Chapter 21
Aprickling sensation rushed down Jenyfer’s spine as Ordes spoke. She hated those words. She hated hearing them. Hated thinking about what they could mean. She turned away from Ordes, her eyes moving around the room. A bottle and two glasses waited on the dresser. She poured them both a drink.
‘I swear someone has cut the rum on this ship. Can you do something about that?’ Her voice shook nearly as much as her hands, so she busied herself by rearranging things on the dresser – the hairbrush she rarely used, an empty plate, a fork – all the while wishing she’d never asked, wishing she’d left it alone, ignored the burning and pinching of her heart because now…
‘Jen, stop.’
Ordes’ voice was low and hurting.
‘Look at me, please.’
She swallowed, mouth dry. She turned slowly. Ordes ran his uninjured hand over his face. He reached for her, his hands closing around hers gently. His thumb traced her palm, the warmth of his skin sliding inside her, as it always did.
‘My father has finally explained those lines to me,’ he said quietly. ‘I was born to carry the weight of not the Treasures, but the magic of the Grail itself.’
‘What does that mean?’ Jenyfer asked. The prickles working their way along her spine became knives.
‘Merlin and Niniane made me for this purpose,’ Ordes replied.
‘Ordes, you’re scaring me.’ She tried to pull her hands free, to get away from this conversation, but Ordes held her firm. She could feel the words he had not said battering at her brain and her song began to scream at her. The heartfire hurt and she wanted to rub at her chest.
He took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to die.’
She wanted to laugh, to remind him that everyone was going to die eventually, but the laugh wedged in her throat and threatened to choke her.
She shook her head, her blood slowly freezing while the heartfire burnt a hole through her.
She wrenched her hands free, squeezing them together, hard enough that she felt a knuckle crack.
‘Jenyfer,’ Ordes whispered, his fingers curling around her cheeks. ‘I am a conduit for the magic of the Grail, for the magic we will use to remake this world. I was born of magic, and it will be magic that kills me. That is my reason for being.’
‘No,’ she said automatically. ‘No.’
‘Jenyfer, this is my fate and I don’t think I can avoid it.’
Fire raced through her as her world was ripped away.
The world she had built for herself, for the first time in her life, a world that was hers, that had been shaped by her choices…
it was shattering. She tried desperately to hold onto it, to gather all those pieces and put them back together, but they slipped through her fingers to crash at her feet.
A horrible sound she didn’t recognise, grief-stricken and raw, tore her throat to shreds. Ordes closed his arms around her as she sank to the floor, the ocean stroking the hull of the ship, her song shocked into silence.
Rage filled her, so deep and dark Jenyfer could taste it on her tongue, thick and bitter, twisting her insides as her song responded, wailing and crooning in sorrow and she burnt and burnt.
The tears on her cheek were tiny liquid fires.
Ordes held her against his chest. He was on his knees, her face cradled in the curve of his neck.
She couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.
‘Jen,’ he whispered. ‘Oh Jen, I’m so sorry.’
Her fingers were claws in his shirt, frozen there, like the rest of her.
She was only half aware of the warm weight of his hand on the back of her head, of the firmness of his body.
Ordes kissed her forehead, her face, drinking those tears away, but they kept coming, and she couldn’t breathe through her sobs, through the shuddering of her body and the horrible snapping of her heart.
The heartfire turned her insides to dust and ash.
The flux of fate, that damned thing, curled around them without their consent.
Jenyfer hated it so much at times she could barely stop herself from screaming or from flinging herself into the sea.
Yet, even if she did, she would end up back here, pulled back to Ordes like she was the tide and he the moon.
Drawn together by something bigger than they were.
Now he was telling her fate, the thing that had brought them together, was about to tear them apart?
‘If there is a way back to you, I’ll find it,’ Ordes promised, resting his forehead against hers. He scooped her into his lap. She folded her legs around his middle, wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as tight as she could.
‘The universe didn’t give you to me only to take you away,’ Ordes breathed into her hair. ‘I’ll find you again, somehow.’
Jenyfer broke into a million pieces.
‘Bully that skeletal bastard into letting you see me, okay?’ Ordes whispered.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she sobbed against his shoulder.
‘I didn’t know how,’ he murmured. ‘You have to believe I wouldn’t lie to you again—’
She pulled back, staring at him through her tears.
‘I wanted to protect you from this for as long as I could,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t want you to have to carry this. I didn’t want you to have to look at me like you are now and know what is coming for us.’
Jenyfer ran shaking fingers down his face, over his features, slow, gentle.
‘I don’t know for sure what will happen but it’s a possibility,’ Ordes said, resting his forehead against hers. ‘The prophecy—’
‘Fuck the prophecy and fuck the Grail,’ she snarled, finally giving way to the anger that surged through her. She was dimly aware of the ocean surging around the ship, of the wind whipping the sails. ‘Your father, the Old Ones – all of it, Ordes! What if we refused to do it?’
His smile was sad. ‘Is my life worth more than the world?’
‘Yes,’ she hissed, refusing to let anger fade into sorrow.
She clung to the burning in her blood, to the flames that raced through her.
She had spent her life fighting, in one way or another.
She would fight this, no matter what it took.
No matter what it cost her. ‘What will be the point of a world without you in it? What will be the point of it for me? This world can burn until there is nothing left as far as I care.’
‘Jen, you don’t mean that.’
‘I’ll tear this fucking place to pieces,’ she seethed.
Her song swam through her and she was more aware than ever of the dark power of her voice, of the syhren magic that lay at the heart of her.
Waves battered the hull – The Excalibur rocked dangerously, the cries of the crew floating down to them as the Singing Stone thrummed against her chest. ‘I will not lose you!’
Ordes eyes rushed over her face, dark and filled with pain.
‘I won’t lose you,’ she repeated, and kissed him, pulling him as close as she could.
A fresh wave of tears rolled down her cheeks.
The air shifted as those glorious wings surrounded them.
Feathers brushed against her, so light, so soft.
Gentle. They were cupped around her, holding her as Ordes’ arms did, and they remained there, on their knees, crushed to the floor by the weight of the truth.