Chapter 26 Drowning in Shadows #2
“I’m going to lead him back.” Zane took off the magi-goggles, but wouldn’t give them to me when I held out my hand. “You don’t need to see what he’s seeing.”
“Why? You are.”
“And regretting it,” Z muttered. “Just wait here.”
Then he closed his eyes, his face going slack, and I scowled with worry. Trying to navigate another’s mind during a magical hallucination was like walking blindfolded through a minefield, and the last thing we needed right now was for him to suffer aftershocks from another deep dive again.
“Be careful,” I said even though I knew he was already beyond hearing me. Not knowing what else to do, I clutched Cas’ hand tighter, as if it could help. “Come back to us, brother. Seri’s waiting. We’re all waiting.”
Zane began to hum, soft, melodic, hardly noticeable at first, but growing steadily in volume and complexity.
Swan song wove through the air like liquid silver, the notes shimmering with power.
I’d never seen him use his gifts in combination against an illusion specifically designed to trap and torture one’s mind.
If Cas were awake, he’d be having a fit about not following protocols: Emergencies were not the time to try new techniques.
But this was Casimir, our big brother, and Z was going to pull out all the stops, protocol be damned, to save him.
Sweat beaded on Zane’s forehead and his hands started to shake as the song built in intensity, notes layering upon each other in patterns too complex for human ears to fully comprehend.
It reminded me of starlight in winter, of frost patterns on glass windows, of mathematical formulas translated into pure sound.
I held my breath, afraid to even move. Time stretched into what felt like hours, although my internal clock told me it was barely two minutes.
When drops of red fell from Zane’s nose onto Cas’ cheek, I dug in pockets until I found cotton wads, then packed it in his nose.
And still Z didn’t stop, just shifted the song until it became something almost painful to hear.
Diving into darker places, maybe, following Cas into whatever hell Amabel’s illusion had created for him.
Then, abruptly, Zane went silent, falling back onto his heels, eyes flying open as he severed the connection. At the same moment, Cas’ body jerked upright, eyes wild, a hoarse cry tearing from his throat.
“Seri! No, no, no—”
“Cas, it’s okay.” I framed his face in my palms, thumbs smearing Zane’s blood across death-pale skin. “You’re home. You’re safe. It was an illusion.”
His eyes found mine, but there was no recognition in them, only a terrible, hollow grief that chilled me to the bone. They were empty, glazed over with the remnants of what he’d been forced to witness.
“Where’s Seri?” His voice was a broken thing, not even recognizable as belonging to my stoic brother.
“She’s still in the SUV.” Zane dropped back on his ass, hanging his head between his knees to fight the dizziness. “Right where we left her. Safe and sound, bro.”
Cas nodded mechanically, but his eyes… His eyes said it all. Dead. Cold. Unbelieving. He couldn’t shake what he’d seen, couldn’t believe that it wasn’t real. The illusion had burrowed too far, taken too firm a hold on his mind.
“Cas, we’re all alive,” I said gently as Zane fell backward with a groan, spread-eagle on the floor. “You weren’t too late. No one died.”
“You did. You are.” He shook his head once in sharp denial. “You’re … You’re not real. You’re dead!”
He swallowed convulsively and stared at the ceiling, still half-lost in the nightmare. His breathing came in short, shallow gasps, his hands opening and closing spasmodically at his sides. He was with us in body, but his mind wasn’t accepting it.
I’d seen Cas injured before. Broken bones, guts hanging out, covered in dragonfire burns that took weeks to heal. I’d never seen him like this, though. Shattered from the inside out, his ironclad control splintered, his unshakeable confidence replaced by raw, naked fear.
The sight hurt something in me. Casimir was our rock, our North Star, the one who always knew what to do, who never wavered, who kept us on course when everything else fell apart. Seeing him reduced to this trembling, disbelieving shell felt like watching the foundations of our world crumble.
“What do we do?” I asked Zane, not bothering to hide the desperation in my voice. “He doesn’t believe we’re real. Doesn’t believe he made it out.”
“Get her,” Zane rasped, not opening his eyes. “Convince him.”
In a flash, I was on my feet and moving, sprinting through the shattered wreckage of our foyer and out into the blinding sunlight beyond.
The SUV was parked four miles down the drive, and I ran faster than I ever had before, boots barely touching the ground as I covered the distance in seconds.
My heart pounded against my ribs, not from exertion, but from the urgent need to reach Seri, to bring her back to Cas before the cracks in his psyche widened beyond repair.
The thought of him lying there, believing we were all dead, believing Seri was dead, filled me with a grief so acute, it threatened to bring me to my knees. All that countered it was the burning certainty that Seri could fix what Amabel had broken.
Because that’s what our beloved did. She healed. She mended. She brought light into our darkness.
And right now, Cas was drowning in shadows he couldn’t escape alone.
#
Seri
“Tell me again,” I demanded, gripping the seat in front of me. “Everything.”
“We stepped onto the porch and—” Koa’s voice broke. He swallowed hard, then continued, “There was an illusion web. Cas already walked right into it.”
My stomach clenched. “A trap.”
“As you warned us.” The SUV swerved violently around a curve, tires squealing. “Cas, he just dropped. Amabel was hiding behind the grandfather clock. ”
Brumous’ head shot up at the mention of Amabel, a low growl vibrating from his chest. I stroked his fur, trying to soothe him while my own heart threatened to explode.
“We got her. She’s secured for now. Zane broke through the illusion with telepathy and swan song. But Cas—” Koa choked on the words, blinking rapidly. “He’s not coming back to us. Amabel— She said the illusion shows you your worst fear.”
“And did you see it through the magi-goggles?” I demanded. “What is Casimir’s?”
“I didn’t need to see it.” Koa’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, shattered with grief. “Being too late. Being unable to save us. Watching us die. He’s always feared that. Even more since we found you.”
Oh, my poor Simmy. My throat closed, vision blurring as I tried desperately to blink away tears.
Of course that would be his nightmare. The protector unable to protect, the planner facing the one outcome he couldn’t prevent.
“He still thinks I’m gone,” I breathed. “That we’re gone.”
“Nothing’s working.” Koa’s voice cracked completely this time. “We don’t know how to bring him back.”
The SUV crested the final hill, and Evermere appeared through the windshield. Our beautiful home, now marred by the gaping wound where our front door should have been. Even before Koa slammed the vehicle to a halt, I was fumbling with my seatbelt, my entire body electric with desperate need.
“Stay with me,” I commanded Brumous, and he pressed against my leg as I leapt from the still-rocking SUV.
Heart hammering, I sprinted through debris.
An overturned table, the shattered grandfather clock, several pictures hanging crooked.
Amabel lay in the corner, bound in a brutal-looking device and hogtied with an enchanted cord.
But all I could focus on was the tumble of limbs and Casimir’s hair, unbound from its knot and fanning around his head like molten gold.
Zane knelt on the marble floor, curved over Casimir, all playfulness long gone. And Casimir—my fierce, indomitable Simmy—lay sprawled and broken, chest rising in shallow, rapid breaths, tears flowing unchecked from the corners of his vacant eyes.
“Casimir?” I whispered.
“Seri!” Zane sounded funny, probably from the red-stained cotton filling his nostrils. “We can’t— I’ve been trying to—”
I was already flinging myself on Casimir, my knees straddling his torso. My hands found his face, cold and clammy with sweat, and I dropped my forehead against his, as if I could force my way into his mind through sheer contact alone.
“I’m here. I’m alive. We’re all alive. Come back to me! Come back to us!”
His throat worked, a pained sound escaping, but his eyes remained vague and haunted.
“He can hear, but it’s not real to him.” Zane let out a frustrated exhale.
Brumous circled us anxiously before pressing his nose to Casimir’s temple, sniffing intently as if trying to locate the source of the wrongness, as if he wanted to chew it out.
He knew. Even better than I did myself, Brumous knew how it felt to have Arabesque digging around inside his head.
I pictured her now, imagined her cunning smile as she taught her daughter this particular torture, and white-hot rage surged through me.
“Of course it isn’t. He didn’t just imagine our deaths. He lived them,” I explained quickly. “Experienced every sensory detail, every agonizing moment. A Harrow illusion specialty.”
I dropped my head to Casimir’s chest, listening to his rapid heartbeat, feeling the silent sobs wracking his body. What could I do? I didn’t have my magic, had nothing to counter this other than love and stubbornness and fury.
“Listen to me. Focus on my voice.” I touched my lips to his forehead, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, leaving a trail of desperate kisses. “I love you. I need you to come back.”
Still nothing in those eyes. Not even a glimmer of the man I knew.
Sitting up, I wrapped my shaking hands around the buckled straps criss-crossing his chest and shook him as hard as I could.
“Wake up! Right now, Simmy Cimmerian!”
His body jolted violently beneath my hands. A spasm rippled through him from head to toe, his back arching off the floor.
“Simmy?” I whispered, wild hope blooming. “Simmy! I’m alive. Koa and Zane are alive. You’re alive.”
Something in his face shifted, and I could see him fighting, clawing his way back one painful inch at a time.
“That’s it,” I coaxed, gentler now, leaning close enough that my lips brushed his ear. “Follow my voice. Find me, Simmy. Find your love, your little wife.”
And his eyes changed. Still unfocused and wild with terror, but seeing now. Seeing me and his brothers.
“You’re alive?” A hoarse, broken whisper.
I nodded, my tears falling onto his face and mingling with his.
“Yes. Yes, we’re all alive.” I pried my fingers out of his vest to gesture at Zane and Koa. “See? We’re all here and alive.”
Casimir’s trembling hands hovered in the air as if he was afraid to reach for me. Afraid I might dissolve at his touch. I grabbed them and held them to my face, pressing them there with my own palms.
“Feel me,” I commanded. “See and hear me. Touch and taste me.” I leaned down and brushed my lips against his, feeling the salt of tears. “I’m real. I’m alive. I’m here, Simmy, and I love you so, so much.”
In his eyes, doubt slowly gave way to fragile hope, then wonder, then something too enormous to contain.
“Seri?” His voice broke on my name, the sound small and vulnerable in ways I’d never heard from him before.
“I’m here.”
And Casimir Cimmerian shattered into deep, wrenching sobs that tore through the foyer. His arms wrapped around me with crushing force, pulling me against his chest as his whole body shook.
“I saw—” he gasped between sobs. “I couldn’t save— You were—”
“Shhh.” I dropped kisses all over his tear-streaked face. “It wasn’t real. None of it was real.”
His fingers dug into my arms, my back, my hair, as if checking that every inch of me remained intact.
“You were gone. All of you. And I couldn’t—”
“We’re here,” I whispered against his neck. “Koko, Zoodle, let him feel you.”
Koa laid down on one side, his chest heaving with his own sobs as he stroked Casimir’s hair.
Zane fell on our other side, his head on Casimir’s shoulder and his tears flowing faster than the blood leaking from his cotton-packed nose.
Even Brumous wedged himself into our puppy pile and nuzzled Casimir’s arm, whining softly.
“We got you, brother,” Koa said. “We got her. We got each other.”
“You’re… You’re all… alive?”
“We are,” I assured him. “I’m real. Koko’s real. Zoodle’s real. We love you, Simmy, so much.”
“What brought you back?” Koa wrapped an arm around Casimir’s neck and dug his face into his throat. “I know you could hear us, but what helped you find your way home?”
“Beloved… said my name. Her name. Hers and… hers alone.”
“Simmy?” Zane howled. “That’s it? Not my fang-rotted telepathy, not my moon-damned swan song, but Simmy?”
“Not another word,” Koa warned, his voice muffled against Casimir’s neck, and for once Zane listened.
I stayed pressed against Casimir’s side, unwilling to break contact for even a second, and something told me I wouldn’t be allowed to for quite a while, anyway. His arm curved around my waist, his palm splayed against my lower back.
“We should move you somewhere more comfortable.” I leaned back just enough to meet his gaze, my thumbs wiping away the wetness on his cheeks, but he shook his head, pulling me closer.
“Not yet. Just stay. All of you.” His free hand reached for Zane’s arm as he rubbed his cheek on top of Koa’s head. “I need to see you. Need to know you’re safe.”
His vulnerability hit my heart worse than a bullet.
“As long as you want,” I promised. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Brumous settled his head on Casimir’s lap, eyes watching him intently. After a moment’s hesitation, Casimir’s hand dropped to the wolf’s head, fingers sinking into the dark fur. His breathing gradually slowed, his grip on me easing from desperate to merely urgent.
“Amabel?” he rasped eventually.
“Secured,” Koa said. “Not going anywhere.”
“Good.” The single word carried such cold intensity, it made me shiver.
“Later,” I decreed. “We’ll deal with her later. Right now, you need rest. Zoodle does, too. We’ll take care of you both, right, Koko?”
“Right.” Koa’s lips trembled, but it was still a smile.
“I love you,” Casimir whispered. “I love you all. My ‘ohana. I thought—”
“We know, but it wasn’t real, Simmy, and we all love you, too.”
“Even if Koala Bear never says it out loud.” Zane tossed his long leg over my back and wormed one arm between my chest and Casimir’s.
“I say it out loud more than you do,” Koa retorted.
“I don’t think so.” Zane sniffed into Casimir’s hair. “I said it last fall when—”
A groan from across the room interrupted him. Amabel was stirring, and Koa’s rumble shook all four of us.
“Want me to close her eyes again?”
“No,” I sighed, suddenly exhausted. Lying on Casimir’s chest, I gripped handfuls of Zane and Koa’s tactical vests. “Let her see what love looks like and what ‘ohana really means.”