Chapter Twenty- I Watched You Let Me Die #3
A rock bites into my cheek and I scowl at Thorne as I drag myself to sit next to him.
He’s laughing hysterically and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
Ever seen. His face is made for smiling.
Lines frame his mouth, emphasizing his dimples and perfect teeth.
This beautiful silver haired being has been deprived of life’s simple pleasures, of laughing, of joking.
His hair falls into his eyes, he brushes it out of the way as I shove him.
Neither of our bodies have much resolve, the potion having reduced us to ragdolls.
He topples to the side and hits the ground with a groan.
I don’t know when, but the invisibility spell fell away and I could sense the animals watching us.
I laugh at what I think is a hallucination of a Basket Sprite taking Thorne’s boots.
“You’re glowing purple,” he rolls onto his back and looks up at me.
“Oh good, you’re glowing silver,” I smirk. My head spins and my stomach threatens to flip.
“I wonder if it’s our true soul colors or a result of how we perceive each other,” he muses. Then he gags and throws the crook of his arm over his eyes.
I laugh at him until I realize that potion is having the same effect on me.
I lose the battle and crawl away to vomit in a bush.
I can see why these potions are effective.
I wouldn’t be able to fight off a Paper Sprite in this condition.
My legs refuse to bend, much less hold me upward.
I remain on the ground a few feet from Thorne, who is vomiting in a tree trunk.
I laugh and then throw up again. It’s the most embarrassing moment of my life.
“It’s not funny,” Thorne groans, hanging his head over the tree trunk. He spits.
“It’s a little funny,” I insist. My body feels detached from my nervous system, no longer wishing to take orders from my brain. It tickles. I giggle at a rush of colors overhead. Is it hot out here?
“I’m freezing,” Thorne says through a shiver.
It should be cold, as fall is giving way to winter, but I am burning up. Then I sneeze and a trail of fire shoots from my face, leaving me mortified.
“Fuck!” Thorne howls.
“Shut up!”
My magic is going haywire and I don’t even prefer fire magic. Though, I guess snakes shooting from my face might have been more painful.
Thorne is looking at his hands when I blink and glance over at him. I think my eyelashes are smoking but when I touch them, they’re still there. Blessed Titans.
He murmurs something and shoots a ball of ice from his hand, hitting the tree that still has embers on the bark from my sneeze. The ball falls apart, leaving shards of ice on the ground.
“Father would kill me if he knew,” he whispers. His voice cracks and I crawl over to him, hoping I’m done throwing up.
I want to be close to him, to comfort him, and touch him. I don’t want to want those things, but fighting it seems pointless.
“He’ll die if he tries to lay a hand on you again,” I swear. He turns to me, looking concerned. “And you don’t have to call him your father anymore. Xeusis knows he never was one to you.”
He nods solemnly.
“You will be free of this soon. You will get your full power back and you will right King Dreven’s wrongs. You will have your vengeance,” my voice rasps with emotions when I speak.
He’s looking at me like I just laid a world of possibility at his feet. Maybe I have. Still, I swallow the lump in my throat as guilt swells there. I killed him, and it cost him his mother’s life. One could argue that no one has wronged him more than I.
We fall into comfortable silence, laying on the forest floor next to each other.
He doesn’t know what to say and I won’t push him.
Instead I watch the colors ebb and flow overhead, seeming to outline the branches of the pine and oak trees.
The Moonling and Bloodroot trees are peppered through this forest, offering magnificent color pallets of their own.
The colors moving from them offer a calming sensation.
I’m vaguely aware, somewhere in the back of my mind, that we are vulnerable here.
But we are so deep into the Northwoods, the only thing we should watch for are creatures. Not people.
“I watched you let me die.” Thorne breaks the silence and steals my breath.
“What?” I freeze, my arms folded behind my head. But I don’t dare look at him.
“It felt a lot like this, like I was detached from my body. You were so sad… I didn’t think anybody would be sad if I died,” his voice trails off. This is so fucked. He thought that I, the one who killed them, would be the only one to mourn him.
I don’t apologize; it wouldn’t be enough and he knows that I regret it. So instead I say, “Julien and Julius would. Asterin and Briar would.”
“They would feel sadness passively as they know not who I am. They would not mourn me. They would mourn a Prince of Netherhelm.” His chest rises and falls as he sighs.
“Your absence in this world would be felt,” I insist. Then I drop a hand down between us, an offering, a truce of sorts.
His fingers reach out and tangle with mine, fitting there perfectly. Warmth floods my core and I don’t ever want to not be touching this perfect boy, this beautiful mess of a man. I turn, because I want to say as much. But he’s already falling asleep.