Chapter 42
Aenan
The noise that sounded from my sister’s room was straight out of my worst nightmare. I was on my feet and moving before I even realised it. Before I was even awake. I rushed into the room, searching every corner, looking for the threat.
“What? What is it?” I yelled.
Caelan stood across the room, staring at Rowan, his face white as a ghost’s. My sister, meanwhile, was desperately trying to breathe, her wide eyes locked to his, her hands clenching the bedsheets.
I hurried to her side and gathered her in my arms. She gripped me as if terrified I would let her go.
“What happened? Rowan? Caelan?” My gaze jumped between them. The twin looks of horror on their faces frightened me.
“A dream,” Caelan finally answered, his voice hoarse. His eyes remained locked on hers. “She was having a dream. But… it was a memory.”
Rowan started to tremble, shaking her head.
“She dragged me into it, into her dream, and I saw—” He broke off, taking big gulps of air.
Tears coursed down Rowan’s face, her fingers clinging to my arm with a bruising intensity.
“What, Caelan? What did you see?” I demanded, frustration making my voice sharp.
“I saw…” He gulped again. “I saw…” His face crumpled, and he turned away, taking a few steps, hand to his mouth. I had never seen him this way, and it made me feel sick to my stomach.
“Caelan! What did you see?” I yelled, angry now. Scared.
Turning, his face no longer white but splotched with anger, he shouted, “He cut out her godsdamn tongue!”
I froze. Certain I had heard him wrong. But as I looked at him in shock, all the blood seemed to drain from his face.
“No, not he. Me,” he whispered. “I cut out her tongue.”
Rowan whimpered, and Caelan rushed from the room. I still hadn’t moved, but Rowan started crying in earnest, tucking her head into my chest and sobbing like a baby. She shouted her emotions down our bond, telling me with her silent words all her fears, all her pains.
She cried for all the people she had hurt and was still hurting.
She cried for all the pain she had been through. All the horror she had been subjected to.
She cried for the life she’d had. The life she felt she had now lost.
And lastly, she cried for the person she had once been, but didn’t believe she would ever be again.
I stayed silent, letting her anguish wash over me, my heart bleeding at everything she let out. I let her cry, rubbing her back as the tears soaked through my shirt, a staunch and solid presence she could lean on in the darkness.
When her sobs turned to hiccups and then to sniffles, I lifted her chin. “Show me,” I said softly, a demand, not a request. She shook her head and tried to dislodge my hand. “Open your mouth, Rowan. Show me.”
Tears flooded her eyes, trickling down already etched paths.
No.
It’s all right, little sister. I just want to look. To make sure it’s regrown, that it is healed, all right? Just open your mouth. That’s all I’m asking.
She looked at me sadly, and the pain in those dark blue depths crushed my soul. I held her gaze, trying to convey my concern. My love. It must have worked, because she slowly opened her mouth. Moving her chin this way and that, up and down, back and forth, I got a decent look at what was going on.
“It looks good. Healed. Completely regrown. Healthy and pink. You should be able to talk with no issues. How long ago did this happen?”
Two weeks, maybe more.
I frowned. She should be able to talk. “No, I want you to use your words.” She shook her head. “You need to start talking again. Try for me. Please.”
“Thwo wheeks,” she said, the words sounding garbled and strange.
“Good girl,” I said. “You just need to practise. It will get better. What else?” When she just looked at me with confusion, I clarified, “What else did he do to you?”
She shook her head again, the fear back in her eyes.
“I already know he glamoured himself to look like Caelan. I saw that in your dream, the one where you showed me the hall.” I just hadn’t realised until now the extent of that illusion. “What else did he do, Rowan? I need to know. I can’t help you until you tell me.”
I can’t.
“How about you show me, then?” When she didn’t immediately say no, I explained it to her.
“Close your eyes and think of the things you want to show me, and push them at me. I will see them just as if you were thinking of them yourself. You don’t need to relive it.
Just bring up a memory, do a quick check that it’s the right one, then flick it my way. Try it.”
She furrowed her brow in concentration, and the next moment, a memory appeared in my mind.
She was talking to a woman in a cell. One who was cleaning Rowan’s battered face.
Rowan asked her what it was she wished for, and the woman said she only wished to visit the Human Realm.
I had seen her before, seated on Caelan’s lap in Rowan’s dream.
Something about her had struck me as familiar then, and I had the same feeling now.
Did you get it?
“Yes,” I said, my voice strangely despondent. “Again.”
She sent me another, and another, and another. Each one was progressively more vile than the last, and when I couldn’t see any more, I bade her stop.
“I’ve seen enough.” She opened her eyes, and I looked at her fiercely. “You, my darling sister, are so very brave and so very, very strong.” I clasped her face in my hands. “You. Did. Not. Break. And you will not break now. You can beat this, do you hear me?”
When she didn’t answer, just looked at me with wide eyes, I rolled my own.
“Repeat after me. Yes, Aenan, I hear you.”
She smiled then, a genuine smile, which drew an answering one from me. “Y-es, Ae-nan,” she said.
Y-es, Ae-nan.
Did you just mock me?
Of course. What are big brothers for?
You’re the worst.
I grinned at her. “Come on, get up. I’ll take you to breakfast, then I’ll find Caelan.”
She seemed lighter somehow. Somewhere amongst all the angst, all the tears, sharing what she had been through with me had lightened her load just a little.
Enough that I noticed she wasn’t so fearful.
So anxious. She rose to get dressed without a second thought, and I waited for her in the sitting room, pacing where she couldn’t see me.
When she emerged, I walked her down the hall, my arm about her shoulders, but she paused when we passed Caelan’s room. “He won’t be there,” I said. “But I know where he will be. Don’t worry about it, I’ll sort it out.”
When we entered the dining room, Jesmina was waiting, and her face lit up when she saw Rowan. I gave my sister’s shoulder a light squeeze and pulled out her chair.
“Good morning, Jesmina,” I said.
“Good morning, milord.” She bobbed her head before returning her gaze to Rowan. “Oh, milady, we missed you,” she exclaimed. She looked so happy to see her that I couldn’t help but smile at her joyful face.
Rowan smiled at her as well. Good morning.
“She wishes you good morning, Jesmina. Her voice is a little off, so you will excuse her if she doesn’t respond for a couple of days.”
“Oh, of course, milord. Good morning, milady.” She dipped into a curtsy and rushed from the room.
My voice is off?
What else do you want me to say? There’s nothing wrong with it. You just need to learn to use it again.
She glared at me. But it made my heart sing. It was just another way I knew she was on the mend. I would take all the glares in the realm over the pain and fear I had seen in her eyes that morning.
She requested the biggest, greasiest breakfast she could think of.
A proper English hot breakfast, she told me, with bacon and eggs and mushrooms and everything else Mrs Gretchen had on hand.
The kitchen boy looked delighted when I relayed her request, ordering the same for myself.
I knew if there were any leftovers he would be the first to put his hand up for them.
We sat in relative silence for a while, sipping the tea that had been waiting on the table. Rowan appeared deep in thought.
Christmas! It’s nearly Christmas.
“What is that?” I asked.
She looked astonished. You don’t celebrate Christmas here?
“Again, Rowan, if I knew what that was, I could tell you.”
Oh, it’s… Well, it’s a religious holiday. We give gifts to each other.
“We don’t celebrate anything like that. We have Hogmanay on the thirty-first, though, and the solstice…” I broke off.
Yes.
“Do you still want to go through with it?” I asked gently.
I… I don’t know if I can. I can’t feel the bond anymore.
“What do you mean you can’t feel it?”
I can feel yours, but the other is just… gone.
I’m getting tired of being the only one having a conversation out loud, I grumbled, frustrated. Have you tried looking for it? You can speak with Caelan, mind to mind?
Yes.
Well then, it’s still there. Only those bonded can do that. Or… those bonded to a bonded.
Wait, what? What does that mean?
How do you think I was able to walk in your dreams?
Oh, I hadn’t really thought about that. How did you?
Caelan is the Dream Walker, so he just walked me in. He can only do that because of the bonds between us all.
Oh, I see. She looked like she didn’t, but pressed on before I could explain further. So, you think my bond is still there?
Yes, though maybe there is something stopping you from being able to reach it. When did you last feel it?
Before I was taken.
So, it’s something that’s happened since then. Maybe it’s the trauma and it will come back on its own. Speak with Jesmina. She may have something you can take that will help.
She was quiet for so long I began to worry. But then she whispered, Okay.
I looked at her, my eyebrow raised, silently hoping that she would. She needed to trust him again. And I knew the lack of that bond was not going to help.