Chapter 25 Seren
Chapter twenty-five
Seren
My breath was a plume of mist in the biting cold of the midnight sky. Footprints pressed into glistening snow, now ankle deep. I followed them, the toes of my boots not quite filling the imprints that had been left behind.
I thought of the way my blade had pressed against the soft skin of his throat.
I still had half a mind to finish the job.
To sink the steel into blood and bone. I could still run.
Let Harkin’s life blood spill upon my hands and flee to some faraway place I had only ever read about, like Daikés or Kiaszta Naván.
Places where Rázuri and humans lived in harmony.
Harkin was the only obstacle still in my way, and what was the stain of one more Rázuri life upon my soul?
But I had another voice within me. A newer, quieter, softer voice that told me to stay. As it whispered through the back of my mind, it sounded a lot like Harkin—wounded and half asleep that night in front of the fire.
I had made an agreement, though it had not been without its difficulties.
I’d put on a brave face, not wanting Harkin to see my weakness, but those first few nights I had struggled to breathe, sobbing into my pillow until sleep overtook me. I had been unable to look at my own hands, alive with the memory of the mágik that flowed through them.
The power was foreign and terrifying, and suddenly, it was mine.
I couldn’t place the exact moment that it happened. The feeling had bloomed within me slowly like tentative springtime flowers, dreading the threat of one last frost.
The two versions of me began to merge into one.
At first, forcing the opposing sides of myself into one ill-fitting mold had been painful, but once I stopped fighting the power within me, something changed.
Like a band snapping into place, I felt complete for the first time in years. Perhaps, for the first time ever.
I still carried the weight of my past. I would never erase the memory of Luca’s lifeless body or the way my sword had sliced through flesh, heart heavy with anger and regret.
But every bad thing that happened had made me into the woman that I was.
Maybe that was a person I could learn to love instead of feeling the urge to look away from my reflection in every mirror I passed.
Quin’s soft whinny roused me from my thoughts as I approached the stable.
Harkin led the black mare outside. She tossed her head, mane flying as she stretched her long, elegant neck.
I stroked her velvety muzzle, murmuring soft appreciations to the sweet horse. Quin’s ears flicked toward the sound of my voice, and she nuzzled at my hand.
“You know, she only liked me before you came along. I thought we had something special going here, but as it turns out, she’s a little traitor.” Harkin crossed his arms, but his expression was playful.
“I regret to inform you that Quin loves me more now. Though I suspect your days were always numbered. She’s a woman of taste, after all.” I leaned close, waiting for his reaction.
Harkin snorted. “Still not her name.”
“Interesting… You seemed to be a fan of nicknames, no?” I smirked as the hint of a blush crept across Harkin’s cheeks.
He cleared his throat. “Let’s go. We’re wasting moonlight.”
We mounted, settling snugly into the saddle meant for one.
Harkin spurred Quin on, guiding her into the forest and leading us northeast.
As the minutes wore on, the late hour and the steady sway of the horse’s gait began to lull me. I swayed then jumped as I jolted awake. I blinked forcefully, but the warmth of my cloak and Harkin’s body pressed to mine pulled at my consciousness.
An arm wrapped around my waist, hand splayed over my stomach. A quiet voice rumbled in my ear. “Sleep. I’ll wake you when we arrive.”
I wanted to protest, but my chin dropped, and I stopped fighting.
When I woke, I found that my head had fallen back. My ear rested on Harkin’s collarbone, the crown of my braided hair tucked beneath his chin. His hand still rested low on my belly, fingers flexing against my flesh. I felt pleasantly overwarm.
“We’re here.”
I pulled away, embarrassment flooding down to my toes. I wanted to put as much distance between us as I possibly could. I wanted to lean closer.
My heart skipped a ruinous beat.
Harkin released his grasp on me. His fingers found my chin, turned down with mortification, but he did not tilt my face to his. He guided my gaze upwards, the tips of his fingers grazing along the sharp edge of my jaw and brushing my ear as he pulled away.
I gasped in awe. “Three Goddesses.”
Before us was a pool of glowing, swirling water, steam drifting from the surface.
Tünécris played—for there was truly no better description.
They floated on an invisible breeze through the boughs of the trees and dashed across the soft grass, untouched by the snow which had fallen through the forest. Others glided along the surface of the spring, skating impossibly upon its rippling surface.
The Varázis Erva was alight with the vestiges of their spent mágik, greens and blues and grays and reds creating an aurora on earth. The trees came alive, and their branches swayed in a dancing rhythm to music we could not hear.
Flowers blossomed across the space, every inch of the field around us a wash of impossible colors. Spring and summer buds grew defiantly in this place where mágik held the bite of the approaching winter at bay.
We dismounted, sliding off Equinox without a word.
“Harkin, this is…” Anything I might have said stuck in my throat. I could not help the awe which had stolen over me. There had never been anything like this.
“Yes, it is.” He spoke so quietly, reverently.
I felt the younger version of myself rising in the back of my mind. This was everything I had ever dreamed of. Everything my parents had said mágik could be.
My heart panged with missing them. For so long, I had not known why they had turned their backs on me after Luca’s death. Now, standing amid the unbridled mágik of the Varázis Erva, I finally understood.
My parents knew who I was—what I was. All along, they had known I was not their flesh and blood.
They had taken me in knowing I was Rázuri, and they had done their best to support me in the only way they had known how.
Through stories, they had taught me that mágik was not evil. That I was not evil.
Luca was of their blood and bodies, and when he was taken from them, their tolerance had soured and died. Their love for me had been quick to follow. Their faith that I was not evil had turned to ash in their mouths.
The pain of this realization squeezed my heart in a bruising fist, but I found that I could not hate them. Their betrayal had been inevitable—likely fated from the day they claimed me—and it had mirrored my own.
Though I had not known it, I had betrayed myself when I pledged my life to the Guardians. Every time I had slicked my hands with Rázuri blood, I had been cutting myself.
“How could I have ever hated this?” I wondered aloud, more to myself than to Harkin. He answered me anyway.
“You didn’t. Not really. You were only waiting for this moment to claim it.”
“I’ve made so many mistakes.” I squeezed my eyes shut at the thought of it. Was I even worthy of witnessing this miracle?
What the Rázuri were doing to the innocents in Ordelés was wrong, but I had been misguided to counter their violence with my own. The two kingdoms would never know peace if things continued on as they were.
“I have made more,” Harkin assured me, “but we are still here. We move forward. We will do better this time.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I do now.”
My breath caught, stuck somewhere between grief and hope.
A Tünécris floated through the swaths of colorful mágik, as if it sensed my epiphany.
A tiny hand wrapped around the sleeve of my tunic.
This sprite did not show me a vision—as the water fairy had.
Instead, it led me to the edge of the spring.
The Tünécris tittered in excitement, darting in and out of view.
I sat on the bank and unlaced my boots. Discarding my cloak and resting it among the flowers, I slipped from my clothes. Only my chemise remained.
Harkin lingered behind, hand clutching Quin’s reins as he watched me—lips parted.
Following the sprite’s lead, I waded into the spring.
Deliciously hot water lapped over my thighs, wetting the hem of my slip as I moved deeper into the luminous water.
Fabric clung to my hips and spine as I dipped below the surface.
Water washed over my face as I sank to the bottom, the quiet pressure of the depth was a reassuring touch upon my body.
Time passed. Seconds? Minutes?
I opened my eyes, expecting to find darkness, but the water still glowed—an unearthly silver glitter on the tide. It lit up my world.
Mágik wrapped around me. Bands of silver looped around the lengths of my fingers.
They traced the lines of my arms, twining around my waist and down my thighs to the ends of my feet.
My fingers pulled through my hair, freeing the chin length strands and letting the mágik imbued water wash through them.
I willed myself to drift upwards, back toward the moon-washed surface of the pool. The cords of mágik lifted me effortlessly.
When I breached the surface—water running down my cheeks and lips, droplets caught in my eyelashes—I saw Harkin.
He stood, knee deep, in the spring, bare from the waist up. His expression flooded with relief then wonder as he approached me. “You were under for too long. I was beginning to grow concerned.”
“You were going to save me?”
“You have never needed saving. But I would have been there, if you needed me.”