Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
The hardest part of this fight isn’t the constant threat of danger or the risk of death. It’s never knowing when you might say goodbye to a friend for the last time. The worry that at any moment you may greet a friend, only to watch their eyes go black as they turn to the darkness.
— From the journal of Violet Andrever
It had been four days since our fight about Aine—not that I was counting—and the distance and awkwardness between us only grew.
Several times, he opened his mouth to say something, only to close it and hide behind his mask.
And I wasn’t asking. He’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t want me asking questions.
He still appeared for dinner, and every night to guard me from my dreams, but it was the taciturn Champion who showed up, his mask firmly in place.
Griff, the man who’d laughed with me in Maraleth, was nowhere to be found.
Tonight, Griff had skipped dinner entirely, a fact commented on by both Finn and Freya.
Finn had shrugged and said Griff did what he wanted to do, but Freya looked at me with a pensive expression, as though she could see through me and knew precisely why I was toying with my food.
I began to falter in my resolve to just be a duty.
But if I was more, why did he constantly push me away?
Finn and Freya left and I began clearing the table, wondering if tonight was the night that he simply wouldn’t appear.
I had settled on the couch, convinced something was wrong, when I heard a quiet knock and the door opened.
My worry fell away as he entered, only to return with a vengeance when I saw his expression.
I stood hastily and took a step toward him. “What is it? What happened?”
He quickly donned the mask once more. “It’s nothing.”
I thought about how I’d kept him at a distance since our fight, the risk of trying yet again to get him to open up, but something in his face, the set of his shoulders, demanded I try once more.
I slowly moved toward him, worried that if I made any sudden movements, he’d shy away.
“It’s clearly not nothing.” I rested my hand on his arm, ignoring the jolt of power, and he stiffened.
He slept in my bed every night, but this was the first time since our fight that either of us had touched the other.
I wasn’t counting the rare mornings I’d woken up first and found myself in his arms. I hesitated, wondering if he would shake off my hand. “Tell me.”
He took a deep breath, refusing to look at me, before drawing in on himself once more. “I just got some bad news is all.” He threw himself onto my couch, and I followed him, tucking a leg up underneath myself as I faced him.
“We’re friends, right?” I asked him softly.
He shot me a look and let out a strained laugh. “Yeah, Princess. We’re friends.”
“Then tell me what happened. That’s what friends do.” At his obstinate look, I added, “Don’t make me ask a third time, Griff.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, rubbing his face in his hands. My hand came to his back, tracing small circles. Again, he stiffened, his back rigid under my touch.
“I received news. Of a death. One of my oldest friends. He took on a group of hufen. And lost.”
More people suffering and dying, because of me. Because I hadn’t figured out how to fix the Veil yet.
My mind jumped straight over grief to logistics. “Dead? Or… changed?”
“Does it matter?” His voice was muffled by his hands. “Either way, he’s gone.”
I wrapped my arms around Griff, but he didn’t turn to me. The silence stretched between us, empty and lonely. All the times he’d given me comfort, and now when I had a chance to reciprocate, he was refusing to accept it.
Tough. He was getting support from me, whether he liked it or not. I knew him well enough to know that he needed it. Needed someone. I rested my head against his back, silently telling him I was there.
After a moment, he untangled himself from me, only to lean over and clamp his arms around me himself, drawing me closer until I was sitting on his lap. He buried his head in my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured into his hair. “I’m so sorry.”
“I should have been there,” he whispered, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it.
“You couldn’t have known.” I ran my fingers through his hair, digging into the tense muscles at the base of his neck. “And if you’d been there, maybe you would have died too.”
He pulled back and his eyes met mine, desperate and searching. “I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t—” He stopped himself, his jaw clenching.
“It’s because you’re here with me, isn’t it?” I said slowly, releasing him. “You would have been out there instead of him. Except you feel like you have to stay here. Because of me.”
He brushed a stray piece of hair off my face. “You are the most important thing.”
“Bullshit, Griff. I don’t want you in danger, but if people are dying because you’re here with me… If your particular mix of skills are what’s needed, then you need to be out there. I can take care of myself. If you’re needed, you should go.”
“I should rephrase. You are the most important thing to me.” His eyes bored into mine. “I will not leave you unprotected.”
For a moment, something flickered between us.
“I worry about you, too, you know,” I said softly. “When you’re gone.”
It looked like he wanted to say something, but then he deliberately pulled away and shook his head, the familiar mask sliding into place.
I shifted away from him. Even though we were right next to each other, it felt like there was a gaping chasm between us.
Was I the most important thing to him because he was duty bound to protect me, or was it something more?
And if it was something more, wouldn’t he have acted on it instead of always pulling away?
Turning away from him, I loosened my hair from my braid and began brushing it.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked, his voice carefully controlled.
Noted. We were done talking about his feelings.
“Finn said something about air wielding. Meeting Fiadh.” I glanced at him to see if I’d gotten the name right, and he nodded in recognition. “Kaia has taught me a bit, how to use air while fighting, but he wants me to learn from someone who has the full channel.”
“Makes sense.”
Griff closed his eyes and rested his hands behind his head, putting all of those powerful arm muscles on display.
I turned away from him before I did something I regretted.
It was becoming stranger and stranger to me that he was here every night.
Sometimes I saw him watching me with a look in his eyes.
A hunger? A need? It would cause something in me to stir, longing to reach out to him.
But then he would wipe his face clean of all expression, his mask reappearing.
And sometimes, he wouldn’t show up until after I went to bed, and I would lie there wondering if tonight was the night he wouldn’t appear.
But he always did. I hadn’t asked him about it.
I hadn’t asked him a lot of things I probably should have.
But until I knew that I could handle the answers, I was staying quiet.
And I had to wonder if he was faced with the same dilemma.
“Do you know if she’s local?” I asked instead.
His eyes opened. “Fiadh? I doubt it. She was always a fairly private person, reclusive even as a child. She was enamored with Finn, as so many were.” I searched his voice for any hint of jealousy but found none.
“If I had to guess, she’s made her home on some remote mountaintop in the Mistrael Mountains, with just the birds to keep her company. What’s the face for?”
“You’ve spoiled me,” I said with a grin, trying and failing to lighten the mood. “Traveling by an essence-bound medallion doesn’t live up to your standards.”
“I’ll take you.” The words came out rough, almost possessive.
“I didn’t mean to imply—”
“I know.” He looked directly at me, a flash of vulnerability in those hazel eyes.
“I want to. I need to know you’re safe. Besides, you’re not supposed to travel outside these walls without me, remember?
” He kept his tone artificially light to alleviate some of the harshness of his words.
His eyes swept over me as I continued to braid my hair back.
“You look so different with your hair down. Softer,” he added at my quizzical expression. “Why do you always braid it?”
I shrugged. “Too much hassle to leave it down.”
“You should.” His voice was unguarded and dropped to almost a whisper. “You’ll be careful tomorrow? Even with me there?”
I nodded solemnly. “Promise.”
I was standing on the battlefield once again. The darkness blocked out the sun. I squinted and turned, attempting to see anything through the carnage around me. Bodies littered the ground, but I couldn’t tell if they were friend or foe.
I heard my name, screamed in fear. It was Griff’s voice, desperate. But no matter how I searched, I couldn’t find him in the chaos.
Then I heard the snarling. The snapping. Wolves. Wolves everywhere. Massive creatures, their eyes glowing like flames in the darkness. They circled the battlefield, threatening everything in their path.
One of them turned toward me, teeth bared like daggers. It gathered itself, muscles bunching, and launched itself through the air. Before I had time to think, to duck, to do anything, he had leapt—
And went sailing over my head.
He had missed? I turned to look, readying my sword for a second attack, but before I could—
“Lexa, Lexa, come back to me.” Griff shook me awake, his voice tight with worry.
I brushed the sweaty hair that had escaped my braid away from my face, my hands shaking slightly. His eyes were dark with concern, but there was a rawness there, too, a yearning that hadn’t been there before tonight.
I attempted to gather my thoughts, but they were scattered to the winds. I said the first thing that came to mind. “Wolves.”