29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ihad hopes that his body would get eaten by maggots after he washed up onto a distant shore.
We’d waited a full day to dispose of his body to make sure nobody came looking for him down in the basement. During that time, I thought about dismembering him, about letting his body be found, bit by bit across the mortal kingdoms, the guards panicked and unsure what could have happened to the rest of him. Had he been eaten by a shark? Sacrificed by a cult? Swallowed whole by the ocean?
I cringed and backed away when his body bubbled to the bottom of the river that would eventually spill into the open seas.
I was growing tired of the glamour, so as soon as I closed the rickety wooden doors that led down to the basement, I breathed out and let it fade. It tingled, and by the time I found the entrance to the tunnels, I’d returned to my normal form.
Every part of me stilled when I saw strands of ginger hair glistening against the warm firelight. She was standing, arms crossed over her torso so tight, I wondered if it hurt. One of her fingers drew up to her lips so she could chew on the nail, but Sapphire kept chatting away.
I approached quietly, first looking at Calista, who was staring at the open flames with a frown. Sapphire was the first to make note of my presence, and when I brushed my hand across Aurelie’s shoulder, she twisted to face me. Her eyes glistened, wide and fearful, as she gasped. Her arms wrapped around my torso in haste as she held onto me, mumbling my name into my chest. I gently rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head.
“Thank you,” I said against her scalp. “You did something amazing back there. Truly.”
She shook her head but refused to look up at me. “I am just glad you’re okay.”
I smiled softly and rested my cheek atop her head so I could look at my cousin. She was smiling softly and nodded. “I was telling Aurelie that we can head out of the tunnels tomorrow in search of their sanctuary. She says she’d visited it once or twice, but it was as a child.”
I hummed. When my focus shifted to Calista, she acknowledged me. “I’m going to stay right here,” she muttered. She looked a touch younger than when we first found her, but I doubted the sort of torture he put her through would entirely reverse. There weren’t many ways to harm or age a fae, but her son made it happen.
For years.
“It’s not safe for you to stay here,” I said. “Let us help you, at least get you to the fae realm.”
Calista lifted an eyebrow, bouncing her head side to side in consideration. “I have loose ends to tie up here. If I can get them settled before it is time for you all to depart, I may take you up on it. For now…I must stay.”
Aurelie parted from our hug and sniffled. I caught the slightest glimmer of a tear in her eye, but she didn’t let it fall. “What are you going to do?”
Calista’s focus set on the flames again, the dancing colors illuminating her eyes. “My son has friends. I need to make sure they know their place—that, or put them in the river where my son”s body floats.”
Her voice was cold, distant. It was difficult to fathom how long it’d take for a mother’s love to turn rancid, but he’d managed to make it happen. She didn’t even frown about his death. I didn’t blame her—I didn’t know if I’d ever find a way to forgive him, even if he was still alive.
After Sapphire had turned her conversation toward Calista, I took Aurelie’s hand in mine and gently nudged her ahead. She followed me deeper into the tunnels, where the light of the campfire was swallowed whole, and we were left in silent darkness. I reached for the scar over my chest and rubbed at it through my tunic. It was still sore, but I’d take dull pain over endless slumber any day.
“Sapphire told me what happened,” I muttered. The droplets of water echoed from rusty pipes, but my voice only bounced between us as I spoke, low and quiet. She stared wide-eyed at me. What I wouldn’t give to understand what she was thinking. “She told me you’ve been…seeing things.”
She leaned her back against the damp wall and puckered her lips. “I have. It’s this…terrible, ghostly figure crafted of shadows. Sapphire has spoken to me as if all of us—all the halflings, I should say—have met it. Her? I don’t know. I don’t care to know.”
“There are myths about her,” I mumbled as I leaned my shoulder on the wall next to her, arms crossed over my chest. She turned so she was facing me. “It’s said that she birthed the first halfling, in fact. She created them like an experiment. She was well before my time—anybody’s time, really. Everybody who knew her was killed off.”
She furrowed her brow. “That’s brutal.”
“It is, but what better way to ensure such a wicked, evil thing was no more than a legend you tell children so they don’t stay out late? The fae aren’t any more creative than anxious mortal parents, Aurelie.”
I watched a smile spread across her lips. “What was her name?”
It was silly, but fear loomed over me as I parted my lips. I feared her name, mostly because I believed in her existence. Without her, halflings may never have found their way to power. Without her, half-fae, half-mortal offspring were inconsequential. Irrelevant. But darkness existed because of her too, the sort that was torturing Aurelie from the inside—the sortthat turned Sapphire’s hair silver and eyes red. The sortthat forced Yenira’s hand time and time again in the war.
There, I stopped.
I breathed.
“Myrthana.”
“Myrthana,” she repeated quietly, terror shadowing her gaze. “And you believe in her?”
“With my whole chest.” After a brief pause, I frowned. “I just didn’t know how her existence could have plagued you. I’ve seen her effects on halflings firsthand, but I chalked it up to…to…a weak mind. It’s naivety at its finest. Now, though, I have no doubt that, dead or alive, her influence runs through your veins.”
“Creepy,” she muttered and lowered her gaze to the ground. I could practically see her mind racing with so many wild thoughts. I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, drawing her attention back up to me with a gentle finger beneath her chin.
“All that to say, I am proud of you. You will continue to learn, and I do not doubt it will be the last time you face her, but you are strong. You can fight her.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Sapphire did,” I said with a firm nod. “And, in the end, hopefully Lyra will too. Only time will tell as her body fights off that…plague.”
Aurelie rested the side of her head against the rough stone wall and closed her eyes. “I still can’t stop thinking about what I did to her that night. I worry it could have happened again when I healed you. It’s so uncontrollable—it’s terrifying.”
“You will keep fighting and learning, and then you will fight some more. It’s an endless cycle, but I have no doubt you are capable of it, my witchling.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and although the darkness shadowed her face, I saw a blush creep across the bridge of her nose and prickle her cheeks. She’d never know, and it took all of me not to embarrass her more and poke fun at her timid nature. Before I could blink, her arms were around me again, and she was on the tips of her toes.
Her words were a gentle caress against the crook of my neck. “Don’t you dare leave me again, Eero. Do you hear me?”
I nuzzled into her hair and chuckled breathily. “I hear you, witchling.” I closed my eyes and inhaled her scent. “That is the easiest promise I could ever make. Forever, I will be here. For you, with you—in heart and in hand.”
I felt her wet eyelashes brush against my skin, and when her face came back into view, she’d finally let that tear trickle down her cheek. I swiped it away with my thumb and held my hand against her cheek.
“I love you, Eero.”
“And I love you, Aurelie.” I took hold of her hand in mine and brought her close, guiding it to rest over the fresh scar that covered my heart. “I will forever be in debt to you—more than I already was.”
“You were never in debt—”
“Oh, but I was,” I said as I beamed, my lip twitching and eyes stinging. “You’ve given me something I hadn’t yet felt in all my years. That is priceless, but I will do everything I can to repay you.” I watched her head cock, strands of hair falling in front of her face. My focus darted across her face, trying to find something to hold onto, and eventually found her lips. “You have given me happiness.”
“Happiness,” she repeated.
“In the rawest form.”
Then I kissed her, gentle and kind.