Chapter 53
Maeve
SLEEP USED TO COME EASILY to me. I’d lie down, snuggle up next to Isis on my pillow, and immediately drift off. Now, though, it feels like it may never come easily to me again.
I toss and turn, shifting this way and that in bed, until Lyra hisses in a low whisper, “Maeve, I am going to end you.”
Shit. I’m probably waking everyone up with my rustling around.
With a sigh, I turn onto my back and stare up at the dark ceiling.
My cold has fully passed. My body feels better, my head is finally clear, and my strength has returned. But the ache in my chest remains, the frayed bond trying to tug me toward Severin, trying to prompt me to fix it.
I still haven’t spoken to him. And in class on Monday, he barely looked at me. Maybe he doesn’t want to fix this. Maybe he decided to walk away at the same moment I did.
The thought gives me so much anxiety that I throw my covers back and slip out of bed.
Isis slithers out from beneath the pillow and hisses, “Where are you going?”
“The spire,” I whisper back, already reaching for my boots where they’re propped beside my bed. “I need air.”
“Don’t cause another storm,” she says. “You barely survived the last one.” With that, she hides herself beneath the pillow again.
I grab my cloak from my bedpost and ease it over my shoulders before quietly descending the staircase from our loft, careful to avoid the squeaky stairs. After slipping into the stairwell, I draw my cloak tighter around my shoulders, using it to ward off the cold.
There’s no one in the halls this late, and I make it to the stairwell leading up to the Skyreach Spire without seeing anyone.
At the bottom, I pause, standing there in the partial darkness between flickering torches. My hand reaches out to touch the cold stone wall, and for a long moment, I listen to my breathing in the quiet, to the whisper of the flames burning in the sconces along the walls.
What am I doing? I wonder, my lips pulling into a frown in the darkness.
I should be asleep. This is finals week, and then I have my demonstration before the Arcanum Collective board. I can’t afford to lose my focus. And if I don’t get to sleep, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
Still, something makes me take the first step into the stairwell, and before I can stop myself, I’m ascending the spiral staircase, then stepping out onto the tower, taking a sharp breath against the bite of the cold winter air.
This is foolish. I know it. I just got over a cold, and now here I am, standing on a tower in the middle of the night. But whenever I lie down in bed, all I have is questions. And if I want to sleep another wink in my life, I need answers. And it feels like this is where I’ll find them.
The door to the stairwell clicks closed behind me, and then I cross the windy tower to stand in the center. The wind tugs at my long braid, and loose tendrils of hair tickle my cheeks. Tiny pinpricks of light glow against the deep darkness: torches along the stone wall that surrounds the academy.
And in the railing encircling the spire, there’s the thin fracture I caused all those many days ago, while showing Severin my energy sphere—back before I learned how to properly contain it.
Tipping my head back and staring up at the stars, I ask the sky, “What am I supposed to do now?”
The question is carried away on a breath of wind. The sky doesn’t answer me.
But the ache beneath my sternum does.
I close my eyes.
And I feel him.
The connection isn’t as clear, like I’m swimming through silty water, but it’s still there, even if it is raw.
He’s awake. And he feels restless. And lonely.
Always lonely.
My throat tightens, and I draw my cloak tighter around myself as my body starts to tremble in the cold.
For weeks now, I’ve told myself that walking away was the right choice. He was trying to choose for me, so instead, I chose independence. But it doesn’t feel freeing. It feels like I severed part of myself, and the phantom pain still lingers, right there in my chest.
I open my eyes and glance down at my boots. If it were still autumn, I’d be barefoot, moving across the stone, practicing the swordsmanship drills Severin taught me.
Memories rush in, making me catch my breath. Instead of fighting them, I surrender.
His strong hands gripping my hips. The tickle of his breath along the shell of my ear. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat as he held me against him, our bodies moving together in the dark.
I grit my teeth as moisture gathers in my eyes.
“I hate that I miss you,” I say to the darkness.
Before Severin, I didn’t need anyone. I’d never let a lover get this close to me. I took a chance on him, and it changed everything.
For the first time since telling him it’s over, I stop trying to convince myself, stop trying to carry out endless arguments in my head regarding whether I was right or wrong. I just sit with it, drop my walls and let the emotions crash over me.
In response, my magic surges.
When I look down, faint spiderwebs of electricity are dancing along my fingertips.
I lift my hands and call on my magic. A soft glow forms between my palms, delicate at first, like starlight caught in a bottle. Carefully, I begin to shape it, coaxing it into a familiar sphere.
It comes easily.
The energy hums steadily, a calming rumble. The cold wind dances around me, stirring the hem of my cloak. I focus on my breathing as the sphere grows, its energy intensifying.
For a moment, I feel steady. Strong.
Then the connection in my chest pulls tight, tugging at me with such need that I have to catch my breath.
The sphere floating between my hands shifts, as if being drawn toward Severin, toward the staff apartment where we once made love by firelight, where he sank his fangs into my skin and drank the blood I offered so willingly.
“No,” I whisper to my magic.
I try to wield more control over it, try to stop it from trying to move toward him. The sphere pulses with light, making me wince against the flash in the darkness.
But the harder I push and the more I fight it, the more unwieldy it becomes.
Wind rises around me, and lightning dances from my hands up to my wrists.
I grit my teeth.
This is like going back to the start of the semester, when I could barely hold the sphere’s shape. It’s like my progress is dissolving right in front of my eyes.
“I can do this without him,” I tell myself.
But something about those words feels wrong.
And now that I’m no longer going to lie to myself, I realize why.
Can I do this without Severin? Yes. Of course I can. But do I want to?
The answer comes easily, accompanied by another burst of light from my sphere.
No.
No, no, no.
Tears blur my vision, and my arms begin to shake as I continue to fight to hold the sphere together. In a moment, a barrage of thoughts crashes into me: My future. My dreams. Severin.
The sphere pulses violently, sending tendrils of white-blue lightning lashing outward before they snap back toward the center.
For a heartbeat, I think I’m going to lose control of it entirely, maybe blast apart the entire railing this time rather than just fracturing it.
Then I’ll be right back to where I started, and the collective’s board isn’t going to have any interest in a storm witch who can’t even properly wield her own magic.
I hear Severin in my ear, as I so often do these days: Your control is an illusion.
I grit my teeth until my jaw aches.
Then, with a rush of breath, I give in. I stop fighting. I stop trying to control.
The truth settles into my chest with the softness of petals unfurling in spring.
I love Severin D’Arques. And even though I can do this without him, I don’t want to.
My breathing slows, and my grip on my magic softens. Immediately, the sphere stabilizes. Its light stops flashing and returns to a steady white glow.
I stare down at it, and without meaning to, I laugh.
Because this explains so much.
All this time, I thought resisting my bond with Severin made me stronger. Walking away from him made me stronger. Choosing independence made me stronger.
But maybe allowing myself to soften is where my true strength lies.
Carefully, slowly, I lower my hands. My energy sphere dissolves into tendrils of harmless white light that break apart into tiny glowing sparks, like glowbugs on a summer evening. They drift away on the winter wind, leaving me once more standing in the cold light of the stars.
My chest heaves, my cheeks are wet with tears, and my heart pounds.
But that spot just beneath my sternum feels steadier than it has in weeks. Because the truth is so clear now, and I can no longer pretend I don’t see it. Walking away from Severin didn’t actually protect me; rather, it protected my fear, my anger, my resistance.
Once more, I tip my face back to look up at the sky. And it looks brighter now, as if the clouds that’ve been fogging my mind have finally parted.
If I truly want this future I’ve been fighting so hard for, maybe that means I need to fight for love as well.