51. Is One Day Too Much To Ask?
51
Is One Day Too Much To Ask?
Idris
T he last time I’d drunk fairy wine, I’d consumed enough that waking up the following morning was even more of a curse than usual. This time, though my head was slightly groggy, I welcomed the quiet awareness that crept into my consciousness. I was smiling before I opened my eyes. A cloud of pink greeted me.
Careful not to wake her, I trailed my fingers through Aliza’s hair, taming the wild tangle that blocked my vision and revealing a glimpse of her sleeping face, nestled against my chest. The precise black lines she’d painted around her eyes had smeared like bruises, and bedraggled, squashed blossoms still clung to her wild rainbow of hair. I had yet to tell her, but I loved her like this, undone and dishevelled. It brought to mind the woman who’d woken me from the longest sleep, with her brazen hair in a messy braid, and dust and dirt clinging to her skin. It made me think of our first flight together, when she’d collapsed in the grass, and I’d wanted nothing more than to crawl over her and kiss her. I’d had no idea then of the path our lives would lead us down, only hope that I’d refused to nurture.
Perhaps disturbed by the quickening of my heart, Aliza stirred, grumbling. I tightened the arm draped across her shoulder, refusing to let her roll away from me. I wasn’t ready to give up the comfort of her bare skin against mine. Would I ever leave this bed?
The ball had been ongoing when I’d teleported us back to my bedroom in Ceirios Manor. When Anwir and I had been boys, our parents had visited Tir o Gwanwyn as often as their duties allowed. My mother had favoured the weather here. Milder than Tir o Haf, but still brimming with her beloved flowers. This very room was the one I’d slept in all those years ago, though it was unrecognisable now, after centuries in the hands of one of Maelgwyn’s stooges. Someone had replaced the sheer drapes at the window with fussy peach creations, trimmed in frills. They blocked my view of the sky. Not that it mattered now that I had something even more beautiful to stare at.
Bloodshot blue eyes squinted up at me from beneath a crumpled brow.
“Urgh, what time is it?” Aliza mumbled, her words thick with sleep.
I grinned, revelling in this new side of her. “Still early. You don’t have to wake up yet.”
“Thank god.” She promptly flopped against me again, and I kissed the top of her head, toying with the ends of her hair.
We’d teleported in the early hours, when the chill that often accompanied the nighttime of Tir o Gwanwyn left Aliza shivering. I could have suggested she light a fire, but her newly awakened power was volatile, and I had little interest in starting wildfires, or fires of any sort, if I was honest with myself. The roar and crackle of flames, the blaring heat, the stench… it all haunted me. I’d never fully wash the stink of smoke from my hair, or clear the taste of cooked, charcoaled meat from my mouth. The irony of it all wasn’t lost on me. Aliza was the one thing I couldn’t bear to lose, and now she was the embodiment of the element that had almost stolen her away. Her magic was destructive and deadly. Air stirred water. Water fed earth. Earth provided fuel for fire to tear through, leaving only destruction in its path, and I… I was just as dangerous. Lightning was nothing but a volatile outburst with no purpose but to destroy. It suited me, with my unnerving habit of wrecking the lives of those I loved, but Aliza? She deserved better.
“What’s wrong?” She lifted her head, looking slightly more awake this time.
“Nothing, why?”
“I thought I felt…” She frowned. “It doesn’t matter, just… everything’s okay? Between us?”
I knew exactly what she’d felt. It was the same thing I’d felt last night when I’d had to fight every instinct in my body to save myself from piercing her skin. From claiming her as my own. It was the same thing that had let me feel her heart crack when I’d tried to free her from the shackle that was me.
Whatever regret lay between us, it was only that I’d forced this upon her. Burdened her with a power as terrible as my own. Another life wrecked, by me.
“Better than okay .” The word had no meaning here in Neath, but since meeting Aliza I’d heard it enough to discern its lacklustre implication. It had no place in this relationship. “I was only thinking of how the rest of them will be awake soon, and I’ll have to share you with the world again.”
I stretched for the nightstand, where Aliza had left her phone. “Remind me how photographs happen? ”
“Like this.” She grinned, plucking the shiny rectangle from my hand and aiming it at my face. Judging by her widening smile, she’d stolen my idea.
I took the phone back, finding the camera already open, and I adjusted the position until Aliza’s kohl-streaked face appeared on the screen. She beamed a silly smile which I hoped I’d managed to capture successfully. Perhaps I should have given her parents enough gold to purchase two phones, because I wanted this photograph for myself. Wanted to admire her mussed-up hair, and the image of her chin propped on my bare chest at leisure.
My blood stirred. I couldn’t get enough of her. To think the past couple of weeks could have been spent fucking more of those incredible moans from her, hearing her whimper my name, but no , I had to try to be selfless . Damn me to the Evermore, but my already hard morning cock twitched, a fact Aliza did not fail to notice.
Her lips curved into the wickedest of smirks. “Should we be making the most of our sleepy morning?” Under the sheets, her hands closed around me, squeezing tight. I sucked a breath through my teeth as every muscle in my body tensed. The phone slipped from my grasp, landing on the mattress with a soft thump.
“It’s such a shame,” Aliza breathed, slackening her grip and gliding her fingers up and down my shaft, “that I’m really gross and need a bath.”
“I could do with one as well. How fortunate that the bathtub is big enough for two.”
She palmed my balls, and I almost leapt out of my skin as she rolled them in her hand. “You’d better get on with that, then. ”
She released me, flopping away and spreading her arms luxuriously. The sheet slipped from her beautiful breasts, and her nipples peaked in the cool morning air. I was going to soap them up and give them all the attention they deserved, but first…
I leaned over her, burying my face beneath her jaw and breathing deep. She smelled divine, the faint whiff of blossoms mingling with wine and sex. I nipped her neck, then dragged my tongue over the same spot. I could forgo the bath, I could nudge her legs open right now and sink into her, but if I did, I’d miss the chance to see that tanned skin glistening with bath oils.
With a groan of frustration, I rolled away and forced myself to my feet before I lost all reason. It would be worth a few minutes of deprivation. Besides, I really did need a bath.
I was halfway across the room when a low knock sounded at the door, halting me in my tracks. The sun had barely risen over the hills; it was too early for the servants, never mind a visitor.
Aliza scrambled up the bed, pulling the blankets up to her chin. Her black-ringed eyes were wide as I threw her a quizzical look and snatched up my robe from a nearby chair.
The knock sounded again, more insistent this time.
“Just a minute,” I called, knotting the belt and dragging a hand through my hair on my way to the door. Whoever this was had better have an excellent reason for disrupting my plans.
With a click of the lock, the door swung open, revealing a red-headed male on the threshold.
“Bryn.” My surprise was quickly smothered by dread as my stomach bottomed out. He should be in Tir o Haf, serving my uncle, not here, at the crack of dawn, outside my bedroom. “What is it? How are you here?”
As a resident of Tir o Haf, he shouldn’t be able to leave Maelgwyn’s territory. Since waking, I’d learnt that whatever spell my uncle had woven had kept his citizens isolated for centuries. Those that fled across the borders soon began to wither and die, robbed of their immortality, much as we did in the human world. It was why I had chosen to meet with Bryn in his own territory. I was free of the effects of Maelgwyn’s magic; Bryn was not, yet despite the glaring risks to his health, he stood before me.
“I can’t stay long. Is Aliza here?” He kept his voice low, but I recognised the faint note of reluctance behind his words. He didn’t want to be here, and not just because of the obvious.
“I am,” Aliza called from behind me. Fabric rustled and hurried footsteps sounded. She appeared at my shoulder, wearing last night’s dress. A spring of blossom clung to the mint-green ends of her hair. “What’s the matter? Is Jane okay?”
My heart gave a pang that her first thought was of my former wife and her welfare. No jealousy, no bitterness, only concern. She was too good for me. I was undeserving of her.
Bryn was pale under his freckles. “She’s well, thank you. Aliza…” he heaved an unsteady breath. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of ill news, but Maelgwyn has taken your mother and father.”
For the longest moment, there was only silence. Bryn’s words hung in the space between my ears and brain, suspended in time, heard but nonsensical.
It was Aliza’s laugh that broke through my stunned daze. “That’s impossible. ”
I’d known Bryn most of my life. He wouldn’t bring us such news unless he was certain of his sources. Ice crept through my veins. I laid my hand between Aliza’s shoulder blades, ready to support her when she inevitably crumbled.
“I wish it was,” Bryn said, lowering his eyes. “From what I can gather, he’s had the Blood Gate watched. You were spotted travelling with another female three days ago. You were followed.”
“No,” she said, as though the force behind the word could make it true. “No.”
She shook her head, her hair snagging under my hand.
“They were brought in last night. They’re alive.”
Aliza began to tremble. I pulled her to my side, only to recoil at the heat glaring from her skin.
Shit .
If she lost control here…
“Find Anwir. Meet us in the meadow.” I barely glanced at Bryn as I threw the words at him and enveloped Aliza in my arms.
Darkness swallowed us as the bedroom vanished. Heat blared through my robe to the skin beneath as the void crushed our bodies together. I only held her tighter. My feet found solid ground, and a brisk, floral breeze wrapped around us. It wasn’t enough to quell the heat.
No sooner had the meadow materialised than Aliza ignited. Flames rushed up her arms, searing my skin and singeing my already hot robe. I could do nothing but stagger away, gritting my teeth, and watch the woman I loved fall to her knees.
Within seconds, her magic engulfed her, leaping and coiling into the sky. Around her, the grass and daffodils curled and blackened. Her body jerked and convulsed as sob after sob tore from her throat. It was worse, so much worse than the aftermath of her nightmares.
Some cowardly part of me recoiled at the roar and snap of the fire, but a more significant part, a desperate part, urged me to rush into action, to save her, as I had done only three weeks ago. My heart battered my ribs, pumping blood to my quivering muscles, ready to fight against an imagined foe.
There would be no saving her today, not from herself. All I could do was be here for her. Heat blazed against my skin, but I knelt before her, as close as I could get without burning, and squinted through the leaping haze.
“Aliza…”
If my voice made it through the pain, she never responded. I knew this moment well. Knew exactly how it felt to have the world pulled out from beneath you, to have your most cherished thing stripped away. It was a flaying. A raw and brutal flaying of the heart.
“Aliza, I’m here.”
What more could I do? What could I say? Nothing. The flames made little difference, with or without them I was powerless to help. Even so, I crawled an inch closer, heedless of my scorched skin. Every sob was a knife in my gut. I was failing her. She should be in my arms, wringing whatever strength she could get from me. I was barely two feet away, but it might as well have been a mile.
The wispy white clouds above us turned grey, growing fat and sinking lower in the sky. For once, I didn’t bother to mask the slow build of my magic as it darkened with my mood.
The charred flora surrounding Aliza caught light, her flames spreading to engulf them. Another halo of withered black began to form around them. My eyes and throat narrowed against the sting of smoke, but though I curled my fingers in an attempt to shield them from the approaching fire, I didn’t back away.
“Mother above.”
My brother’s voice sounded nearby. Bryn had found him then? Good. His powers would be needed here. The bit of rain I could produce would not be enough to prevent the meadow from burning. I threw a helpless glance over my shoulder. Bryn and Anwir kept their distance, unwilling to brave the heat.
“Come away, Idris,” Anwir commanded. “It’s not safe.”
“She won’t hurt me.”
Anwir gave a derisive laugh. “She already has. Look at you.”
He was right. My hands and exposed chest were red raw, blistering in places. My face undoubtedly looked little better. My body worked continuously to heal itself against the onslaught of heat, probably the only reason I hadn’t been roasted alive by now, but for every blister that began to fade, a new one formed. Surface wounds, that was all it was. I’d be fine.
“Come on, Idris. You’re no good to her dead.” Bryn’s voice sounded behind me, closer.
I was no good to her at all.
“Please, Aliza,” I begged. “Let me in.”
Was it my imagination, or did the flames dim? My palm sizzled on the scorched ground as I inched closer, and I allowed myself a wince, but no more. I wouldn’t pull away. I wouldn’t leave her, no matter what the others said.
“I’m here, and I love you.”
The glare faded and the flames shrank, before sinking into her sweat-drenched skin and disappearing entirely. The cool air kissed my skin, and I crawled, closing the last bit of distance between us, and dragged Aliza into my arms. She didn’t fight me, but she was all but a dead weight as she slumped against my chest, held upright only because I clung to her. The sobs had died with her magic. I clenched my jaw against the haunting familiarity, against the memory of her dead in my arms.
“He’s going to kill them.”
Her voice was unbearably small and weak. The first drops of rain fell from the darkening sky as I buried my nose in her smoky hair. How could I deny her claim? Maelgwyn would kill them. Despite Bryn’s assurances to the contrary, they might already be dead.
“This is my fault. I showed him the way.”
I could barely speak around the lump in my throat, but I croaked, “It’s not, Aliza. Never say that.”
“He’s going to kill them,” she repeated. “He killed Taryn and he killed me, and now he’s going to kill them .”
Tentative footsteps announced Bryn and Anwir’s approach. Aliza extricated herself from my arms and glared up at them with wet eyes. “What now? Tell me what to do.”
Pride glowed in my chest, but its light was dimmed by hopelessness. She was brilliant and brave. Of course she would leap into action, no matter how dire the situation. It was what she did. It was one of the reasons I’d fallen for her, when she’d thrown herself to her knees in a pool of blood and fought to save a life. She was better than all of us, and she didn’t deserve this.
Bryn threw a helpless glance at Anwir, who maintained his silence .
“You’re sure,” I rasped through my smoke-clogged throat, “you’re absolutely certain it’s them?”
Bryn pressed his lips together before answering. “I’ve never met them before, so I can’t be sure it’s not some sort of decoy, but… he has two ageing humans, a male and female who he claims are the mother and father of the Human Queen. He is particularly smug about it. I believe that he believes it’s them, if nothing else.”
Aliza stumbled to her feet. Without her shoes, her dress was too long. It pooled over the blackened ground. “We have to check. We have to go now.”
“Go where? You can’t be suggesting we go to Tir o Haf? Shall we stop for tea while we’re there?”
I fucking hated my brother sometimes.
“Idris.” Aliza turned to me and gasped. “Idris! Your skin! Did I—Oh my god, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, biting back the pain and forcing myself to stand. I would be fine. I was healing rapidly, but now that the threat had eased and Aliza was back in control, the pain of my roasted skin had grown tenfold. The fire might have gone but I was still burning. “What do you need?”
Aliza turned her wide eyes on Anwir. “Help him. You have water magic, don’t you?”
“I’m fi—”
“Anwir, please .”
My brother slid me a sly sidelong look, his gaze flickering over my blistered face and torso. “I don’t see why I should exert—”
“Do it, now!” Aliza shrieked, her hands balling into fists. “Do it, or I swear to god, I’ll roast you alive, you snivelling little cunt! ”
Despite the pain, I sniggered, instantly regretting it as my scorched lips cracked open. A globe of cold water burst over my head and crashed over me, turning my laughter into a ragged gasp.
Anwir smirked. “Better?”
“Do it properly,” Aliza snarled.
Anwir sighed. The water rose from the ground, gliding around me and coating my skin in a thin, rippling layer. The heat faded from my burns, and tension I hadn’t even been aware of ebbed from my body.
“Thank you,” I conceded to Anwir before turning back to Aliza, “but I’m fine. I’ll heal. Tell me what you need.”
Her face paled beneath the black streaks which had migrated from her eyes and travelled down her cheeks. “I need to be sure.”
I nodded. “I’ll take you home.”
“Absolutely not!” Anwir glared at me as though I’d sprouted an extra head. “It will be an ambush. We need Aliza, I will not risk losing her.”
“You don’t get to decide,” she snapped, but her voice wobbled. “I need to know, and then…”
“Then we’ll make a plan,” I offered. If there was any way to fix this, I’d do it. I wouldn’t stand by and watch while she lost people she loved. Anwir could drown himself with his own magic if he so much as thought of standing in my way. “Are you in control?”
Though she nodded, her bottom lip trembled, and a fresh wave of tears quivered in her eyes.
I stepped closer. “I’m going to take you back to the manor. I’ll grab my swords, and then I’ll teleport you home, but before I take you indoors, I need to know you’re not going to burn the house down. ”
“I won’t. I can do it, I’ve been working on it, I just… Bryn took me by surprise.”
My friend shifted his feet, his fair skin reddening. “I can only apologise.”
“I’m glad you told me. I don’t blame you,” she insisted. She held a hand out to me. “I’m okay, I promise.”
I glanced at Anwir, and the water coating my skin evaporated. In its absence, my flesh warmed, but the blisters had gone, leaving only patches of shiny raw skin. Marks often lingered, even after the initial injury had healed, but my burns had been minor, and I doubted the evidence would last the hour.
Hopefully, Aliza’s parents would.
I took her outstretched hand and teleported.
The subtle tang of magic hung in the air inside Aliza’s home, but whoever was responsible for it was long gone, as were John and Trish.
I’d teleported us directly into the house, and it hadn’t taken long to confirm Bryn’s claim. The silence was absolute. There was a difference between an empty building and one with another person hidden within. Having a heart beating in another room, even if it couldn’t be heard, left a subtle, comforting vibration in the air. The air here was still.
Aliza’s home gave the sense of having been abandoned in a hurry. The blinds were open, but a lamp was lit. Perhaps John or Trish had turned it on as yesterday afternoon faded to evening, but before it was dark enough to draw the curtains. The television was active, but none of those wonderful movies played. Instead, a silent, unobtrusive moving image of fireworks idled on an otherwise black screen.
White-faced and teary-eyed, Aliza surveyed the room. I, however, watched her. Tendons strained in her neck and her skin glowed with sweat, but her magic made no repeat appearance, a feat which only served to remind me how incredible she was. Newly turned, and already able to maintain some control over such a volatile power. She deserved much better than the hand she’d been served.
She drifted to the sideboard and touched a finger to a mug of cold tea. “They’re really gone, aren’t they?” Wide blue eyes lifted to me, seeking comfort I couldn’t give.
I’d searched all the rooms, just to confirm what I’d known the moment we’d arrived. I found no bodies or blood stains, but that was hardly an indicator of good news. In the kitchen, there were two dirty plates in the sink, and a used cooking pot sat on the stove, half filled with long-cold water. They’d never cleaned up after their evening meal. Their bed was still neatly made. Maelgwyn had taken them hours ago, perhaps while Aliza and I danced.
I wanted to tell her we’d get them back, that everything would be alright, but I’d seen what my uncle was capable of, and I had no hope to spare. Instead, I pulled her closer, cradling her head to my chest.
“We’re going to make him pay for everything.” It was the closest thing to a promise I could make.
She shifted, staring up at me with a desperate gaze. “We have to get them back.”
We would, but in what state? The dead weight of inevitability dragged at my heart, but I nodded and kissed her forehead. “I know. ”
Tears filled her eyes, making them glitter and gleam like gemstones. “Let’s go home.”
Home. The word burrowed behind my ribs and swelled, filling the dark chasm. For the longest time, whenever Aliza had talked of home, she’d meant here, this cramped little house in a faraway world. Now, for the first time, it was Neath. It was with me.
She wrapped her arms around me, and I guided us through empty space, leaving the human world behind.