THIRTY-FOUR
The pull was as painful as the very first, his body tearing itself apart and piecing back together like an excruciating artwork, until he collided with another body.
His feet hit ground less solid than the one he had left, close to losing his balance, except the warm body pressed to him helped keep him steady.
The arcane crystal he’d attached to his cloak with a sticking rune flickered worryingly. As he groaned from the pain and stood upright, the golden glow emanated from it, and from the one attached to Amelia’s chest, burning on brightly.
She panted, her arms firmly around his waist.
“You okay?” he asked, as they both looked around swiftly, trying to gauge where they had ended up. By Brinkley’s calculations, their starting points should have sent them as close as possible to the Ruins of Veilthorne.
In the dome of light they created around them, Silas could not spot any landmark or familiar sign that would point to their location.
“Yes,” she breathed, but her body was shaking as she pressed herself to him, glancing left and right.
He knew what she was searching for, what she was afraid of.
The Rift Crawlers.
Silas held her tightly. “We’re safe as long as our crystals hold out, and don’t forget…we’re pretty powerful, Winslow. Those things can’t imagine what they would be up against if they tried it.”
She didn’t respond but for the slightest increase in pressure of her fingers against his spine. A hush descended between them as they tried to get their bearings.
It was the quiet between them that had his ears picking up the sounds of movement and chittering, and by the tension in her muscles, Silas knew they had both become aware of the danger just beyond the glow of their crystals.
He slowly released her, as though any sudden movement would bring the Crawlers descending upon them, razor sharp appendages tearing into their flesh.
They got to work, pulling out more lamps, igniting them hastily. They made a perimeter around them before erecting a small tent, and only then did he feel they were somewhat safe from the horrors of this terrible land.
The tent was barely big enough for two as they both crawled inside and laid out small bedrolls.
The canvas rustled noisily in the wind, held upright more by stubborn will than any real structural integrity.
They had borrowed it from Brinkley, and as he watched the canvas pull tight from the wind, he wondered whether they should have brought something sturdier.
The air inside the tent was thick with their worry, their tension, laden even further by the scents of dust and slithering magic that seemed to coat everything.
They laid quietly together, the heat from their bodies the only thing keeping the chill at bay.
Their shoulders brushed as he crossed his arms over his chest, a blanket tucked over them both, the Midnight Blades sitting at their sides like watchful omens.
They were quiet for a long while before Amelia broke the silence.
“I’m thinking a good night’s sleep would be needed for what we face tomorrow…but did you know that you snore, Finley?”
Silas blinked up at the roof of the tent, uncertain he’d heard her right. He turned his head, finding a quiet smile on her face. “Excuse me?”
She nudged his leg with her foot. “When you were sleeping in Brinkley’s cottage, you were snoring like a dying boar.”
Silas gave her a slow, scandalised look. “Slander! You’re inventing things to cover for the fact that you snore.”
“The floorboards rattled while you slept,” she said with humour.
He rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “Well, perhaps my sleep was heavily disturbed by Brinkley’s decor. Those creepy paintings of his? Enough to disturb anyone’s sleep.”
Amelia laughed, a small one full of surprise, and the sound loosened something in his chest.
Silence fell again, not awkward, but weighted with the knowledge of what the morning would bring them. Of what they stood to lose.
Silas shifted, stretching his arm out to her, inviting her closer without speaking. Amelia tucked herself into his side without hesitation, her cheek against the top of his shoulder.
She spoke quietly. “I had hoped there would be more time.”
He swallowed, eyes looking to the darkness of the tent’s roof. “For what?”
She sighed softly. “For everything. For figuring out who I’m meant to be.
What all of this…the magic and science and madness…
what it was all for. For fixing the mess that was my childhood, what my family left behind inside of me.
” She wriggled a little, tilting her head to look at him. “For apologising.”
Silas glanced down, meeting her eyes, soft and warm, while holding an immeasurable amount of pain. “You don’t owe anyone an apology.”
She shook her head, eyes stuttering. “I do. To you, especially. For always being so cruel when we were younger. For not listening. For thinking you were nothing more than just another mind to beat instead of…” Her voice thickened, and she had to pause before continuing.
“Instead of someone I should have trusted from the beginning.”
Silas sat up, bringing her with him. She turned to face him, eyes cast low.
“Amelia…”
“No, let me say this.” Her voice cracked, roughened by emotion.
Silas stayed quiet as she tried to find the words.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear them, as though it were a goodbye, that her faith in their plan might be just as tenuous as his own.
She lifted her head and looked at him. “You’ve changed me, Silas.
Not forced by this bond, not by magic. Just by being who you are.
Fierce and brilliant and kind…and infuriatingly impossible to ignore. ”
He stared at her unguarded expression, at the vulnerability in her eyes.
“I don’t regret any part of what brought us here,” she continued. “Not the blades or the bond. I think…it was always supposed to happen, that it truly was our fate. What I do regret is how long it took me to realise who you really are, and how much I wanted this…us.”
Silas exhaled slowly. “I’ve been afraid to want it.”
“I know.”
“I feel like all I’ve been doing is preparing to lose it.”
Amelia reached for his hand, threading their fingers together. “We won’t.”
He watched their joined hands for a moment before answering. “The morning will tell.”
She let out a soft laugh. “No pressure.”
He tried to smile. “You thrive under pressure.”
“You might not know this about me, but I scream into my pillow when I’m under pressure. You’ll see one day.”
When he met her eyes, they sparkled a little, like she was imagining that future, where they could see every part of one another’s lives and experience every moment with each other. It warmed his chest as equally as it made him ache thinking they may never have that.
He reached forwards, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I can’t wait. And you never have to hide those things from me. The fear, the laughs, the anger. I want all of it.”
Amelia swallowed, staring at him like she didn’t quite know what to do with the weight of his words. She leaned into him, their foreheads pressing together, breaths mingling. For a long moment, the world outside ceased to exist.
Then Amelia, voice low and teasing, said, “you still snore, though.”
Silas groaned. “Unbelievable. Poured my little old heart out and that’s your closing statement.”
Amelia grinned. “Just trying to keep that ego of yours in check.”
Silas cupped her face gently. “My ego evaporated the moment I walked into the Spire when I was seventeen years old and saw you reading in the corner by yourself. I was done for.”
Silence settled again, softer this time. It was a quiet filled with understanding and affection.
Eventually, Amelia curled up beside him, her fingers still laced in his. Silas draped the blanket over them, the tent rattling faintly in the wind.
The morning was coming, and with it, the crux of everything.
But for now, they had this.
One final night wrapped in each other.
Silas exhaled slowly, eyes blinking open just as slow.
He looked around, confusion settling over him as he took in the glassy surface of a lake. A gathering of dark trees lay beyond, and then there were nothing but shadows.
He looked over his shoulder, seeking Amelia.
When he turned back to the lake, someone was there, but it wasn’t who he had been hoping to find.
Pale, elegant, and draped in bright white clothing, she stood above the surface of the water as though hovering there. Her red hair flowed around her, eyes molten with sorrow. She looked as if she belonged nowhere and everywhere.
He shivered, almost afraid of her presence.
“Lyana,” Silas breathed, understanding filling him. “Are you…real?”
“I’m very real, Silas.” Lyana’s voice was like a soft cloth wrapped around a sharp blade, something equally comforting as it was terrifying. “You invited me here, called for me. With your doubt, your fear.”
He swallowed with the discomfort of being in her presence. “I don’t fear you,” he said, though it rang hollow.
Lyana took a slow step forwards, gliding rather than walking. “No. But you fear what you don’t understand, you always have, same as your father. And you don’t understand what you’re about to do, do you?”
He clenched his fists. “My father? What would you know of him.”
Her smile was both sad and terrible. “I know him well. He is here, after all. In the Midnight Realm.”
Silas opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Ice speared through his heart, and he looked around, as though seeking a way out. He looked back to her. “I…we know what we’re doing. We’ve accounted for every variable.”
“You’ve accounted for what you believe, not what the Monoliths truly want, what the Midnight Realm wants to take. You think altering the ritual makes you clever?” Something creeped into her eyes, something that haunted her. “You think you can cheat death, that love alone can rewrite fate?”