Chapter 28 Jude
Jude
Bethan clicked the lock before turning to face him.
All traces of her smiles and laughter from dinner were gone, replaced by the same frantic energy she’d worn when she’d arrived fresh from the storm.
Deep grooves were carved beneath her eyes, her normally warm brown skin sallow.
Jude recognized that look. He hadn’t seen it very often, but when he had…
‘Bethan?’ he asked. Trepidation dropped a weight into his stomach. ‘Have you had a dream?’
Bethan was a saint, but she hadn’t been raised in the Abbey. In fact, Jude was certain the elders had no idea of her existence. Away from their limestone halls, she’d been able to grow her abilities in ways Jude could only dream of.
Bethan saw her magic not as something to be stolen, but as a gift to be used carefully and thoughtfully. A concept Jude had guarded like a ticking time bomb, to be considered only when he was strong enough to absorb its impact.
A gift. Not a burden.
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever reach that level of acceptance with himself.
Bethan’s mother had fled the Abbey when she’d fallen pregnant, taking the Abbey’s secrets with her.
According to Bethan, her world had turned into spun gold at a very young age.
The manifestation of her abilities outside of the Abbey was a remarkably rare, maybe even singular, occurrence.
And perhaps more importantly, her mother had recognized Bethan’s talents for what they were – recognized, and chosen to hide them from the Abbey.
She knew what title would be placed around Bethan’s shoulders and what she would have to sacrifice to bear it.
Bethan had learned to contain her magic within dreams like Jude did with his books, manifesting them in a way that could be useful to herself and others.
He often wondered if he ever would be able to harness his magic as Bethan did.
She was comfortable with her abilities in a way he wasn’t.
Greeted it like a friend, where Jude saw only an enemy.
Usually, Bethan’s dreams were her own memories, or someone else’s she was focusing on, but occasionally, they were of the future. And sometimes, rarely… her dreams included Jude.
‘What have you dreamed?’ Jude repeated when she didn’t reply. ‘Tell me.’
Bethan’s throat bobbed. ‘Cutting straight to it, then?’
‘We just spent almost three hours at dinner,’ he replied, barely resisting tapping his foot with nerves.
She sighed in response, lowering herself onto the corner of his bed.
He tried not to let his discomfort show on his face.
They always used his bedroom whenever she came with a dream to share.
He often finished their sessions with a sense of vulnerability he felt was best kept contained somewhere comfortable.
But he didn’t like people in his space. Ever.
You’d let Maeve in here. Gladly, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Elden whispered.
Jude ignored it.
The thought of Maeve, however… he couldn’t ignore.
She’d been off over dinner. Withdrawn, almost angry. Had he done something? Said something by accident? It wouldn’t be the first time his brusqueness had come off as uncaring. Jude drummed his fingers on his thighs. ‘Bethan. Tell me what you saw.’
She looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed and damp with tears. ‘Siobhan. She’s dead.’
Jude stilled. ‘What?’
‘Her body was left in the middle of Oakmoor. By the shrine. She’d been strangled. And… and—The tattoo on her chest.’ Bethan’s eyes slammed shut. ‘Her saint tattoo. It had been burned. I didn’t even recognize what it was at first.’
‘Fuck. Fuck.’ Jude scrubbed his hands over his face. He thought of the saint’s frail wrists, her bright blue eyes. Nausea rushed up his throat. ‘Were you the one to find her?’
‘Mum was. We buried her together.’ A flash of confusion crossed Bethan’s face. ‘Elden was there, too, when we buried her. He helped. Did he not tell you?’
‘Elden?’ Jude crossed the room, turned, and strode back to the other side, fingers laced behind his head. ‘No… no, he didn’t say. You found her this morning?’
Bethan nodded.
Why wouldn’t Elden have said something? He’d been gone all morning, true, and had returned the same time Bethan arrived. Maybe he hadn’t a chance… but no, that wasn’t right. Dinner was already prepared when they went downstairs. Elden had been home for a while.
For whatever reason, he’d chosen not to say anything.
‘Jude.’ Bethan’s voice drew his attention back. ‘She wasn’t hurting anyone. She was just trying to scrape together what remained of her life. And the Abbey killed her.’
Words weren’t strong enough to convey the horror rolling through his chest.
‘Why?’ Jude managed. ‘Why would they—’ he trailed off, digging his fingers between his brows. The pain was indescribable. ‘They’ve martyred her. It was meant as a statement. Both killing her and burning off her tattoo.’
‘I asked around to see if anyone saw anything, but no one knew,’ Bethan continued, voice rising in pitch. ‘No one even knew who she was, Jude. They didn’t remember.’
‘They were made to forget,’ he corrected. Was it possible the same had happened to Elden? ‘It wasn’t enough for the Abbey to take her life. They needed to erase any part of her that still remained.’
He pulled sharply back, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes.
His fault.
‘I shouldn’t have taken Maeve to see her,’ Jude groaned.
‘The Abbey must have learned we were digging into her life. That we know about the Goddenwood, and that I told Maeve about their memory tampering. They martyred her so we would – so we would know that they knew. To remind us that they’re watching. ’
They never should’ve created her icon, even if Maeve had burned it after using it. Had that tipped the Abbey off, too? Did they know Maeve had finished painting his icon?
He tipped his head towards the ceiling. What had they done?
Bethan rose from the bed and walked towards the window. Rain slapped the glass in an endless staccato, the wind whistling through the gaps. She placed her palm on the pane and her forehead beside it. Her fingers trembled visibly. ‘A warning,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what I dreamed.’
He crossed the room to take a small mirror off the wall. He laid it flat on his desk. ‘Show me.’
She sat at the desk and placed her hands on either side of the wooden frame. Leaned close enough for her breath to fog the surface. And then, slowly, like snow leaving the heavens above, gold dust materialized in the air. It floated around them in a glowing miasma, settling atop the mirror.
‘Here.’ She pushed it towards him. ‘The first dream. The one I asked it to show me.’
Jude brushed the gold away with his fingertips. For a lingering second, it showed only blackness.
Then, the scene changed. A wall leapt into existence, worn stone peppered with frames in varying sizes. He recognized it, in a distant, far-off kind of way, as the Abbey. The wall of icons. In Bethan’s dream, the canvases were painted black – no saints to be seen.
He’d seen this scene before, hadn’t he? With kerosene in his nose and heat on his skin.
Suddenly, burning light leapt from the corner, threading its way across the icons like a rope of gold-tinged starlight.
It swirled into each frame faster than he could follow, eating away the interior of the canvases until they were empty, showing the stone wall behind them.
Vivid blue stained his retinas in its wake.
Pressure built inside him with each jump of light.
An urge to move – to run, to reach, to do something—
And then, a pulsing scream. A fevered, desperate cry that shot from one ear to the next. Jude lurched back just as it faded, his hands clasped over his ears. ‘What—’
Bethan stood over him like a spectral figure. Her hands clamped down on his wrists, holding them to the table. ‘Don’t look away. Not yet.’
He forced his gaze back to the mirror.
Only a strange, gauzy layer of gold-tinged white remained of the dream. A cloying hum filled the air. A prickle at the back of his neck. He leaned closer.
The mirror showed nothing. Nothing.
Yet—
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t look away. The fog was endless. Impenetrable.
Magic, was it magic? It had to be. Air felt funny in his lungs, like it didn’t belong in the place it was designed to be.
Awareness slid down his spine so suddenly that Jude jerked back, looking over his shoulder.
He half expected to see a face there. See him.
Feel his mentor’s hand in his hair, pulling out the strands.
A weight on his shoulders, forcing him down.
Yelling, whispering, demanding he be better, be anything but what he was designed to be, a saint, an exile, a martyr, the only thing he could ever—
‘Jude. Jude!’
He gasped, eyes flying open as a splash of water hit his face, clinging to his eyelashes, his lips. Bethan stood across from him, the glass from his bedside table in her hands and fear in her eyes.
‘What was that? Are you okay?’ She grabbed a blanket off the foot of his bed and gave it to him. Jude wiped his face and tried to remember how to breathe. ‘I’m sorry about the water. I didn’t know how else to bring you out of it.’
His heart thundered like he’d been running for hours. ‘It was fog. Only ever fog.’
Her eyebrows drew together. ‘Fog? That’s not what I saw.’
‘What did you see?’ He leaned forward. He needed her answer like he’d never needed anything before. ‘Please – what did you see, Bethan? What did you dream?’
‘I dreamed a man,’ she said. ‘Well, the back of his head.’
‘Who was he?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t recognize him. He had light hair and was wearing robes, maybe? They were dark brown, some sort of linen. And I saw…’ She trailed off, pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘A chain? I think. Something around his neck. Just a hint of it above his collar.’