Chapter 33
Alaric
Back in the woods, I curse myself for every time I told her she was walking too loudly. Every moment she spent watching me move through the woods, obviously paying more attention than I gave her credit for. How has she disappeared so thoroughly?
I’m anxious, mind running over where she might have gone and who might have seen her. If the queen gets even a hint that the princess isn’t dead, she will have me in her chamber spilling all my secrets and ruining everything in a moment.
I’m unsettled. At first it seems mere nerves over what is at stake, then I realize there’s more to it. A thick fog of magic that leaves my senses overwrought. Melantha? It’s been a long time since she tried a spell so powerful, unhappy with the drain of vitality it caused.
The aura is not right for the queen. This magic is no mere deception. This is something darker. Something dead.
Well at least now I’ve worked out where the princess is.
All I need do to find her is trace the source of the dark magic.
There could be nothing else powerful enough in the area to cast such a magic.
The very air throbs with it like a hundred dead and wizened hearts beating at once with a dry crackle.
Wheeling Tharrok around, I head back toward the walls of Thornvale, keeping to the trees as long as possible, taking a route that will hopefully mean I encounter no peasant or hunter. The watch I set will be out any time, and I must avoid them seeing me returning toward the town.
Luckily, I don’t have to travel very much further before I find her.
Tharrok nearly tramples her crumpled body as we hurry through the undergrowth, avoiding the worn path, crashing through thickets of brambles and holly.
It is only because the first spring buds have yet to form on branches that she’s visible at all, collapsed beneath a large tree.
At least she should not have been spotted.
I think at first she’s hiding, but she makes no move to dodge my horse’s hooves, and when I jump from the saddle and bend to check she doesn’t stir. She’s cold and still, which tells me nothing. There’s no heartbeat to search for. I don’t waste my time.
I check her chest though, just to see if somehow the heart has been stolen from where I placed it, but the flesh is whole, only the light tracing of the last scar she’ll ever receive there to indicate.
I shake her gently. “Princess?”
There’s no response. Her eyelids flutter, though, and her lips move for a fraction of a second.
It is enough. A sign she’s in there, even if she won’t respond. The heavy magic still hangs around us and though I sense it, there’s nothing I can do to break the spell. It’s as if she’s clinging to the thread of power, and in doing so, she’s slipped out of consciousness.
We can’t be found here and I can’t take her into Thornvale like this, even if I wanted to. With her heart still inside her body, she’s vulnerable in a way that I am not. There’s nothing for it but to lift her and sling her over Tharrok’s back once again, moving deeper into the woods.
I look over my shoulder constantly, but we’re not followed. The thick web of magic clings to her, stretching to extend further and further, until I fear it will never break.
I shake her, call her name as loudly as I dare.
Nothing.
She won’t respond.
It’s not my voice she wants, though, is it?
Pulling the stone heart pendant from beneath her chemise I clutch it in my hand.
I would love to tear it from her neck and toss it into the shrub, but it would be futile.
She’ll never be soft with me the way she is with them.
What we have borders on hatred. There’s nothing tender about it.
If anyone can wake her now, it’s her gargoyles.
That sits in my belly like sour wine, but I need her awake.
I need her returned to me. So in some twisted parody of our previous journey I steer Tharrok away from Thornvale and on toward the castle ruins.
Last time I cursed her stubbornness. I resented the way she fought me at every turn.
This time I wish she would scream or fight me.
She would hate being slung over the saddle like a piece of meat, so I lift her in my arms and tuck her against my chest, loosening the strap she uses to fasten her sword hilt across her back to slip over my head and keep her steady. Her head lolls against my shoulder as Tharrok walks on.
“What did you do?” I whisper, frustrated, but there’s no answer.
We were so close to a plan. Closer than I’ve been in many years to a solution. I guarantee this is something she brought on herself because she wouldn’t just wait in the place I told her to.
I don’t know what I’m more frustrated at—the fact I’m about to lose my chance to end my suffering or the fact I might have already lost her.
The stubborn princess woke things in me I thought were long dead. Buried.
Not just sexual desire, though gods know she rouses that in me. She rouses anger, jealousy, and worst of all, hope. Hope that I’m going to have to relearn how to live without if I can’t recover her.
Why won’t the magic recede? What has she done?
Tentatively, I close my eyes, trusting Tharrok to warn me if anything approaches.
I reach for her the way I would reach for a lifeless vessel, not certain if it will work.
I expect to meet resistance. After all, this vessel still houses a spirit.
What I find instead is a body almost empty, as if her essence has been poured out—spun into fine thread and drawn out to cover too great a distance.
Curious, I follow the thread. In this state I can see it trailing out behind us like it has been woven from silver, all the way back through the woods to Thornvale.
Her thread trails over the high walls too frail to be weighed down.
It wafts over the walls and unravels into hundreds of tiny strands.
They’re too thin to see unless I turn my head and the light catches one a certain way.
My spirit floats above the walls as I stare at the web of strands stretching out across the town.
Then I see them.
A cat with its head bent at a strange angle; a half-eaten sparrow trailing a skeletal wing along the ground behind it; a goat with its entire skull exposed, rotting where it limps around in circles.
They move aimlessly, drifting here and there, but none of them should be moving at all.
None of them could stir a single muscle on their own, because they’re all dead.
Vision shattered, I blink open my eyes and stare at the woman in my arms. How many has she taken?
It is too many even for someone who has practiced as many times as I have, and she has projected perhaps two or three times. She should have picked a single vessel, not dozens, not hundreds. How will she possibly gather herself together to find her way back to the body she belongs to?
“You have to let them go.” I shake her again, but it does nothing. I don’t know how much longer she can last without flying away in the breeze.
Frightened, I spur Tharrok into a canter, ducking low over his back and holding the princess against my chest. The sooner we make it to the castle ruins the better. This cannot wait.
She must wake now.
Tharrok tires long before I can accept that he has, but eventually I ease him into a walk. He’s breathing hard, sweating from the work I’ve put him through, and we’re still miles off from the castle. Poor beast. He’s carrying both of us.
I carefully slide from the saddle, pulling Guin into my arms and whistling for him to follow.
Then I break into a jog, holding the princess as carefully as I can.
The threads stretch thinner with every step I take, but I can’t think about that.
Hesitating will only cost me time—cost her time she does not have. I must take the risk to save her.
I can make out the crumbling walls in the distance by the time I hear the soft whomp of wing beats overhead. A moment later, the tall angelic gargoyle lands in front of me, a grim look on his face.
I ignore it. All that matters is what must be done. “Quick, there’s not much time. Get the others.”
His frown deepens. His hand is on his weapon. “What have you done?”
I would scoff at the threat, but I’m too focused on the princess. “You mean what has she done? She has taken on more than she could handle. Be quick, I said. Get the others. This cannot wait.”
He opens his mouth then closes it again, looking back over his shoulder.
“I’ll get them.” He opens his wings wide and leaps into the sky again, speeding back toward the castle.
I continue on, ignoring the anxious knot in my belly.
I’d pray everything would be alright, but I’ve long since given up on prayers that fall on deaf ears.
The gods have left us to fend for ourselves.
When I see three figures flying back a few minutes later, I let out my first sigh of relief. Regardless of how suspicious of me they are, or how much explaining I have to do, they’ve come. Right now that’s all that matters.
The dark-haired sphynx lands heavily in front of me and pushes my shoulder roughly. “What did you do?”
It’s lucky I have a good hold on the princess. I glare at him. “You can interrogate me later. Right now she needs you. All of you.”
The fair-haired sphynx pushes his twin aside and steps close to place a tender hand on her forehead. “What should we do? What does she need?”
Finally, a creature who knows how to take direction. “You must call her back to herself. She will not answer me. Her spirit may have traveled too far from her body, been split into too many strands, but you have to try.”
His attention turns immediately to the princess again, and he cups her face in his hands, bending close. “Princess, can you hear me?”
She’s stiff and unresponsive in my arms.