THIRTY-THREE #2
The man looked at them dubiously. “I see. You ain’t the first, and I’m bettin’ you ain’t the last. Take care younglings.
” He hoisted the stakes up into his arms and walked away again, heading towards a large canvas tent erected near a spindly-looking tree, where an older woman stood, wearing the same yellow vest.
Amelia looked around. There was plenty of flat land for her to set up her own tent. She sighed. “I guess here’s as good a place as any.”
“Yeah,” was all Silas said, as he reached for her, taking her pack, and sliding it from her shoulders.
They worked quietly, the tension creating a strange barrier between them that she wished didn’t exist. He helped her set up the small one-person tent.
He checked over her supplies, his fingers constantly touching the arcane crystals as though he needed to be sure she had them, that she would be safe.
The sun dipped low, and her heart was beginning to clench. Amelia knew he needed to go, but she wasn’t ready to be left alone.
They stood by the opening of her tent, and her fingers shook as Silas gathered his things, pulling his pack on and blowing out a long breath. Amelia brought out the pendant, and placed it around her neck, letting it fall to the centre of her chest, humming with its magic.
He looked over at her.
“Are you absolutely certain about this?” Silas asked, as though he needed to hear one more time.
“I couldn’t be more sure,” she answered. “This is going to work, Finley.”
He chuckled softly. “Still won’t call me Silas?”
The corners of her mouth tipped up. “I’m not sure you can handle it,” she joked.
He smiled then, the first true smile she had seen from him in days. He reached up and took a curl, one that had escaped the messy bun atop her head, lacing it around his finger. “You’re probably right,” he admitted.
He took in a deep breath and then let her go, stepping back.
“Right then, Winslow,” Silas said, taking out his Waystone chip, “it’s time.”
She nodded, feeling suddenly unsure, but she took a few steps away from him, giving him space for his travel. “See you…soon?”
Silas smiled reassuringly with a small nod. “Meet me at midnight,” he said with a wink, before pressing at his chip. In a whirl of wind, he was gone.
Silas didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, staring at the horizon like it might give him a reason to turn back, to give up, go back to her.
The southern stretch of the Rift was a wasteland of scorched grass, sands, and scoured ridges that looked as though teeth had taken a bite through the world, leaving little behind.
There wasn’t much sound where he stood just beyond the border, except for the wind dragging through the scrub around him, and the low throb of magic just beyond, sitting over the Rift like threatening shadows.
It felt like it watched him, waiting for Silas to step into it, waiting to take him.
It was the waiting itself that was killing him. All he felt capable of doing was watching the darkness descend over the land as he clenched and unclenched his fists.
The knife, his knife, hung heavily at his side. It seemed to hum softly so close to the Rift, wanting to go back home. He could feel it pulsing in time with their bond, with that invisible line stretching between him and Amelia, pulling taut across the miles.
Midnight, their last one, was coming.
Silas swallowed hard and forced himself back to the small camp he had set up.
He had decided not to set up his tent, knowing he would not find any rest before midnight came for him.
He pulled out his journal, igniting an arcane lamp, reading the ritual over and over until it buzzed inside his brain.
He whispered the incantation under his breath.
It didn’t matter how many times he spoke the words, they felt wrong, small, in light of the huge task before them.
Silas’ hands shook, and he told himself it was the cold wind.
They had agreed on everything. Every line of the ritual. Every risk and every hope. They’d studied, fought, dreamed, and hurt for this. But sitting there, so close to the hour…Silas realised something he hadn’t wanted to admit, at least not to her.
He was terrified.
Not of death, or even of pain.
He was afraid to fail her. To fail everyone.
Silas looked up to the stars emerging from the sky. Somewhere, she stood beneath the same sky. Somewhere, she was preparing herself to be pulled to him, to be flung into the middle of dangerous lands, ready to defy an ancient ritual that had only ever intended to end with a death.
Silas saw her in his mind. Sharp eyes, a scattering of freckles, spine steel-straight with defiance despite doubt. Amelia, who had once looked at him with nothing but disdain. Amelia, who now looked at him like he was the only thing real in a world slowly unravelling.
She believed in this.
In him .
Silas closed his eyes and whispered to the air. “Please let this work. Don’t you dare take her. She is far too bright to be taken somewhere so dark.”
There was a soft quake beneath him, like something was answering him, something ancient shifting in its sleep.
He rubbed at his chest, the bond stretching between his ribs. It hurt to feel so far away from her. The distance ached more than anything.
Silas exhaled slowly, and he waited. For the moment when the world would tilt, when time would thin, and the magic would pull them together.
Together.
Or not at all.
Amelia paced the northern edges of the Rift, restless energy coursing through her. The earth was gritty beneath her boots, the sky above tinted with twilight.
Wind scraped across the broken terrain, lifting the escaped pieces of her hair. The magic there felt thin and angry, as though it had been stretched too far for too long, loosening like threads from a fraying tapestry.
The weight of it all pressed into her, and the same uncertain thoughts swirled menacingly around her brain, the fear creeping in with a slow assuredness.
What if they were wrong?
Amelia hated the waiting.
Knowing that she would be pulled violently, unerringly, to the centre of the Rift, to Silas, in a matter of hours.
She could already feel the magic stretching towards him, and with the pendant removed at the right moment, there would be nothing to stop that riotous magic from claiming them.
Amelia lowered herself to the ground slowly, blinking down at the darkness of the moonlit grass. She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and tried to ignore the pounding of her heart, the sickness roiling in her gut.
Amelia thought instead of Silas. Of his hands and the strength in them, the gentleness.
She thought of the way he looked at her when he was afraid, when he wanted to pretend that he wasn’t. She thought of the feel of his lips, the touch of his hands at the cottage by the beachside. His gentle whispers, his sinful words. His trust in her, and hers in him.
She thought of the day they met. Of how much they’d hated each other, or at least, how much she had hated him.
And still… still , they had chosen each other in these moments.
The bond stirred in her chest, like some effervescent liquid bubbling there.
She sat beneath the moon and the stars, the distant hum of the Rift cloying at her, and she waited.
For midnight, and for Silas.