Chapter 15 Mance, Without Poise, Without Livid #2
I double over the bed, gasping. Why does it hurt so much?
I thought I was getting used to the discomfort of being apart for so long, but somehow it feels like it’s getting worse every time.
Did Alect feel like this when he would split for weeks at once?
Strangely, his memories are getting fuzzier, like the open wound in my mind is finally closing.
I feel a spike of grief at the thought of him fading away.
Perhaps soon I won’t be able to access his memories at all, and then he truly will be . . . gone.
What is going on with my magic?
Poise’s memories aren’t traumatic, but they are still concerning.
I see myself arriving at a sparkling castle in a cove, covered in sea glass and surrounded by magical water displays like fireworks in the air.
My mother is there, looking every bit the Coast Realm royal in a flowing, beachy dress and windblown hair.
But she wasn’t happy to see me.
Nor was my aunt, the Prime.
Prime Apea runs her realm with aggressive perfection.
Which is where my mother got her habits in the first place.
Where I got them. My aunt’s magic takes the form of music, always playing around her, and able to coax—even control—those in her vicinity.
She is meticulous in keeping everything and everyone harmonious and idealized, not a hair or a note out of place.
Instead of changing Apea’s mind, Poise ended up falling into her rhythm, moving, even breathing, in accordance with the song she set. Until it began to hurt not to.
“Marry him,” my aunt says. “And never speak of these doubts again.”
Her command is harsh, and I open my mouth to protest, only for my protests to dry up in my throat as my aunt finishes the sentence.
“. . . Just like your mother did.”
I feel a final wave of aching at the words, as Poise’s memories finally settle, mixing with mine.
It makes me sick, seeing the way my mother has been reduced to a shadow.
Seeing myself act that way. And now that Poise is back, I am also horrified by how I’ve acted in the Forest Realm since she left.
It all mingles into a potent cocktail of despair, garnished with the deep, awful sting of having failed yet again.
I sit down on the bed, my head in my hands.
Clearly, neither Asset’s practicality nor Poise’s honeyed words are enough to get people on our side. Not even our own family.
And we only have one realm left to try. The Grasslands, with Prime Azele. We established a truce a few months ago but haven’t seen much of each other since. I want to believe that she’ll support me, but with the alliance so new, it’s hard to know.
I decide to send Heart this time.
After our moment in the woods with Silver, she’s brimming with confidence. And she’s also the only one of us who hasn’t tried yet. Maybe she’ll succeed where the others failed.
I summon Heart in front of me and immediately I miss the joy. But I’m surprised to find that there’s a comfort to her absence as well. The last few days I’ve just been feeling so much. It will be nice to get a break from it. I can think clearly for the first time since all this started happening.
She smiles at me with affection, despite the handprint-shaped bruises that still linger on her skin, and I feel an odd pulse where the reciprocal feelings should be.
It’s hollower and emptier than usual. Almost like I cut out more of myself than I typically do.
Under my skin, my animals are unnaturally still.
But before I know it, she’s gone.
In the wake of her absence, I feel sort of . . . fuzzy. Listless. I want to fall back on my bed in exhaustion. Unfortunately, Asset’s practicality and Poise’s dignity push me to get dressed and fix my hair instead.
With my emotions dampened, my mind turns back to planning while my fingers work through tangles.
There is so much I need to do, and time is running out fast. This morning I made a plea to Reltas from the heart, and that didn’t work.
But perhaps he will respond to reason. I have to try, anyway.
Our strategy with the other realms is failing.
I need to focus back on my main strategy here.
And if that ultimately fails, too . . . it’s time to come up with a Plan C. Hope and want can only get me so far. I need to be practical about the situation. I need to prepare for all possibilities.
No matter how difficult they may be.
I head to the library, hoping the environment will help me think.
But I’ve only just started pulling books from shelves when I am startled by a soft kiss on the side of my neck, right where the chain of my necklace lays against my skin.
“Silver!” I say, quickly looking over his shoulder to see if anyone happened to be passing by. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” He gives me one of his full-dimpled smiles, clearly in a good mood after the kisses we shared. He even ducks to give me a peck on the lips in greeting, but I sidestep the attempt, glancing quickly around the hallway.
“Don’t.”
His smile wilts, and my heart throbs with that strange absence of emotion at the sight of it. “So it’s back to that, then?” he asks.
“We are in a library,” I remind him gently.
“An empty library.”
“An empty library in my fiancé’s castle.”
Silver’s expression folds into a glower. “Do you have to call him that?”
I slide the book back on the shelf.
Actually, this is good, too. Silver and I need to talk. He needs to understand the situation as well as I do. If he can see it rationally, too, then it will hurt him less in the end.
“I think . . . ,” I say delicately. “It may be time for us to acknowledge that that’s what he is.”
Silver stiffens. His amber eyes rake my face, testing my expression. “What are you saying? You think I don’t know? You think I ever stop thinking about it?”
I cast another glance into the hallway and then pull Silver deeper into the stacks of books, drawing him behind a lofty set of oak shelves where we won’t be immediately visible to anyone walking by.
“What I mean,” I tell him, “is that none of the other realms are supporting us. Heart is in the Grasslands right now, but even if she manages to convince Prime Azele, we still have to contend with the fact that Reltas has the names of thousands of dead in our city. He could wipe us off the map completely. Two realms’ worth of protection may not be enough to keep him from unleashing a large-scale attack. ”
“So what are you saying?” he asks, more forcefully this time.
“I’m saying that you and I have to talk about the possibility that I will need to go through with this.”
There’s a pause, then Silver’s shoulders square. “No.”
“No, I won’t have to go through with it, or no, you don’t want to talk about it?”
“Either. Both.”
“You’re being irrational.”
“And you’re being too rational! Mance, I don’t understand. Yesterday, you said—I mean, you almost said—”
Again, the void within me seems to throb.
I put a hand on his arm. “Yesterday was real. What we shared was . . . I want that.” Even without Heart in me that’s true.
My love for Silver transcends the form I’m in.
We may each feel that love a little differently—Asset as a fierce fondness and respect for a partner, and Poise as a source of comfort, one strong enough to coax her to lower the mask—but we all feel it.
“But feelings are not everything. What I, as an individual, want is not more important than the lives of all my citizens. Surely you understand that?”
He scoffs. “Yeah, I understand it. Just like I understand that scaling a cliff to break into a tyrant’s castle is extremely ill-advised. Just like I understand that taking the throne while your father still lives isn’t how it’s supposed to work. But you and I, Mance, we do impossible things!”
“I’m not saying I’m giving up. I am still trying.
But the wedding is in three days, and I just think we need to be realistic.
About all the feasible outcomes. Just because it’s worked out in the past doesn’t mean it always will.
You can’t live your life thinking that if you want something hard enough it will just happen. ”
“Of course not. You make it happen.”
“Fine, but sometimes making it happen will take sacrifice. We need to come to terms with the fact that this is one that I may have to make.”
“No!” Silver says more forcefully.
I purse my lips. “I am just trying to prepare you. But if even thinking about the possibility is this difficult for you, then you don’t have to be here.”
I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips. I meant that he didn’t have to stay for my planning session. That if the stark realities were too painful for him, then I could work through them on my own. I am used to that.
But Silver seems to take my statement differently, as me telling him that I don’t want him in the realm or by my side at all. A stunned hurt flashes across his face.
And without giving me the chance to clarify, he actually does it.
He spins on his heel and walks out.
So quickly that now I am the one who is stunned.
Because I believe this is the first time he’s walked out on me . . . ever. Even when I came to this realm without him, he was there when I arrived. He’s always there.
Surely, he’s only walking out on the argument. Maybe he interpreted my statement correctly, after all, and is simply giving me space to think things through.
And yet I can’t shake the feeling that the way he just left was something bigger. That it won’t be a mere couple of hours before I see him again.
Inside me, the void of Heart’s absence is aching. I keep bumping up against it, only to find nothing there. I know, logically, that I should be feeling so much more than I am right now.
But throughout the whole argument, my creatures did not stir once.
They are not even stirring now.
So, after a beat, I turn away from the empty doorway and get back to my books.