Chapter 7 #2
I pulled a chair up to his bedside, forcing myself to sit calmly in it despite the anxiety raging through my insides. “…Do you actually remember what we’ve been through?”
“You might have to fill me in on the finer details.” He still didn’t look at me as he spoke. “And feel free to skip over the more gruesome parts.”
“That would leave little story to tell.”
“Yes.” He stretched, wincing as he did. “I was afraid of that.”
The sound of a metal cup hitting the ground startled me; the nurse at the end of the bed picked it up only to nearly drop it again.
“Leave us,” I commanded.
She looked only too happy to do so, curtsying before joining the two maids now hovering by the door.
Those two grabbed for her as if snatching her from the depths of hell itself.
With one last distressed look in our direction, they hurried away, the sound of their whispering voices echoing long after they were out of sight.
“Skittish things, aren’t they?” Zayn commented.
“In their defense, they’ve just witnessed a man essentially come back from the dead. A man who was recently possessed by a horrible demon, at that.”
“And yet, you don’t seem fazed by it.”
I shrugged. “I’ve never feared death. It comes more naturally to me than life.”
“That much I do seem to recall.”
“What else do you recall, though?”
He was silent for a long time.
“Zayn?”
He sat up more fully, wincing again even with his slow, gentle movements. But whatever pain he was in, he pushed through it, remaining upright. “I do have one very clear memory. One that’s played over and over while I’ve tried to sleep.”
I waited patiently, despite wanting to grab him and shake him until all the answers I was desperate for fell out.
“A vision…” he began slowly, squinting in thought, “of a crumbling palace. And a bridge leading away from it. Swords…two swords in a door. That’s all clear enough, but then it gets very loud, very chaotic, and there’s pain.
You’re there, sometimes. A shadow in the corner of my vision.
Aleks, too—a brighter force directly in front of me.
Then I see a knife plunging into his chest, and he disappears.
I never get a clear image of it, but several times I’ve woken up with a strange weight in my hands, as though I was the one holding the blade. ”
I clenched the cushion beneath me, steadying myself.
“Maybe just a nightmare, though,” he said, almost hopefully.
“No.” I swallowed hard. “That is… What you’ve described is what happened in Midna, in a way. You didn’t stab anyone, though. It wasn’t really a knife, and it wasn’t your fault. But Aleks…”
He tilted his face toward me.
I couldn’t bring myself to finish my sentence.
He closed his eyes. A heavy moment passed. Then he said, “He’s gone.”
Not a question—a pained acknowledgment.
“He’s still alive,” I whispered. “But he’s…”
“Taken?”
I bowed my head, hiding my face until I managed to blink the tears away. “We thought we had Lorien contained within Luminor, after driving him out of you. But the blade shattered. Shards of it nearly impaled me, and if Aleks hadn’t stepped between us…”
Zayn exhaled a long, shaky breath. “That does sound like something that idiot would do.”
I almost laughed despite the bitter weight in my chest—mostly out of relief, because the words were so typical of something I would have expected from the Zayn I’d gotten to know.
The one I still wanted to believe I knew.
Maybe some of our conversations, some of our interactions, had somehow been genuine and untainted by Lorien’s hold.
But how to tell the difference?
How could we possibly know what of our relationship was real and worth keeping?
As if he could tell my thoughts had crashed in, circling around Lorien, Zayn suddenly asked, “He was here, wasn’t he?”
An explanation struck me. “Did you sense him? Is that why you woke up?”
He angled his face toward the window. “I felt…something. An itch beneath my skin. An ache in my bones, like from something broken long ago. And…yes. I think that’s why I woke up.”
“Your connection to him could be the key to getting Aleks back—and to countless other things.” I tried to sound calm.
Regal. A queen interrogating a witness for answers, rather than a confused little girl trying to make sense of her trauma.
“I need you to tell me everything you know about Lorien’s true nature. ”
He averted his eyes again, a sudden darkness falling over his face.
“Zayn. Please.”
He shook his head. “Trying to slip back into his mind…it’s like sinking willingly back down into the water after only just managing not to drown in it.”
“I know it can’t be easy. None of this is easy. But I—”
“You should leave.” It sounded like a plea. One so tired and so heartbreakingly desperate I couldn’t make myself argue with it.
Slowly, I stood up. The room seemed to expand, the door sliding away from me. Everything I needed to reach felt so damn far away from me. I didn’t want to leave, yet I was afraid if I pushed Zayn too hard, I might lose him entirely—again.
I would send more nurses to tend to him, now that he was awake. His strength would return, and then we would be able to talk more. I had to believe that.
I would believe that.
I was halfway to the door when I heard: “I’m sorry.”
I stopped short of asking for what?
There were so many things we both could have been sorry for. None of them were truly his fault. Maybe I should have told him that, but I couldn’t seem to speak.
The apology hovered shakily between us.
I nearly kept walking away—until I finally managed to clear my throat, and a question slipped out. “Can I ask you something?”
No reply.
“About Aleks, not Lorien.”
He turned his face toward me.
The image of Aleksander’s eyes meeting mine in that brief, desperate moment in my office spurred me onward. I closed the space between Zayn and me before I even realized what I was doing.
He didn’t look away, so I kept talking. “I just need to know that he’s still whole, somewhere within that monster’s hold. I…I need to know that he can come back to me.”
Zayn closed his eyes for such a long moment, I thought he might be going back to sleep.
But then he opened them and said, “I don’t know how whole I am now.
I don’t know what I’m returning to, really.
But I haven’t forgotten everything from when my body was not entirely my own.
And we were the same cousins we’d always been, as far as Aleks knew.
He told me things he wouldn’t have told Lorien, obviously—maybe things he didn’t have a chance to tell you, even. And…”
I was holding my breath, I realized.
I loosed it, gripping the bedpost as I started to feel lightheaded. “...And?”
“And I know that he’ll fight to get back to you, no matter what it takes.”
The knife was the last thing I had to pack.
It was Aleksander’s—a beautiful white blade with sapphires inlaid in its handle—and one of several things he’d left behind in his room on the last fateful day we’d had together.
I hadn’t disturbed much in that room since that day.
Partly because I could barely bring myself to go inside it, but also because I wanted him to return and find it all waiting for him exactly as he’d left it.
Maybe it was foolish to think I could bring him back as if nothing had happened.
But I was still going to try.
“Are we preparing for something I should know about?” came Thalia’s sudden voice, making me jump.
I quickly tucked the knife into the inner pocket of my satchel and turned to face her.
Thalia looked between the bag and me, her lips pursing. “I get the feeling I’ve stumbled upon a secret.”
“You startled me, is all. You didn’t knock.”
“The door was open.”
“…I must have been too distracted to close it,” I said, more to myself than her.
“You’re planning something,” she accused.
“So? I’m the destined Queen of Rivenholt. My days are filled with making plans.”
“Yes, but you have that look in your eyes that tells me this isn’t a plan you’ve cleared with your advisors. Or with anyone who cares about you.”
“It’s very sweet that you’re finally admitting you care about me.”
She scowled.
I moved on to adjusting the baldric strapped across my chest.
“This has to do with Lorien, I assume?”
Rather than answering her, I took Grimnor from where it lay in its ceremonial casing on my dresser, and I situated it at my hip.
The legendary Sword of Shadow hummed as it settled against me, the subtle pulse of its magic falling into rhythm with my heartbeat.
Faint shadows skipped across my skin as if excited by the sword’s presence.
I briefly took hold of Grimnor’s handle, guiding those swirls of darkness into its blade, letting them become one with each other.
I hadn’t wielded this sword since the battle at Midna, save for a few brief practice sessions. I hoped I wouldn’t need to wield it tonight.
I would be prepared, either way.
Thalia stared at it, her expression tight. “Explain yourself.”
As often as she’d stood by my side here lately, I owed her as much, I decided.
With a sigh, I took the knife I’d just hidden from my bag and fixed it into a sheath at my thigh.
As I did, I also revealed the only part I’d left out when recounting the visit Lorien had paid me yesterday.
The last words he’d spoken, inviting me—no, commanding me—to meet him in the throne room at the Palace of Midna. To come alone.
Unsurprisingly, Thalia didn’t agree with this plan.
“You can’t do this alone, Nova. It’s foolish to even think of it.”
I closed my bag—filled with survival basics I might need in the unpredictable realm of Midna—and I slung it onto my back.
My mind was already made up.
“I’m afraid of what he’ll do if I don’t listen to his instructions,” I said.
“And you’ll let that fear control you?”
“It isn’t just fear that’s driving me. If our roles were reversed, I know Aleks would walk into any hell he had to in order to save me, even if he had to do it alone.”
“That’s not the point,” she said fiercely. “He wouldn’t want you to risk yourself, either.”
Then he shouldn’t have made me fall so hopelessly in love with him.
I shuffled the weight of my supplies and weapons, trying to find balance. “He would understand.”
She shook her head.
“And this is bigger than just the two of us and my desperate need to get him back,” I pressed.
“You heard what Eamon said—something strange is at work between the three of us. Our power, our bonds, the broken cycle of magic…the more I think about it, the more I fear it’s all related.
We can’t save Noctaris without fully dealing with Lorien.
Which just so happens to mean saving Aleks, too. ”
The scowl she’d worn since we started our conversation only deepened.
“You know I’m right.”
“I know you’re annoyingly hardheaded when you’ve made up your mind about something.”
“Some people would consider that a virtuous trait in a person.”
“I’m not some people,” she mumbled.
I gave her an apologetic smile. “I have to go.”
“You won’t get me to agree with you on this.”
“I didn’t expect to. I just wanted you to know I was leaving. In case…”
“There is no in case,” she hissed. “You’ll come back in one piece, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Your threats are oddly comforting.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know. I’ll be back—I promise.” My voice cracked slightly on the word promise, and her face softened, just a bit. We both knew there was no certainty when it came to Midna or Lorien. Even worse when a plan involved both.
Nevertheless, Thalia slowly lifted her hand and tapped it twice over her heart, a gesture we’d come up with some time ago. A way of showing affection—a promise—without touching one another.
My hand rose and mirrored the motion without hesitation.
“You better be quick,” she said. “I’ll be waiting.”