a fall.
Above them, the dragon screams with sudden triumph – it’s found them. A whoosh of wings echoes down the abyss as it speeds towards them.
Gwen is still looking at Isobelle. Isobelle wonders if Gwen hasn’t heard the dragon, doesn’t recognise the danger racing their way. But then Gwen moves, shakily, and Isobelle understands suddenly why Gwen was clinging to that cliff one-handed.
In her other hand, she’s still holding Isobelle’s torch – it bears the same hilt as the sword Gwen made as Isobelle watched her, and yearned for her.
Their eyes meet. Isobelle takes hold of the torch as well, and it sputters to life.
An instant later, a screaming tangle of tapestry threads comes flapping out of the darkness at them, all teeth and claws and fire.
They lift the torch and turn their faces towards each other – the mass ripples, and with it the fabric of Gwen’s dream, tatters falling away.
The dragon writhes and screams as threads are stripped from its being.
First its claws, and then its grasping fingers – its tail unravels into the starry black – the tips of its wings explode into corroded bronze strands, and it shrieks again as it falls past them, down, down into the abyss below, leaving only the faint echo of its despairing cry until that too fades into darkness.
Gwen stands beside Isobelle, looking down, panting long, ragged breaths. Slowly, her gaze lifts, fixed on a middle distance somewhere in the inky black that surrounds them. Then she turns, looking at Isobelle with wide, wondering eyes.
Isobelle scans her knight’s features. The cuts and bruises are gone; she looks as fresh now as if she’s just dressed. Gwen looks, perhaps, even better than Isobelle feels. The weariness settling through Isobelle is oddly pleasant, though – the exhaustion of hard work worth doing.
‘You saved me.’ Gwen’s voice is a soft summons, and Isobelle’s gaze rises to meet hers.
‘I just stayed with you,’ Isobelle replies. ‘Gwen, all this time, I’ve been trying to fix this for you, to take it away, to distract you every time this nightmare came for you. I … didn’t know.’
Gwen’s eyes widen, and she steps forward to slide a gentle hand against Isobelle’s waist, the other going to caress a lock of her hair. ‘Know what?’
‘That I couldn’t force you to let me save you.’ Isobelle bows her head against Gwen’s shoulder. ‘That I was powerless.’
Gwen’s body quakes in that little shiver that betokens one of her silent laughs – it runs through Isobelle’s cheek and down her body, like a warm caress. ‘Consensual rescuing,’ she murmurs, once again dry, her smile in her voice. ‘I like it. But … Isobelle, why do you say you were powerless?’
Isobelle lifts her head to see Gwen looking at her, solemn once more.
Isobelle bites her lip, her heart quailing; but how can she respond to Gwen’s bravery with cowardice of her own?
‘Because I love you, and I have to watch you risk your life over and over again, and it’s agony, and the only thing I can do is try to help you after the battle is done, and if I can’t even do that … ’
Gwen lifts her hand to brush Isobelle’s cheek, then feel the texture of her hair again, fingertips sliding in a curve above her ear. She says nothing for some time, seemingly lost in the slow stroke of her fingertips against Isobelle’s skin.
Then her chest rises in a deeper breath, and her voice sounds against Isobelle’s body. ‘When I first fought the sea monster,’ she says, ‘I saw that sword move to deliver the final blow. It moved, Isobelle. Someone made it move. Someone with faith so strong they could weave victory out of defeat.’
Isobelle sees where Gwen is going, and she shakes her head. ‘I would know if I could do magic, Gwen.’
‘Would you?’ Gwen’s fingers tighten the tiniest bit on Isobelle’s chin, bringing her gaze back to meet hers. ‘I mean it, Isobelle … would you know? If magic is all about intention and will … no one in the world has a stronger will than you do, love.’
The word spills out, and they both stare at each other. Isobelle bites her lip to try to hold back her smile – Gwen doesn’t bother, letting her smile widen and soften again.
‘No one,’ she goes on, gazing intently into Isobelle’s face.
‘You took a girl with a quiet, dying dream and turned her into a knight. No, listen,’ she adds, as Isobelle starts to protest. ‘I played my part in that too, I own it. But I never would have ridden past that first joust if it wasn’t for you.
You decided to find your own champion. And you made yourself one. ’
Isobelle swallows. ‘You make it sound like I forced you into it.’
Gwen bows her head, shaking it lightly. When she lifts it again, there are tears in her eyes. ‘No, love. All you did was show me it was okay not to let go of my dream. You saved me.’ She leans her forehead against Isobelle’s. ‘That’s what I forgot, in my dream – that you always save me.’
Isobelle slides her hand over Gwen’s, where it rests on her cheek. ‘I always will.’ She turns her head and brings her lips to Gwen’s palm.
Gwen lifts her head a little to watch Isobelle’s mouth against her skin, and murmurs almost as if to herself, ‘I think … I think that if there is such a thing as a fear witch, there must also be something …’ Her voice trails off.
‘What?’ whispers Isobelle.
‘Something like a hope witch,’ Gwen whispers back, her eyes never leaving Isobelle’s.
Isobelle looks around helplessly at the endless darkness that surrounds their small pool of torchlight. ‘But we’re still inside her spell. Back in the tower, in the real world, we’re still asleep.’
Gwen straightens, and slides her arms down Isobelle’s until she’s grasping Isobelle’s hands. Then, deliberately, she lets go so she can pluck something from the waves of Isobelle’s hair: a single thread of shadow, shed as the dragon screamed past in its last, fatal fall.
Gwen holds it up between her fingertips – as they watch, it crumbles and blows away into dust. Isobelle refocuses past Gwen’s fingers, on her face.
‘You are so much stronger than you know, Isobelle,’ Gwen whispers. ‘You vanquished a creature that’s been hunting me in my mind for months. You broke a curse far, far older and stronger than Tabitha’s. Do you really think a spell of hers can stop you?’
Isobelle’s heart begins to pound. Her fingers tingle against Gwen’s. Her whole body tingles, aglow with the light that connects them and illuminated the path for her to enter Gwen’s nightmare.
And she can feel that light, leading all the way back to their bodies.
Gwen sees her expression shift, as understanding, hope, intention come flooding back. When she blinks and meets Gwen’s gaze again, Gwen squeezes her hand, and says, ‘Tell me what to do.’
‘Right. Come with me.’
Together they clear a space in the darkness, marking out a circle with the light of the torch.
Isobelle pulls Gwen down to sit across from her, their legs crossed, their knees touching.
Isobelle doesn’t know any incantations, so instead she focuses on the warmth of Gwen as their hands curl together.
Somewhere, in the real world, her body lies unconscious across Gwen’s.
They rest on the very stones where once walked the witches of Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea when the Order of the Evening Star sought to purge all magic from this land.
Stones that Tabitha invoked and linked to her spell.
The weight of her mother’s fury and anguish is there – but hers is not the only spirit bound to these stones.
Isobelle can feel them – the witches. The weight of their last moments, held by the stone, whispering to her things her heart understands without the need of words.
Energy surges up into her body, so strongly that she feels Gwen jump as she senses it too, squeezing Isobelle’s hands more tightly.
A wisp of memory floats by, ghostlike – a line of women being marched into the hall.
One of them turns, her eyes meeting Isobelle’s.
She nods a greeting, and Isobelle nods back.
The vision fades, but she can feel their energy rising in her like a salty tide with nowhere to go, filling her, an ocean of force awaiting her direction. How do I break a curse? she asked wildly of the shadows. How do I wake us from this sleep?
For a moment, she can see herself and Gwen, as if from a very long way. Just the two of them, suspended in abyssal night, gleaming like a single star in their pool of light.
Her eyes are closed, but Gwen’s aren’t. Gwen is looking straight at Isobelle, whose face is beatific, tilted back, shining. Gwen’s watching her with her heart in her eyes.
She’s so beautiful.
Whether the thought is hers or Gwen’s, Isobelle doesn’t know. With a gasp, and a rush, she pulls all that energy back in, lets it fill her, and then leans forward to bring her lips to Gwen’s.
The darkness around them shatters into blazing, glorious light. The world seems to tilt, with a disorienting wrench that makes Isobelle feel as if she is falling … falling …
Isobelle landed with a thump and a squeak and a flailing of limbs. There were arms around her – Gwen’s arms. She was sitting up, eyes wide and flooded with tears, holding Isobelle, her breath coming quickly, but no sign of the shaking she was prone to after a nightmare.
Beneath them was the chilly, polished stone floor of the tower, a huge crack now marking the place where Gwen had lain. Isobelle could feel her knees and hips aching from throwing herself down. The puffed barley scattered across the floor threw long shadows from the firelight.
‘It worked,’ she gasped, sitting up a little, discovering that her body felt as wobbly as if she’d just run all the way here from Darkhaven without a rest. She gazed at Gwen in wonder, and then whispered, ‘True love’s kiss.’
‘What?’ Gwen blinked at her. She looked a bit dazed, disoriented – Isobelle wondered, with a stab of regret, whether Gwen even remembered what had taken place in her dream.
Isobelle bit her lip. ‘Just something Tabitha told me once,’ she replied. Then she started. ‘Tabitha!’
‘Where did she go?’ Gwen asked, looking around at the shadowy hall.
‘She went after Olivia.’ Isobelle scanned the room – the fire was still burning, not yet suffering from a lack of new logs to consume. The spilled water from the spell jar was still, slowly, making its way along the seams in the floor.
No time has passed.
The thought shot through Isobelle like lightning. She scrambled up onto her knees.
‘No time has passed! Gwen, she’s still here, she can’t have got far. Listen, I know we don’t know what to make of Olivia and her secrets, but she doesn’t deserve to have Tabitha—’
The ground gave a terrible shudder. The crack beneath them in the floor spread, its edge racing ahead of them. From above came an awful groaning of stone, followed by a shower of grit and mortar.
Tabitha had bound her spell to the very stones of this place – and Isobelle had shattered that spell.
The tower was falling.