7. Trauma Time
7
Trauma Time
Aliza
“ R emind me again why we have to walk?”
Weighed down by my luggage, I hopped down onto the platform and turned to wait for Idris as he struggled through the train doors, wrestling with a large holdall stuffed full of my belongings. I’d opted to wrangle the massive suitcase which had looked easy enough to tow along in the city, but now I was faced with country paths and mud trails full of rocks and potholes, I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision.
My royal escort gave me a look of sheer despair. “How do you expect me to teleport you and all your baggage? It weighs more than you do.”
We set off along the deserted, lamplit platform as the train snaked away in a rush of air. I gazed surreptitiously at Idris, but he made no effort to hide his blatant awe as the slipstream buffeted and ruffled his hair. I pressed my lips together in an attempt to hide my smile, but there was no denying the bubble of affection swelling behind my ribs. In seconds, the only sound was the whir of my suitcase wheels.
The two platforms that made up the entirety of the backwater train station were deserted at this late hour, and we wandered through the silent ticket office unhindered and unnoticed .
“Oh, come on. How are we going to carry this lot through the Blood Gate?”
“You should have considered that before you packed two bags. Count yourself lucky that I’m carrying one.”
“Couldn’t you just teleport the bags and then come back for me?”
“Aliza.” Idris halted as we stepped back out into the night, turning to face me. The orange glow of a flickering lamp highlighted the shadows under his eyes, and somehow leeched the colour from his skin. He looked more human than I’d ever seen him, and not in a good way. “I’m drained. This world… It makes me weak. Teleporting is not without its risks, even at the best of times. I won’t endanger you, and I certainly don’t intend to leave you alone, even for a moment. You’re carrying your bag, I’m afraid.”
“Fine.” I gave him a small, sheepish smile. Maybe he felt worse than I’d let myself believe. He should have said. I would have understood if we’d had to leave earlier; I didn’t want him to suffer for me. “I’m sorry. I can carry both bags, you know.”
The corners of his eyes lilted as he gave me a small smile. “I can carry it, I just can’t teleport.”
“Why don’t I feel any worse?”
We fell into step again, emerging onto a quiet, twisting lane lined with dark windowed cottages; the nearest village to the campsite my friends and I had chosen for what should have been a brief, relaxing weekend in nature. The Fairy Glen was a couple of hours away, with no way to reach it but on foot.
“I can only assume it’s because you’re newly turned. I’m no expert, but your body is full of magic, and still settling. And,” he added, throwing me a rueful side eye, “as you’re always quick to point out, I’m old. You have all the advantages here.”
I grinned. “There is that.”
Now we were talking about it, my brain helpfully focused on the run-down heaviness of my body. It felt very much like the dregs of a hangover. My own world was disagreeing with my new body. The thought stung, as though I was no longer welcome here. No longer part of things. The world I’d always known, had been born into, grown up in, now saw me as a foreign body. It was rejecting me.
“Will you recover as soon as we cross the rift?” Would I? Would Neath welcome me, when Earth did not?
“I don’t know. I’ve never been here before. I don’t know how long the effects will last.”
“It must have been a powerful fae who took me.” My eyes dropped to the pavement as my stomach gave an uneasy clench. “He said he’d been waiting for weeks, but he grabbed me and teleported.”
Idris’ gaze raked over me, but he kept his silence. I hadn’t spoken about my ordeal yet. The nearest we’d come was when I woke from my nightmare, and he’d let me sob against his chest. When we both knew what had dragged me from sleep. Even then, it had been a wordless understanding. No amount of talking could undo what had happened to me. No words could erase the memories, the ghosts of agony that still slaked up my body in the silent hours of the night.
“How far did he take me?”
“Tir o Haf.” Idris’ voice was low and flat. I didn’t dare look at him. “Henangof Castle. It’s east of the capital. About as far away from the Blood Gate as it’s possible to go. ”
His words chilled my skin. “Should that be possible after weeks in the human world?”
“Perhaps he stayed on our side of the rift, watching the gate? Perhaps he only came through after he saw us?”
“Maybe,” I agreed doubtfully. Or maybe Maelgwyn hadn’t been idle all these centuries. Maybe he’d gathered the most powerful to his side.
“Did you catch his name?”
“I can’t remember. I was panicking.”
“I’m going to find him, and when I do, I’ll break every bone in his body.”
I looked up from the ground, all thoughts of shame driven away by the venom in Idris’ words. I’d never heard it there before, not even when he’d first woken. When he’d blamed me for his suffering.
“He’s just a stooge. Maybe he needed the money.” There had been a female too, and she’d mentioned getting paid. I remembered that much. “He could have a family to feed.”
Not that I had much experience, but people rarely existed in such stark terms of good and evil. Yes, the stranger had played his part in my death, but he didn’t know me. Couldn’t possibly bear a grudge. Whatever he’d done, it wasn’t personal. He must have had his reasons.
“I had a family to feed, once.” A cold spark lit behind the prince’s dull eyes. He turned them on me, and I almost flinched at the predator staring down at me, so unlike the kind, quiet male I’d come to know. Fury sharpened the angles of his face. Hatred. “He serves the man who took them from me, who tried to take you too. Don’t let mercy become your weakness. ”
I thought of the image of the round-cheeked little boy, forever preserved in Idris’ sketchbook. Try as I might, I couldn’t shove away the images of what had been done to him. What Idris might have seen. I didn’t know the details, didn’t want to know, but sometimes, imagination was worse than the truth. After meeting King Maelgwyn, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that this was one of those times.
I touched a hand to Idris’ arm. The muscles were strained beneath his sleeve. “All of it was your uncle’s doing, Idris. He’s the one who should pay.”
“He will, I assure you.”
How could such simple words carry so much weight? Something had to be done, and not least because Maelgwyn had sworn to come after the princes once he was done with me. I had no doubt that his desire to snuff out their lives had grown tenfold after Idris had ruined his grand show and saved my life. I couldn’t allow it to happen.
I dared a sideways glance at Idris. If anything happened to him, what would become of me? Would I still be able to breathe if the male who had created me was wiped from the world? Would my heart still beat without my best friend?
That was what he had become. Maybe it was just another side effect of the bond, or maybe we’d set off down this particular road when he’d arrived in my hideout and accused me, rightfully, of being a thief. Whenever it had begun, whatever had caused it, the result was the same. I couldn’t imagine myself in any world without him. I didn’t want to.
“You’re a bit scary when you’re angry, you know.”
Idris blinked, and that tiny action wiped away the tension from his features. “I’m not angry with you. ”
I grinned. “Well, that makes a change.”
“Give it time. I have a feeling this will be a long and tedious journey.”
“I didn’t know you could tell the future.” I nudged him with my elbow. “So many talents.”
“I don’t need to know the future. I know you .”
“Whatever. All you need to know is that I fully expect you to get your strength back as soon as we cross the rift. I am not walking through caves and forests with this thing.” I gave my suitcase an impatient tug.
“Feel free to leave it behind.”
“What? And carry on dressing like you? I don’t think so. I’d sooner move in with the vampires.”
Grinning, we continued through the winding streets toward the outskirts of the village, to the trail that would lead us back to the Fairy Glen. To Neath.
This was, without a doubt, the worst night of my new life, and a close contender for my old life too. According to my phone, it had been past midnight by the time we reached the Fairy Glen. Dragging my suitcase along the well-worn hiking trail had been bad enough, but the inside of the caves proved to be almost impossible to navigate with wheels. By the time we’d crossed the rift, my phone had lost all signal, and I’d been ready to lie down in the vampire-infested caverns and die. It was only my stubborn desire to prove I could manage my own, perfectly reasonable amount of luggage that kept me wrestling my case over the bumpy, jagged ground.
When we emerged into the moonlight of Neath, Idris came to a halt in front of me and stared out over the inky view far below. Breathing embarrassingly heavily, I struggled to his side and doubled over, leaning on my case for support. Cool mist kissed my sweaty skin, a gift from the river that rushed past, plunging over the rocky outcropping on which we stood. The same river that had once engulfed me and swept me, unsuspecting and painfully ignorant, into the strange world that would become my prison.
I was trapped here. The human world no longer wanted me, and I had no say in the matter. Like it or not, this was where I would be forced to exist for eternity, or until it was time for me to go to the Evermore. There had been so many places I’d wanted to visit in the human world. So many things I’d never seen. Now I never would.
Oh, I could visit, briefly, and I would , but I could never walk freely without a glamour. My ears were delicate enough to hide beneath my hair, but there was still the small matter of being a missing person to contend with. Eventually, my face would fade from public memory, especially now my parents were in on the secret. They would stop their campaigns, stop appealing for new information, and most people would forget. But I couldn’t risk bumping into a neighbour, or an old friend. I couldn’t travel, even if I had time to do so. And one day, too soon into my immortality, my parents would die. What reason would I have to return once they were gone?
Straightening, I stared down into the valley below. Moonlight gilded the treetops that stretched as far as the eye could see, broken only by the silver river, twining into the distance. Somewhere down there was the little pool I’d washed up in, and the tree I’d hidden in.
“Is it safe down there?” I tried to keep the fear from leeching into my voice.
I’d met some of the monsters that wandered these lands. During my first night here, Jacques the vampire had warned me to stay in the tree until sunrise. He’d said it wasn’t safe for me. Did that warning still apply? I was fae now, at least in body. Did that make me the predator?
“I’ll take watch.”
Great. Not the comforting answer I’d hoped for. “How do we get down without Saeth?”
I scanned the midnight blue sky, searching for a glimpse of the horse soaring toward us on silver wings, but I found nothing but clouds and stars. When I lowered my gaze, the prince raised an imperious eyebrow, looking down his perfect nose at me. “How do you think?”
“Please don’t tell me we’ve got to climb.” I furrowed my brow in despair. Even the thought of it had my already wobbly knees buckling.
Idris huffed in amusement. “It’s not as hard as it looks.”
“I can barely even walk on a relatively level surface! How am I supposed to climb with a suitcase?”
“There’s a path. It’s steep, but you’ll manage.”
I plonked down onto the nearest rock. “You guys really need to work on accessibility.”
“And you just had to come through the most difficult of rifts, didn’t you?” He dumped the holdall at his feet and folded his arms across his broad chest. I tried not to notice his T-shirt tightening over his muscular form. At some point during our seemingly endless trudge through the caverns of the Blood Gate, he’d dropped his glamour. He was gloriously fae again, breathtakingly handsome, even if the exhaustion that had plagued his human looks still lingered.
Massaging a stitch in my side, I gave my head a tiny shake. It was all the argument I could muster. My body sagged, aching to curl up on the ground, and my eyes itched in sleepy longing. Thoughts of the luxurious bed awaiting me in Nairsgarth Castle drifted to the forefront of my mind.
“The sooner we get down there, the sooner we can make camp for the night.”
I groaned in frustration. “ Fine .”
Rubbing my eyes, I forced myself to my feet, only to reach for a suitcase that was no longer where I’d left it. I blinked. Idris stared back at me, grim-faced and once more weighed down by the holdall. His hand rested on the handle of my suitcase.
“Oh, you’re an angel.”
“And you’re pathetic. Come on.”
I smirked at the back of his glossy, dark head as he set off around a cluster of rocks. Sure enough, a narrow, sloping ledge had been carved into the cliff side. I didn’t have the energy to worry too much about the sheer drop, or lack of handrail. My only thoughts were of the promised camp. I didn’t even care that we didn’t have a tent or blanket between us. All I wanted was to sleep, and maybe have a little snack.
Ahead of me, Idris walked as though the ledge was six feet wide, completely unperturbed. My suitcase trundled along behind him, never straying too close to the drop, despite being almost as wide as the path. The prince was used to heights and terrifying falls, but I was not. I pressed myself as close to the cliff face as I could and picked my way carefully along the narrow trail .
When my feet crunched into the gravelly ground at the base of the cliff, I let out a long breath of relief, but Idris failed to halt. I trudged wordlessly after him as he led us away from the path and into the trees, and the gravel and dirt gave way to grass and moss.
At last, he found a spot he apparently deemed suitable and deposited my luggage beside a thick tree trunk. I didn’t bother with dignity as I shrugged off my backpack and crumpled to the ground, flopping onto my back. Idris sat down beside me, and I cracked open one eye to find him hurriedly wiping a close-lipped smirk from his face.
“What are you laughing at?”
“You.”
“I know, I know. Pathetic mortal and all that…”
“Can I still call you that?”
“Well, I’m still going to call you names, so why not?”
When he smiled again, he revealed his teeth, and my heart sputtered. He was sparing with such little shows of happiness, and he had good reason to be, but that only made them all the more precious. Every hard-won smile, every huff of reluctant laughter was a gift. Not to mention the way his face transformed when it was adorned with that lop-sided grin.
We lapsed into silence, and I let my eyes slide to the canopy of leaves overhead. Stars winked between the gaps, distant and beautiful. Who could have imagined that sleeping outside could be anything but horrifying? Maybe it was exhaustion, but with a bed of lush, cool grass beneath me, and a ceiling of leaves and stars overhead, I was perfectly content.
Well, almost .
I rolled onto my side, propping my head on my fist. “You know what would be perfect right now?”
“If you went to sleep.”
I grinned. “ Ice cream. ”
His eyes slid sideways to me, lit with a conspiratorial gleam, and I knew he’d fallen hard for those little tubs of heaven, just as I had.
“Unfortunately, your mother did not supply our picnic with ice cream.”
“Then, as your queen, I command you to teleport back to my house and tell her to get some. You know where I live now, no excuses.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You have to do as I say, I’m the queen.”
He fixed me with a shrewd stare. “And I’m the king, so I think you’ll find I don’t have to do anything.”
King? King ? Had I heard him right? After he’d gone to the effort of swapping lives with his younger brother to avoid his predestined fate, after he’d given up his birth name and hidden his powers and lived a lie, he chose to claim the crown now? To avoid getting me ice cream? “I thought you’d given up your title?”
Was now the time to tell him that, according to Maelgwyn, his inheritance had already been stripped away? That, through breaking the curse, I had inadvertently stolen his birthright?
“Likewise.”
“I didn’t say that, exactly.” Not with that phrasing, at least. Still, there was no denying I’d voiced my rejection of the promised throne at every opportunity.
“There are ways of speaking without words. Disappearing in the dead of night told us everything we needed to know. ”
“Yeah well, I’m here to stay now. Maybe I’ll accept the crown after all. I don’t have anything better to do.” In truth, I hadn’t given the matter of what I’d do with my immortal life much thought. I’d been consumed with thoughts of my parents, and then stung by betrayal when I’d realised my world no longer wanted me. I hadn’t been able to see too far ahead. I still couldn’t, but if I was going to live forever, there would be worse ways to spend my days than in the lap of luxury.
“Even if it means marrying Anwir?” The amusement had sapped from Idris’ voice. The last of it drained from me too, and I twisted my face into a grimace that was all the answer he could need.
Anwir, the younger twin, posing as the heir. Anwir the liar. Anwir the user. Handsome and charming and awful. After overhearing his plans to fool me, to use me as a breeding bitch, I hadn’t bothered to confront him. I hadn’t even seen him before I’d fled. So much had changed since then, me most of all, but the sickening churning of disgust and shame remained.
I’d almost fallen for his deception.
Never before had I allowed a man to worm his way through my defences, but Anwir had almost managed it. He’d made me believe I was important, vital. That he and this world needed me.
A breeze ruffled past, brisk and fresh. The sweat of my travels had dried, cooling my skin, and I shivered. The thought of coming face-to-face with Anwir again probably had a lot to do with my sudden chill.
“You’re cold.” Idris didn’t wait for me to contradict him. He extracted his cloak, the same one he’d loaned me the night I’d made my bid for freedom, from a borrowed backpack, and shuffled closer. He draped the fabric over me where I lay in the grass .
“I’ve got a hoodie,” I protested, but he tucked the cloak neatly around my shoulders nonetheless. “What about you?”
I’d crammed as many clothes as I could manage into my bags, but he had only the items he wore. He only shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”
I sat up, attempting to remove the garment, but he caught my wrist in his broad hand, stilling it. His grip was firm, but gentle, and sent the almost uncomfortably vivid sensation of lightning prickling over my skin.
“Keep it. You can return it in the morning.”
“Okay, but maybe we should light a fire, or—”
His grip tightened, twisting my words into a yelp. He released me at once, his eyes widening.
“I’m sorry,” he said hurriedly. “I didn’t mean—are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine.” I was shocked more than anything. The fear etched into his face wasn’t a result of him thinking he’d hurt me. It had appeared a heartbeat before he’d squeezed. “Idris, is everything—”
“No fire,” he said firmly. “We don’t want to attract anything.”
Sage, the witch who had led the expedition to find the cursed princes, had insisted on the same rule, and Idris had willfully disregarded it, so this new desire to follow protocol made no sense. Unless…
Idris had pulled me from the flames. My gaze dropped to his hands, but I found no evidence of the quickly healed burns he’d sported when I’d awoken from my ordeal. Had they left a scar that couldn’t be seen? I should have considered, should have asked. I opened my mouth to voice the question, but my throat was too tight for words. I shivered again as flames flared at the edges of my brain. Phantom fire licked at my shins, and I curled into a ball, hugging my knees to my chest .
How stupid could I be? Why had I mentioned fire at all? The one night I’d forgotten, the first promise of peaceful sleep, and I’d ruined it. Echoes of my screams sounded in my ears, rising over the crackle of flames, of melting, spitting flesh.
My breath shuddered, threatening to turn into a sob. Lost in horribly vivid memories, I only noticed Idris had moved when his fingers trailed over my cheek. I blinked, and the flames receded, bringing the dark woods back into view, and the prince. He lay in the grass, facing me, his eyes brimming with regret as he trailed his fingers over my temple and down to my jaw.
“You’re safe now, Aliza,” he whispered. “I will slaughter anyone who tries to harm you.”
I reached up from beneath my borrowed cloak and closed my hand around his. I met no resistance as I clutched it to my chest, like a child clinging to a teddy bear in the darkest hours of the night. The last shadows of my lightning mark, unfurling over my heart, seemed to hum in answer to his presence.
“I know.”