Chapter 18 #2
“Never again,” she swore, tugging her sleeves up to her shoulders.
Strands of hair clung to her face, the rest flowing down to her waist—tangled, unraveled, twisting with the cords of her half-open vest. If someone saw her now, they’d know exactly what she’d done.
Come to think of it, she had passed people but didn’t know if anyone had noticed her.
The walk up to Moorhafen didn’t calm her, nor did the lifeless granite surrounding her. It stood silent, hard and cold, just like Blainor’s face.
The air in her room felt heavy. From the window, the moors stretched to the horizon.
Blush crept over the fields, mingling with the hush of the night.
Everything reminded her of Blainor—his touch, his mouth.
Her skin smelled of him; that teasing scent of cedar had seeped into her every pore.
Even the faint hint of flowers carried a whiff of him.
With a scream, she tore the dead flowers from her hair.
One by one, they fell to the floor until a pile of white roses rested in heaps.
She lifted her boot, crushing the petals beneath her heel.
If only she could smother her memories, make them disappear.
No!
Trisha didn’t know if she’d said the word aloud or if it had been only in her head. She needed space. Independence. Freedom from the stone, from him, from the fear of facing him.
Without waiting, questioning, or asking herself what she was doing, Trisha’s sight landed on her lyre—sweeping it into her arms before leaving. She didn’t bother closing the door.
The air in the abandoned hallways was cold and musty. Silent, she moved through the rooms like a ghost, floorboards creaking under her feet. She ran down the stairs, through the vestibule, and under the purpure Dewingar banner. Out the door and across the yard into the stables.
The birds chirped. A rooster crowed. She hastened her steps, not wanting to encounter anyone who might witness her state.
They’d say, There goes the Warlord’s Bard. Did you see how she looked?
A sob escaped Trisha when her eyes met Dapple. Her horse and friend. She could always rely on him. Before Trisha knew it, she was up in the saddle, Dapple snorting with resignation. Though he didn’t resist as she guided him toward the portcullis and the road.
Her skirt bunched awkwardly. Cursing in a low voice, Trisha gathered it up to her knees. Dapple’s hooves struck against the sand, her lyre resting on her lap. She exhaled, telling herself it would be fine. She had what she needed.
The road. Dapple. Her lyre.
And yet—she turned in the saddle. The gray granite and moss-covered walls waited, the banners flapping. Had Blainor returned? Or was he still there by the beach, a ghost she’d left but who refused to leave her?
She squeezed her eyes shut, banishing the image of his face, the stricken expression, the pain in his eyes. Angrily, she wiped the stream of tears away, but the scent of cedar clung to her skin. Her sight grew blurry, but Dapple’s stride remained steady. He knew what she needed.
Just before the road dipped and Trisha dried most of the wetness from her face, a movement on a hill caught her eye. Her breath hitched. There, under the pale light, stood a figure. Karring Katla, the witch. Disappointment washed over her.
Katla stood atop the hill and watched Trisha ride out of Moorhafen. The witch’s dark clothes billowed around her, spider’s silk hair flowing in the wind. She didn’t move or speak; simply stood like a silent witness.
Trisha sucked in a breath as her grip tightened on Dapple’s reins. Why was the witch here? Her presence carved into the morning like an omen. As if she’d known this would happen. If this were the direction the ancestors had given her, she would follow.
“Let’s go,” Trisha commanded, pressing her calves against Dapple’s flanks. They rode away from the rising sun, to the west, to the twilight. To the Opening that awaited.
The journey along the shoreline went in a haze.
Her mind kept spiraling to the scene by the bonfire.
Blainor’s hands, lips, and those exquisite kisses still burned on her mouth.
How she’d fit against him, each soft curve molded against every hard shape of him.
The sea’s murmur carried from beyond the trees, the world filled with the receding gray of the vanishing night.
Alder and birch flanked her path, quiet and dreamlike, as though she were riding through a road that wasn’t.
Part of her mind resided in Blainor’s arms; the other part waited where her journey ended.
The stones stood where she’d left them: white, ragged forms by the shoreline where the high tide reached them.
The cold water stung her face, the wind yanking her hair.
Those silent shapes had stood here for centuries, since the fae had abandoned the mortal plane.
Trisha had always wondered if they knew the secret of why that had come to pass, if they waited for the fae to return.
To feel the honeysuckle magic rip through the air and return under the sun.
Dapple puffed out a breath. His feelings were a mixture of complaints about the water’s coldness, his starving belly, and worry for her.
He wanted them to return. Trisha’s shoulders tensed.
To turn back would mean facing Blainor, and she couldn’t.
Not after denying what he’d offered. She’d said ‘no,’ and Blainor Dewingar wasn’t a man who accepted refusal lightly from anyone.
Carefully, she took the lyre in her hands and plucked a chord, willing magic to coat the notes and open the portal.
Instead of a magic-laced song, only clear music filled the air—almost tinny, utterly normal.
Her power refused to come out, sinking deeper into her bones.
The lyre’s strings trembled in her hands, wanting to break.
“Insubordinate creature,” Trisha grumbled with a flicker of desperation and annoyance.
So many times she’d wanted to play without her magic’s interference, and now, this one time when she needed it, it defied her.
With a better grip of her lyre, she clenched her fingers on the wooden frame.
You will obey me, she told both the lyre and magic.
I must get away before I beg him to follow.
She grew feral, unable to stop. Only one thought burned in her—a need to run, to follow the road.
A memory of a pair of gray eyes, full of desire and pain, flashed in her mind.
Desperate, she reached deeper. Nothing. She plucked the strings again, forcing the magic to heed her.
Slow and sluggish, fighting with each chord she drew from her lyre, it came.
The music strained, the lyre trembled. Trisha wouldn’t yield, weaving a crazed melody with the wind.
It was mad, senseless, without direction.
Just random sounds played one after another.
The atonal, discordant song made her ears ring.
And yet, it felt right. Each furious note curling out claimed a piece of her sense of self.
Little by little, the magic stabilized, the lyre settling in Trisha’s hands.
The air rippled just as the first rays of the sun reached the shoreline—gold mingling with the eerie shine of the magical portal.
Trisha hesitated. The sea roared, the waves clashed against the stones, and salt clung to her skin.
Swallowing hard, she hung her head, the lyre pressed against her chest. For a moment, she teetered between the choices: an undue reckoning she’d escaped seven years ago or confrontation back at Moorhafen with Blainor.
I’ve seen how you watch me.
With a sob, she dashed through the light into the Undying Land, Dapple at her heel. The only things they left were imprints on the sand, quickly eroded by the wind and the restless waves.