Chapter 23 #3
“I… will… it… so…” She could barely speak, but the familiar, comforting words tumbled out one by one, each one on a cry.
She felt her sisters’ power surge into her, and from the corner of her eye saw the three of them holding hands, gathered around her.
Three? She must be delirious—Deryn couldn’t be here.
And yet there were three figures, three voices, and three pairs of arms lifting to the heavens amidst her storm. She was hallucinating.
The last thing Rhiannon saw, as blood trickled down her chin and she felt the power split her in two, in the middle of raging pain and deafening hurricane, was fire dying, flames disappearing, and Prudence running out of the husk of the destroyed Crow the fatigue making her nauseated. She managed to raise them to her face, then the tremors of exhaustion overtook her.
“Yeah, about that.” Deryn pointed at Rhiannon’s prone body.
“Basically, Ceri says the makeshift circle might’ve helped?
My being there, amplifying the connection the Crowharts hold, all the sisters together for the very first time, blah blah blah.
You know I don’t know how these things actually work; I just show up when needed and look pretty.
” Deryn wagged her eyebrows, and Rhiannon smiled at the ridiculousness that was her sister.
Then Deryn sobered. “What is kinda bad, though, is that we don’t know if you’ll ever be the same. ”
“The same?” Rhiannon wondered why everything around her was getting darker. There was a dull ringing in her ears, and Prudence’s sleepy breathing was becoming distant and quieter.
Absentmindedly, she felt Deryn’s touch on her fingers, but it was muted, barely there, despite feeling certain Deryn was holding on for dear life.
“We can only guess what happened after you kept the magic locked up for two decades, but the fact that you’re alive is a miracle. It should’ve torn you apart. Do you know that? Did you know that when you unleashed the storm?”
The ringing in her ears intensified, and Deryn was now so far away. Rhiannon clung to consciousness with everything she had, even though she felt strangely empty.
“I knew what I was doing.”
When she woke again, it was Prudence’s hands on her face, dabbing carefully at her mouth with a washcloth, and her magic was shimmering brightly as she poured herself into Rhiannon. The lip didn’t sting anymore.
“Well, you’re better than Deryn.”
Prudence laughed quietly, and Rhiannon watched the beloved features, the way joy brightened them, the way the gray sparkled with pleasure.
“Ceridwen is better than us all, but she has a badly broken wrist. Victoria mended some of the other hurts and bruises, but her bone will need to heal on its own.”
Rhiannon closed her eyes, letting her sister’s pain wash over her.
“Is anyone else hurt?”
“No. Patches and Boleyn are safe and sound, and I… I’m fine. You saved me. You saved everyone.”
As Prudence rinsed the washcloth and brought it back to Rhiannon’s face, she could see it colored faintly with her blood. Apparently, Prudence had the same thought.
“You’re very badly hurt.”
“Not that bad, Prudence. And it all worked out. Didn’t it? And now I am in bed, and earlier you were here with me and I watched you sleep. You were dreaming.”
Pru started, then lowered her eyes.
“I was. A townhouse in New York, and I got to jog in the mornings in Central Park. And feed the ducks and buy pretzels from a curmudgeonly guy in a Mets hat. And in my dream, you never get hurt.”
There was a gulp, then a sob, and Rhiannon was enveloped in those willowy arms, Prudence crying in earnest on her chest.
This time moving her hands was not as difficult, and she awkwardly patted Prudence on her back, not having full control of her movements. Still, it felt better? And did she really care when Prudence was here, weeping over her, holding her?
Well, some things she did care about. She gave Prudence another clumsy pat, her arms dropping back to the sheets.
Someone had changed them. They felt like linen this time, and it could only mean she had been out of it for long enough for the change to have been necessary.
Which meant she had left Prudence for long enough without an explanation.
“When I said I killed her,” She swallowed, gulped, her throat almost closing around the words, then coughed and tried to push through even if Prudence’s face was ashen once again.
“Rhiannon—”
“No, no, let me speak. How many days has it been, anyway? A long wait for the truth for you.”
“Five days, but Lachlan told me. All of us. I know you didn’t do it. It was suicide.”
Rhiannon shook her head and saw stars. Okay, she should probably keep her movements to the bare minimum for the foreseeable future.
“I did it, Prudence. Maybe not with my own two hands. But she left a letter… She blamed me. ‘My blood is on your soul, on your callousness and your neglect, Rhiannon.’ You see, I didn’t love her enough—”
“Oh, what fucking bullshit!”
Prudence’s outburst made Rhiannon laugh, which in turns made her cough again. When it finally subsided, she licked her lips. She needed to drink and she needed to sleep. Maybe forever. But above all, she needed to speak.