Chapter 20
I cut and slash at the vines, my golden blade slicing through the shadows like butter. Each time the glow of the bond connects with the darkness, a horrible shrieking noise stabs at my eardrums. Rather than tumbling to the ground, the vines shrink back, retreating from the door like rats scurrying from the claws of a cat. They’re quick, squeezing between the cracks around the wood, slithering behind the door frame. I decide to worry about that later and keep cutting until the entire door is free from their clinging darkness.
At last I let my arm drop. I should be out of breath, sweaty and tired from the effort, but I guess mental battles don’t work that way. Instead, the twinge of tiredness lingers in my brain, like I’ve just finished reading a long, complicated passage in a book.
I briefly wonder if Ruskin has any idea what I’m doing—if he can feel any of this. I hope I’m not hurting him, but either way, it’s better I get this over with quickly. I wrap my hands around the handle and yank it open with a surge of hope. Part of me expects all Ruskin’s memories to come tumbling out at once, but instead on the other side I walk straight into…a classroom?
“That’s enough for today,” Maidar says, his leathery hands clapping to get the attention of twelve or so young fae. Maidar’s face is slightly smoother in the memory than it is now, and I search around the room for Ruskin. I feel my attention being drawn behind me, in time to see a young male with chestnut curls lean over to another with a shock of black hair.
“I can’t believe he wants us to translate the whole scroll before the end of the week,” Destan whispers furiously to Ruskin. “I’ll be working every night this week!” Even young Destan is impeccably dressed, a colorful contrast to the black-clad Ruskin beside him. I stare at this version of Ruskin. He looks the human equivalent of about twelve or thirteen, and is leaning in his chair, one hand under his chin, looking shockingly carefree. He quirks an eyebrow at Destan.
“What’s the matter? Big plans with your tailor?”
Destan sticks his tongue out at his friend. “Yes, actually.”
Ruskin grins, and I remember what Destan said about him being less intense in their childhood. It certainly looks like it, and my heart aches a little for the Ruskin who had to put away this playfulness, in favor of secrets and a brutal mask.
But the ache gives way to elation when I realize this means I’ve found the lost memories. I can only imagine that all of Ruskin’s memories from before Interra are still here, locked away by its darkness, trapped here in a buried corner of his mind.
And they’re not free yet. Shadows creep up over the door Maidar left by, the same dark tendrils blocking my access to the next memory.
I lift my blade and get to work. Once again, the shadows shriek and slither away under my slashes, and once again I push through the door, only this time, I find myself in a vast complex of interconnected chambers and archways. I can see flashes of several memories just from here—Ruskin at various ages against different backdrops. I want to view them all…but then I notice how this whole complex, up the columns and across the archways, is wrapped tightly, chokingly in the dark vines of Interra.
My heart sinks at the scale of it. I don’t think I could possibly free them all one by one. Not unless I was to spend a lifetime here.
But surely freeing even a few memories will do a bit of good? Who knows, maybe if I can return just a few key ones to Ruskin, it will be enough for him to retrieve the rest himself.
I wander through a few of the nearest chambers, fascinated by the snippets of Ruskin’s life on show, but I feel guilty too. I know I wouldn’t like every little part of my life played out for him to see, and I’m struck by the huge amount of trust he’s put in me, even if he didn’t know exactly what I’d be seeing.
I just won’t pay too close attention unless the memory feels important , I tell myself.
As I move through the chambers, I think I can judge their significance by how strong a pull I feel towards each of them. In the classroom memory, I felt nothing like the intensity of emotion I’d felt in the memory of Ruskin watching me sleep. If Ruskin’s relationship to the memory is strong, it shows in the way I can pick up on his feelings in that moment.
It takes a little while, but soon I stumble across one such memory, a wave of misery washing over me. I stop by the archway, watching Ruskin, who looks about six years old. He’s seated on a balcony in the palace, his arms wrapped around his knees, and his face is streaked with tears.
“What’s wrong, my child?”
I freeze as Evanthe steps out onto the balcony behind him. She looks her old, regal self, with no sign of the madness of Interra. In fact, as she looks down at Ruskin, she looks almost like a different person to me. There’s a love in her expression I haven’t seen before, reminding me that this Evanthe is a different person—someone I’ve never met. That fact is confirmed when she sits down on the ground beside Ruskin, despite her magnificent gown and the crown on her head, and puts her arm around him, pulling her son close.
“N-nothing,” Ruskin sniffs in answer, and if my heart ached at his expression before in the classroom, I think it breaks a little bit now.
“Come now, you can tell me,” Evanthe says soothingly, running a hand over his hair.
“Nightgale said the Unseelie aren’t real fae, not like the Seelie,” Ruskin says quietly, gazing out at the horizon. “He said that they’re just beasts who killed his uncle.”
Evanthe sighs. It’s a weary sound, and I wonder how difficult it must’ve been to hold a court together in the years after the war, when the bitterness between the Seelie and Unseelie was still so fresh.
“Young Nightgale spoke in anger and grief, I imagine, forgetting who he was talking to.”
“He did it on purpose. He wanted to make me out to be a beast too,” Ruskin says plaintively.
“Maybe he did. I know his words must have hurt, but you must try not to care what others think of you, my dear,” Evanthe says, pulling him closer. “There will be many people in your life who won’t see you clearly, who will say things about you that aren’t fair. They do the same to me all the time.”
“They do?” Ruskin asks, looking up at her with doubt. “But you’re High Queen.”
“All the more reason for them to gossip about me. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is what I think about myself. If I know I can respect the choices I make, and who I am, then I have no reason to pay any mind to what others say.”
As she talks, the feeling I’m receiving from the memory shifts, morphing from sorrow into a mixture of comfort and hope. It’s strong, and I know this moment is important to Ruskin as I watch him absorb his mother’s words. It makes me think about all the times in his future when he will have to lean on this advice—all the difficult decisions he’ll have to make.
I turn my attention to the vines of shadow winding their way around the chamber of this memory. When I cut them back this time the effect is more dramatic. The shadows writhe and snap away from my sword, but the blade glows brighter, banishing not just the vines I’ve cut, but the shadows wrapped around the adjoining chambers too. Just with a few violent swipes, I find I’ve cleared the area of shadows as far as I can see. Triumph surges as I realize my guess was right: if I focus on freeing the more powerful memories, it helps loosen the shadows’ grip on the other memories too.
The realization gives me fresh momentum, as I chase after the retreating vines. Memory after memory flashes past me, until I’m hit with an unexpected wave of excitement. Stopping, I spot my own face again, and recognize the room in Albrecht’s castle where we first met. My voice echoes back at me:
“I found a way to alter base metals into gold. It’s my own special process. No one else knows how to do it. I can make you more.”
The intense excitement flares again. This was the moment Ruskin realized I could be the answer to his problems. I find my attention drawn to my face. I can remember him studying me with interest in this moment, and I’m surprised to see that from this angle my expression looks more determined than frightened. I remember being so terrified…but apparently, I hid it well. There’s something else to Ruskin’s excitement too, a flare of attraction. He liked the look of me right from the beginning.
I cut and slice with my blade, sending the shadows running, and move on. I’m lucky—or maybe Ruskin’s mind is just arranged in a way that puts certain strong memories together—because I find more than a few powerful episodes close by, mostly relating to me: the first time we had sex, the first time I told him I loved him, when I accepted our bond… Each one is more powerful than the last, and slicing at the vines in these chambers has my blade burning bright as the sun, the light driving away the shadows for what seems like miles.
Not all the memories are so sweet, however. The vines have congregated around a group of rooms roiling with darker, more violent emotions. When I step into the first chamber, I feel the violent sting of his anger as I watch him face down Cebba outside her labyrinth. I’ve seen this scene from another perspective, of course, and locate myself crouched by the bridge. I look like I’ve been through hell, streaked with blood and mud, and yet I only have eyes for the fae siblings, exchanging insults as they size each other up.
“You really are a terrible leader, Cebba. How you ever thought you could rule is beyond me.”
Ruskin’s words to Cebba sound so rational, but I can feel how hot his rage burns within his soul at the sight of her.
After that, the shadows take refuge in the darkest, most distant parts of Ruskin’s memories—the ones he buried deep long before he entered Interra. It nearly takes my breath away when I hit up against a wall of anger sharper and more brittle than the others. It slices through me like an icy knife as I focus in on a regal, high-ceilinged corridor I think I recognize. But it’s not from the Seelie palace or Unseelie Court. I frown when I realize it looks like one of the hallways of Albrecht’s castle. Except the man cowering on the ground in front of Ruskin, wearing a crown, definitely isn’t Albrecht.
“What have you done?” the man sobs. I can see clearly the whites of his eyes as they swivel wildly around the corridor, demented with fear. One of his arms is bandaged at the wrist, a clean white stump where his hand should be, and I notice the front of his robes—odd, old-fashioned looking things—are soaked in blood, though it doesn’t seem to be from any injury of his.
“What I promised,” Ruskin replies. His voice is frighteningly lifeless, devoid of anything like humanity. It’s obvious this cannot just be about some deal he struck with the human. The biting coldness of his demeanor suggests something far more sinister, and a creeping feeling nags at me as I wonder what crime this man has committed.
“Y-you killed them all,” the man stutters, as if he can’t believe his own words. His face twists in horror and disgust. “You’re a monster…a demon from hell.”
“ I’m the monster? Is that what you told yourself as you drove iron into my mother’s body? When you used her offer of friendship as an opening to capture and torture her? Did you justify it to yourself by saying that we fae are nothing but beasts—demons? Was that what helped you sleep at night after hours tormenting her however you wished?”
The chill of Ruskin’s words settles into my chest. I understand what I’m seeing now. This is the human king who attacked Evanthe. This is his punishment playing out.
Ruskin grabs the king by the scruff of his neck and drags him down the corridor, approaching what I now see are the doors to the throne room. He pushes them open with one hand, and even though I know no one can hear me, I clamp a hand over my mouth to stop the cry that forms at what I see there.
The throne room is painted crimson. Bodies line the room, figures slumped against the stone floor, sodden with the blood that splashes across the ground as Ruskin’s steps ring through the chamber. He throws the king down and the man releases a moan of such deep agony I think for a moment he’s been stabbed. But no, he’s simply staring at the corpses around him, the ones whose blood he’s already wearing.
“You will not flee the consequences of your actions,” Ruskin intones. “You will face them now, knowing neither you, nor anyone of your kin or court, will ever hurt a fae again.”
I always knew there were brutal parts to Ruskin’s past. I knew that, spurred on by revenge, he silenced the king’s court to prevent the secret of cold iron getting out. But seeing it is different.
“Please, have mercy,” the king weeps.
“This is the mercy of the fae. We do not deal in human notions of justice. You should be grateful that I have ended your line here, rather than cursed your offspring for centuries to come. Rejoice that their deaths were quick,” Ruskin says as he gestures to the bodies around them. “It was more kindness than you afforded my kin.
“Do you beg for death?” he says to the king, sounding like a judge asking him how he pleads. The king takes in the slaughter surrounding him, his face already as pale as a cadaver.
“I do.”
“Then have it.”
Ruskin raises his claws, preparing to strike.
I don’t watch the rest, turning away from the memory and trying to block out the sound of it as I raise my own arms and begin cutting at the vines. Each slash is therapeutic, allowing me to lose myself in the rhythm of my work, rather than focus on the violence playing out behind me. My attack is effective. Perhaps the sword doesn’t glow quite so brightly this time, but the vines still flee from me across the chambers of memory. I discover as I stride through the archways that most of the rooms are free of shadows now, and I thank the stars, because I can feel myself beginning to tire. This ordeal is draining me of emotional and mental strength. There’s an ache behind my eyes and in my heart. I tell myself it will all be worth it, if I can just finish my job here and see Ruskin’s eyes light up with full recognition once more when he looks at me.
The seemingly endless rows of interconnected chambers dwindle until I’m walking down a single, long corridor without diversions or offshoots. I’m reaching the end of Ruskin’s memory, I can feel it, but darkness waits for me up ahead—a gnarled mass of shadows thicker than the rest. This is where they’ve been fleeing to, their last refuge within Ruskin’s mind—and, I suspect, their source. Behind the forest of vines, I’m sure I’ll find Ruskin’s memories of Interra.
I look at the blade, willing it to be strong and sharp for me now. If it’s powered by the bond, then I figure I can help it along, and I close my eyes, concentrating. I try to pour all my love for Ruskin, all my desire to help him, into the sword. It vibrates in my hands, and I can see its light through my eyelids even before I open them again. When I do, it’s almost too bright to look at, so instead I focus on the knotted vines in front of me. Letting my muscles work on instinct, I hack back the shadows. The vines fight harder this time, jerking violently when I slice them, and even lashing out at me, but I’m quick, cutting them off at the root, until the last of them are slithering beyond the archway I’ve revealed, into the gray light I recognize as belonging to Interra.
I chase them down, my feet thudding along the pathway, past the ghostly shapes of the space between realms.
You won’t get away from me , I think viciously.
I have to make sure there’s no trace of them left, freeing Ruskin from Interra’s insidious magic once and for all.
I don’t have to go far to find the core of this memory. As I crest a hill, I see Evanthe and Ruskin locked in the same fight I saw the beginning of on the banks of Irnua. Being taken through the portal didn’t stall them much. I watch as Evanthe furiously conjures a curse which Ruskin blocks with his sword.
The vines of shadow are rushing towards them, attracted to Evanthe’s power, but aiming for Ruskin too. This must have been how Interra’s magic struck them both, infecting Ruskin, blocking off his memories, even as it latched onto the dark magic within Evanthe. Naturally, I focus on the vines crawling towards Ruskin.
The pair fight on, unable to change their fate, playing out the past as I try to change Ruskin’s future. I’m not afraid of hurting him as I cut at the shadows swirling round his feet, the echo of him simply passes straight through me like a ghost. The shadows try to escape me, burrowing against the ground and hissing like snakes.
I release a cry of anger as I stab at the final shreds of them. It comes from somewhere deep within me, a place that wants revenge for what Interra has done to all of us—Ruskin, me, even Evanthe, who is stronger and crueler because of this place’s cursed power.
As I make the noise, my blade puts out a final burst of light, burning straight through the last of the shadows and illuminating the entire scene in a single powerful surge. I see Ruskin, still fighting, but free of shadow, glowing as if lit from within. Then I look to Evanthe, and as the light hits her, the memory reveals something I couldn’t see before.
Evanthe’s heart isn’t just filled with dark magic. Something else is lodged there, and it has been for a long time.
Before I can get a closer look, she and Ruskin vanish from view. The light of my sword fades, the scene returning to the eerie pallor of Interra’s sunless plain. Tiredness suddenly overwhelms me, swelling in my mind and pressing against my brain. The fight is won, I’m sure of it, and I don’t resist the exhaustion that beckons me, tugging me away from Ruskin’s mind, drawing me back towards the real world.
Maidar’s chanting is audible in my ears once more, though his voice sounds hoarser than before. The darkness swallows up my vision for another moment or two, then it shrinks, fading around me. When I blink, I’m back to staring into the black pupils of my naminai as he sits across from me in our bedroom.
And he’s smiling at me in a way I haven’t seen for weeks—the smug, knowing look I’ve become so used to.
Ruskin. My Ruskin.
My heart thuds, and I still don’t dare to assume, as Maidar’s chanting grinds to a halt. He coughs, clearing his throat after casting for so long, and then asks the question running through my own mind.
“Well? Did it work?”
Ruskin reaches his hand out to me so he can pull me up onto my feet. His yellow-green eyes don’t leave my face, and his smile stays firmly in place, as he says the two words I’ve been through hell to hear:
“I remember.”