Chapter 25
twenty-five
We never slept. Instead, we sat up all night, talking. When I cried, he held me without me saying a word. All my life back in the cold castle, no one had ever shown me such kindness. The crown was unforgiving, and I'd never paused to think life could be more.
When the sunbeams trickled in through the pane, he gazed up at the window and said, “I never knew my mother. She died when I was born.” He didn’t cry, but I took him into my arms anyway, returning the favor.
When he inhaled my scent, and I wondered what he found, my mind spilled back to the small piece of himself he’d given me.
He was a puzzle, and let on so little that this felt like a victory, despite the sorrow.
Certainly there were times back at the castle when I wished my mother had died with me, or better yet, passed with Deldren. But however the poor mother, the reality was that I’d never grown up without her. I wouldn’t know that pain, so I didn’t speak to it. I just held him and loved him.
Eventually we released each other and returned to our usual activities. Bathing, eating, existing, but through it all, I wasn’t in the cottage. My mind was somewhere else. Preoccupied with what he’d said under the influence of wine—when he asked me to stay.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider it. Something inside urged me to accept, begged me to stay in the cottage, forever with Aelen. His father, while clearly a bastard, could extend my pact. How long, I wasn’t sure, but long enough.
Yet I couldn’t turn from my kingdom forever. Not without a final goodbye.
And so, when the night once again came, the darkness creeping through the windows and stealing away the light, I turned from the frosted window and said, “Aelen, I have to go back to the gorge.”
His gaze jumped from the wolven carving in his hand, and he slowly laid the knife on the hearth. “What for?”
“I think I want to stay here. With you.”
The corners of his mouth lifted. “But why do you need to return to the chasm for that?”
“I need to say goodbye. He never got to.” Deldren.
He went deep into his mind, saying nothing. Then his finger tap, tap, tapped against the hearth’s stone, thinking. Ruminating. Eventually, the light returned to his gaze as it flicked up to meet mine.
“I’ll escort you tomorrow.”
“No,” I protested. “I have to go now. If I don’t go now, I don’t know that I won’t change my mind.”
He opened his lips, but I started before he could.
“I’m not like you, Aelen. I’m weak-hearted and simple-minded. If I think too much, I’ll break. No one carved out vengeance for Deldren. If I think about it too long—”
He held up a hand. “Say no more, I understand.” He came over to remove the lantern from me, but before his fingertips could graze the handle, I hesitated.
“I have to go alone.” I couldn't say goodbye, say what I needed to say with an audience. The type of send off I needed to give Ilyatria was akin to a eulogy, and held the same sanctity.
He shook his head. “The forest is too dangerous at night, especially as of late. The blizzards have been worsening, the melt holes are filling in. There’s unrest.”
His unfazed and hardened look terrified me. Would I be able to crack his resolve? I wasn’t certain. So I played the only hand I had left. I took his hand and yanked him to the bedroom. If I got his clothes off, that would be enough.
Once the door slammed behind us, I hooked my fingers around the pointed shells of his ears and tugged him to my trembling lips.
He leaned in, and met me, but only for a second before pulling away.
“This is serious, you must heed my words. The forest is the most dangerous it’s been in a while, I don’t trust it won’t attack you. ”
I probed my fingers beneath his jack, and his muscles rippled beneath them, but he didn’t pull away. He did however, return to his stone-faced look.
“Please.”
“No, you please listen to me.” He cupped my cheeks, raising my chin until I couldn’t look anywhere but him. “I am trying to be patient. I am trying to be understanding. But I can’t lose you.”
The words hung, slicing through my peace and stabbing straight into my heart. My gaze inevitably fell to my feet. His grip only tightened.
“What can I do—”
A loud crash shattered the silence as the glass pane exploded outward. Before it could wound me, Aelen grabbed me and wrenched me behind him, shielding me with his body. His every muscle tightened, and though I was sucking in air, he held his breath.
He’s listening.
But nothing stirred, and we found the source on the floor. A small, midnight bird curled in on itself. When he lifted it, the wings remained unmoving, twisted in an unnatural position. A single touch, and one feather broke off, falling to the floor to shatter—frozen solid.
Why did a frozen bird crash through the window? But as I ran my fingers down it, and pried the ice from it, a large chunk came loose and revealed its head. A solid black beak, and volcanically red eyes, frozen so fast they hadn’t had time to turn milky. My skin beaded with cold sweat.
“This is a castle crow,” I said, trying to force my tone to steady. “They nest up in the belltower—they’re a bit of a nuisance, but… These are Ilyatrian birds.”
It couldn't have frozen mid-flight, that was impossible. Had someone thrown it?
We stared at the empty pane that still held a few shards. Going through the forest alone was now an impossibility. A death wish I didn’t have.
“I want an escort through the woods.”
He squeezed my shoulder, a silent agreement, before guiding me to the main room by the small of my back. “Stay in here—away from the windows. I’m going to check the perimeter before we leave.”
“I’m not helpless.”
He cocked his head and studied me. “Perhaps not, but your bones are easily breakable, along with your neck. Take this.” He unsheathed the blade at his side, placing it in my hands. “Use it if you need to.”
It brought a sense of safety, yet still felt a little foreign. “I’m better with a short blade.” He tugged out one of his many razor-sharp daggers and tucked it into my side, but I hesitated to take the sword.
“Use the sword first. I’ve seen you wield it. You’re quite effective, and the long blade gives you more reach. Don’t devalue yourself.”
The thought of something in the forest being close enough to use a knife slicked my palms again. I tightened my grip on the hilt.
He smiled. “Good girl.”
A flurry of snow invaded the cottage before he could slam it shut against the wind. And there I sat, my drumming heart the only thing to keep me company.
Eventually, crunching broke the uneasy quiet, emanating from just outside the door. I pressed closer, raising my blade. The hair on my nape stood at attention, as I placed myself right before it.
The door slammed open. I drew back the blade ready to bring it down.
Aelen yelled, “Shit, Lorelana, you’re going to kill me.”
I lowered with trembling hands. “Sorry,” I breathed, like I'd just sprinted through the Eltide air.
He shook his head, but stopped me before I sheathed the blade at his side. “Keep it. The perimeter is clear, but I couldn’t find where the bird came from.”
He left off the ‘or from whom,’ only increasing the tightness in my chest.
“What did you do with it?” I asked, glancing at his empty hands.
“Buried it out in the snow. Pitiful creature.” He sighed and drew me out into the blizzard.
The temperature had been steadily dropping every night since their sacrificial ritual.
And as the cold crept into my bones, my eyes clung to the sky and the full moon that hung there.
It brightened the surrounding forest, and though that should have brought peace, it only left a vivid image that my death could be around any trunk.
I gripped the blade until the feeling left my fingers.
The lantern’s crack still ran up the side, painting unsteady light across the gnarled and reaching trees. The gales blew, stretching limbs across the path like twisted fingers, waiting to catch us. I kept close to Aelen’s heel as he guided us through the creaking wood.
The falling snow thickened until it pelted my reddened cheeks, the frost cutting what was once tender skin. The motionless trees grew closer together, then thinned once more.
Every once in a while, the wind would cease, and then start again with a slow trickle that whispered words through the branches, and I swore I heard it coaxing me off the path. Aelen wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me closer, whispering, “Don’t listen to it. Ignore it.”
Then the forest would unsettle again, enraged at the rejection, and the blizzard would blow with such force that we were practically knocked from our feet.
A loud crack rang across the forest. Aelen grabbed me by my collar, yanking me to the side of the path. Not even a second later, a large branch crashed where I was standing.
Large enough, it would have crushed me, but Aelen said nothing of my near death experience and pushed me onward.
Finally, the trees condensed until only a thin, snaking path remained. We followed it, the blizzard fighting us the whole way.
Right as I thought it would never end, the trees bowed out to a wide, barren ledge, with the makings of marbled ruins in the distance.
The other side of the fateful, shattered bridge.
“This is the way up," Aelen said. "You can go say your goodbyes. I’ll stay right here. The forest is too far to bother you.”
My gaze darted to his clutched lantern. “What about the shadows?” Being far from the trees has never stopped them. They were everywhere in Eltide, shifting and moving in ways shade should not. They terrified me almost as much as the forest did.
“The shadows won’t bother you either,” he quipped, a little too quickly.
I pursed my lips, my feet frozen in place.
He finally shot the lantern out, its broken light rocking across the path and shuddering trees. “Take it, I’ll be alright without it.”
I wasn’t certain if I’d be fine with or without it.
But I forced my feet ahead, the snow crackling beneath my boots.
The wind was violent up here. With no thick trunks to shelter me, I had to face the full wrath of the gales.
Ice assailed me, and every time I dared to breathe, the tempest whisked my misted breath away.
The gorge was lightless, now closer to an endless abyss. But as the void drew me nearer, my hackles raised. Something was missing, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it—until it rushed into me like a flood.
The river made no noise. Before, when I'd jumped from the other side, the roar was ear splitting. But now, the only sound was the blizzard’s shriek.
I held my breath, and my chest tightened as I fought to listen, but when I focused beyond the shrill cry of wind, there was only silence.
No deafening crash of water.
The pale light did hardly anything to illuminate the nothingness below, but finally, when I dipped the lantern as low as I could, it illuminated the unmoving, petrified river.
It froze over.
Only a few months ago it was violent enough to nearly steal my life and didn’t have a single bit of slush or ice.
The curse has already spread to the divide between Ilyatria and Eltide.
The realization wasn’t just chilling, it nearly brought me to my knees.
But I still had to say goodbye, I’d tell Aelen of the river in a moment.
When I raised the lantern and spread its glow across the cliffs, my heart knocked so hard I thought it might stop. That the tightness would overtake me.
On the other side of the chasm, pikes stood tall, jagged teeth from jaws of rock.
An endless line impaled with uncountable, bloodied heads.
Dark, rotting eyes gaped across the gorge, wide and recognizable. Members of the king’s guard, peasants who hid in the shadows of the Underquarter…
And Thelena. Her red hair billowed around her, the locks matted in dark, bloodied patches.
I fell back a step. My hand went to my mouth, muffling the scream.
He’d killed her. I whipped the light around to see the end of the line of pikes. It went as far as the cliffs allowed the glow to reveal, with Hrothgir's head among the slaughtered peasantry. His own man.
He hadn’t just murdered Thelena—he’d killed them all.
This time, I couldn’t muffle my scream. I collapsed onto the rock and ice.
But the bastard lantern wouldn’t stop shining and cast its horrid rays on their foreheads, where a mark had been carved into the flesh—a mark I knew all too well, plastered around the city, written in every prayer book, and even spiraled into the metal amulet they forced me to wear.
The mark of Ovatar.
I screamed again, the sound wrenching from me and shredding my throat. I tried to stand, but could only manage fumbling upward and swinging straight into Aelen’s waiting arms. But he was a noose around me, and no matter how much I gasped for air, I couldn’t breathe.
The lantern rocked, and his gaze found the horror across the gorge, his arms tightening with the dreadful knowledge.
“Gods,” he gasped.
I sobbed, sinking once again to my uneasy knees. I tried to stand. I really did. But it felt like I was being torn in two.
“Lorelana—”
“We have to go,” I cried. Lingering here any longer wasn’t going to fix this. He didn’t fight me when I swept from the cliff’s edge and retreated to the forest. He kept at my heel and straightened me when I careened too far to either side.
My retreat hastened, and the world around me numbed.
The ice no longer cut in with fire; it was nothing at all.
I’d languished here while he’d been culling an entire kingdom.
And I had considered saying goodbye and never going back.
How could I be so stupid? I’d let this go on far too long, and they were dead.
They were all dead, and it was my fault.