Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
- AYC -
R eality slips away.
Sometimes, Ayc awakes to find a dozen wedding cakes and bowls of chocolate pudding leaping and dancing around the room and sometimes he falls asleep to find Tavish wearing Saga on his head like a hat. Or perhaps it is the other way around.
He wakes to find a baby dragon nipping at his toes, and when he jerks away, he wakes again to find Avabeth telling him he’s all right—or no, it isn’t Avabeth. It’s Wylder laughing in his face and giving his most common taunt, “You’ll never have her, fool. Lora is immortal. You won’t even be a line in the chapter of her life.” Wylder always did see things about Ayc no one else noticed.
Ayc dreams of Peregrin teaching him to fight and Lora working skilled fingers at a loom to weave the tapestry that already hangs above his bed at Wyntra. All of it seems both profoundly real and not real at all, wrapped in a dreamlike quality. The only moments that hold any clarity are when he wakes to vomit and retch until a healer comes with more medicine. Those are the moments he wishes he could forget.
He dreams of Bronwen kneeling beside his bed, her hands curled together on the side of it, the way he has seen people from Lux Aester pray. That’s how he knows it’s a dream.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
Saga, who is snuggled close to Ayc’s side, raises his head. Saga’s body is warm, and for once, Ayc isn’t cold.
Bronwen lifts her head. “Praying.”
Ayc rubs a hand over Saga’s ears until the dog rests his head back on Ayc’s chest. “I would have thought you would want nothing to do with the divine,” he tells Bronwen.
She climbs off her knees and sits on the chair beside his bed. “I didn’t for a while, and I certainly understand someone who would abandon everything they’ve been taught and not look back. Marcellus and the priests preached so often about how the divine hated me for who I am. But there was a sorcerer at Velphin who taught me that the divine created me, and so therefore, cannot possibly hate me.” Her voice fades, becoming more distant, like an echoing lullaby. “I don’t believe in the divine Lux Aester teaches about. That divine is merely a weapon they choose to use to oppress others. But I do believe in the divine as the Totus Omni believe in. The divine is in everything. In nature. In you and in me. It’s a force that connects us and loves us. I feel it within me, and most certainly in my magic.”
Ayc shrugs and murmurs, “If you say so.”
“Growing up in Lux Aester, they tried to take a lot of things from me. They can’t take my faith, and no one else can judge me for choosing to hang on to it. ”
She blurs and multiplies into two. Ayc blinks rapidly but can’t make the two Bronwens forge together. “What were you praying for?”
“You.”
“Waste of prayer, don’t you think? I’m a lost cause. You should pray Lora sees sense and gets back to the Trials.”
Bronwen scoffs. “She could no more leave you than the Ever River could flow backward.”
Ayc narrows his eyes, but that only makes his vision worsen, so he relaxes his face again. “Why?”
“Go to sleep, Ayc.”
“I am asleep.”
Saga with wings.
Endless pans of cinnamon rolls piled on every inch of floor and towering toward the ceiling.
His mother tightening the bracelets on his wrist.
Avabeth giving him more medicine.
Gryphons the size of toy horses galloping around Ayc’s head.
A healer with earrings shaped like leaves bending over Ayc with a frown upon their face. But this image appears sharper and more real than what has come before. When Ayc tries to open his eyes fully, the sunlight in the room slams into his temples like hammers. He shuts them again.
“Well?” demands a voice. Lora. He knows her voice, like a song stuck in his head, repeating over and over though he’s tried desperately to make it stop.
“The Lux Aester healers are correct,” the healer says. Their voice is soft, feminine, but confident. Ayc remembers vaguely that Peregrin said something about a Totus Omni healer. Perhaps, this is them. “I do not recognize the poison. The test that might show us comes back muddled. Perhaps, it is undetectable, or perhaps, it’s many different poisons.”
A body shifts beside Ayc, fur wrestling beneath his hand. Saga is still here, and Ayc brushes a hand down his back to confirm that no wings have grown on the dog. Yes, Ayc is awake. Maybe. His head is so full of clouds, and his bones are sos leaden from whatever medication he’s getting, he’s not quite sure.
“I spoke to the head healer,” the Totus Omni healer continues, “and I think you can trust him. Marcellus has power here, yes. But the healer’s oath is a sacred one, and not one any of them will break. They are doing all they can to help him.”
“That’s it?” Lora asks. “You can’t do anything else?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then what good are you?” Her words are a hiss, cold and cruel.
The healer’s own voice remains gentle. “I am sorry for your pain, Lora. Keep giving him the gryphon feathers. Keep reminding him why he needs to stay. That’s the only thing advice I can give.”
Footsteps pound against the wood; a door slams. Saga whines. A moment later, Ayc hears Lora’s laughter as he tumbles from a make-shift stage, over and over and over. He could live in this moment forever. It’s a good moment.
Good things. If he is to die, he will make sure he only dreams of good things.
Ayc wakes with silver at his throat and before his eyes. Shadows swirl around him, stroke his skin with unseen fingertips, and block out the entire world except for the woman before him, her burning silver eyes, and the knife she holds at his throat. Lora, his Lora, holds a knife to his throat like she has countless times before. But this time, it feels different. She is looking at him differently, her eyes unguarded as she stares, transfixed at his mouth.
A voice says: “Do you want something, villainess?”
It’s his voice, but it’s a challenge he would not normally utter. She yanks her gaze up to his, and he raises his eyebrows in a dare. Her own eyes harden, deepening in a near-black purple. And then she buries her other hand in his hair, holding his head in place as she marries her lips to his.
His first thought is: This is a dream. It must be a dream.
And his next is: Fuck it, I don’t care.
Then there are no more thoughts. Warmth and sweetness overpower every one of his senses, until his existence broils down to the places where their lips connect. Her tongue darts out and drags a line across his mouth, and he opens for her and sucks her in. This is… this better than he ever imagined. Here is the fire he’s always felt, burning hot as she nips at his bottom lip, flaring even hotter as she moans when he bites back. They burn as bright and sharp as every tongue lashing they’ve exchanged, as hot as every profession of hate. And more. It is so much more than anything he has ever felt before, so much sweeter than anything he’s ever tasted, so much better than… anything.
She breaks away and shoves him in the chest. He falls backward, spiraling downward through the swirling shadow. And he lands on a bed. His bed. In the midst of the shadow swirling above him, Lora is astride him in the dark. And fuck, she’s utterly bare. And so is he. Her naked, wide thighs press against either side of his hips. Her breasts hang, full and heavy, as she hovers over him. Her curved stomach grazes over him. There isn’t an inch of her that is not perfection, that fails to live up to his every imagination. And fuck, he has imagined her a lot, laying in this same bed, taking himself in his hand. He always knows he’ll hate himself after, for letting his feelings and fantasies loose, but he could never stop himself. He’s certainly not about to stop now.
He reaches toward her, but sharp steel whispers near the skin on his sternum. “If you move,” she taunts, “I’ll cut you.”
Ayc places his hands obediently back at his side. She trails the knife point over one side of his chest and across the other, never breaking skin. She grins viciously as his cock jumps behind her, grazing over her full ass.
“This is what you want?” she taunts as she reaches the hand not holding the knife between them and wraps her fingers around him. He pulls so hard on the sheets he hears a rip.
“All you have to do is say please, Ayc,” Lora says.
Some part of him wants to fight, because fighting with her is so fucking good . But who is he kidding? He's a desperate man dying of thirst, and she is the only thing that will quench his need. And if this is just a hallucination of a dying man in a hospital bed, then he wants this one last dream to burn vivid in his brain when he draws his last breath.
“For fuck’s sake, Lora,” he growls. “ Please .”
Her eyes burn silver as she lowers herself onto him. At the first inch, she lets out a groan, like she, too, is relieved this game between them is done. That he’s let her win .
“For the record,” she gasps, when she’s fully seated upon him, “I still hate you.”
The shadows shift, concealing everything once more. And when it clears again, she’s moving in the dark above him. She fucks him like she hates him, with a mercilessness he has admired as she dances with her blades. The shadows give him only brief fragments of images, and each one is perfect. Her hair streaming behind her as she throws her head back. The moonlight brushing against her brown skin. Her free hand clamping around her breast, as his own fingers ache with jealousy.
The tip of the knife slides along his skin. The fierce stroke of silver, compared to her softness, makes him groan. He is already on the edge, and he barely clings onto it. But, no, not yet. He’s not done yet. Not done watching. Not done listening to the little noises she makes as she uses his body for her pleasure. All these years, from the time he met her, he made it his unspoken mission to make her laugh. And when she finally did, he thought he never heard a sound so beautiful, but he likes these just as well. And he hasn't had enough; he’s not sure how he will ever have enough of her, but he will cling to every moment he has.
So, he seizes her thighs in his hands. A sharp sting pricks at his skin, and a drop of blood, hot and sticky, slips down his side. Shadows overcome him, and when they clear, his hand is already between her thighs, his thumb working slowly around her clit. Her whimper vibrates his tongue as he kisses her. The knife has moved back to his throat, but it doesn’t stop him as he thrust up inside her, burying himself deeper and deeper.
He buries his face in her neck and breathes her in. Fucking anise .
This is better, so much better than anything he has ever felt. Because no one has ever been her .
“Did you know I’ve spent my whole life wanting to make you laugh, villainess?”
She shakes her head.
“And now that I have…” He circles his thumb faster, drives into her harder. She throws back her head. “My new life’s goal is to make you scream.”
“Ayc!”
It’s not Lora’s voice that yells his name. It comes from Ayc’s right, loud enough his eyes fly open.
Open?
Ayc’s breath comes uneven. He searches around him, frantically trying to make sense of his surroundings. The hospital room. Tavish who leans over him, shaking his shoulder. Saga whining on his other side.
Fuck, he was dreaming. Of course, he knew all along he was dreaming. Only in dreams does Lora ever want him back.
“You were groaning,” Tavish says, worry written in the lines between his brow. “Are you all right?”
A wretch of nausea rips Ayc’s stomach open. He manages “Don’t tell Lora,” before he turns to heave into the chamberpot beside the bed.
Yes, this is reality.
- LORA -
A hand taps Lora’s shoulder, and she jerks her head upright. She must have finally dozed off for the first time in over thirty hours, her head slumped against the wall. Xylie sits in the chair next to her, the white of her eyes wide in the light of the single lantern on the wall. In the window, the darkness of night has faded to a deep violet. Peregrin and Tavish are asleep on the floor. Bronwen and Saga must be in with Ayc.
Tavish’s faithful dog has hardly left Ayc’s side. After the convulsions stopped the first time and Ayc slipped into sleep, sedated by whatever drugs the healers gave him to stop the seizure, Ayc’s teeth still chattered and his whole body shook. No amount of blankets Lora piled around him did any good. As though knowing, Saga jumped onto the bed beside Ayc and rested his head gently on his chest. Only then did Ayc stop shaking. Saga has been there ever since, only leaving when Tavish takes him outside to stretch and take care of his basic needs.
Lora is grateful that something has given Ayc relief. Nothing else has seemed to help. Whatever poison Marcellus gave him is merciless and fierce. If not for the gryphon feathers Tempest has donated, Ayc would certainly have been dead by now. The medicines the healers give him stop the convulsions—but only for a time. They stop the vomiting—but only for a time. None of them have seemed to stop the hallucinations.
Ayc is breaking, right in front of her eyes. The poison will steal his life, but first, it is robbing him of his sanity, of his silliness, of everything Ayc is. And it is killing her.
Every moment she’s wanted to scream, to make a deal with the divine to swap their places, to burn everything down to the ground if it means she can save him. But she can do none of it. She can see the hope slipping slowly from the other four: the tears that crust Xylie’s lashes, and the grayness that deepens in Peregrin’s face. She must be strong for them, so she’s tried to force herself to be numb, like her skin is made of ice. If she lets herself feel, she feels the ice cracking, whining as though it threatens to shatter. She fears that, soon, even a snowflake might send her plunging beneath, drowning in the pain.
But for now, she simply takes a deep breath.
Xylie’s hands move in the dark. “I have a plan. I had to observe for a while to be sure, but I think it will work.”
Lora glances to Erech, who is asleep against the door once more. Still, she signs back. “A plan to do what?”
“For me to escape here and go to Velphin.”
Lora blinks at her cousin, but she looks absolutely serious. "No," Lora signs swiftly. Whatever plan Xylie has, Lora is sure it’ll work, but that’s beside the point. She isn’t going to Velphin alone. It’s too dangerous.
The door to Ayc’s room opens, and Bronwen slips out. At the click of the lock, both Tavish and Peregrin stir. Lora’s eyes shift again to Erech, and this time she finds him watching.
Peregrin sits halfway up, but Tavish says, “I’ll go. I need to check on Saga.”
Tavish grabs his slender cane from the floor beside him and rises to his feet. The cane sweeps across the wood as he finds his way past Bronwen and into the room with Ayc. The door shuts, and Erech works his neck before settling back down on his pallet before the door and shutting his eyes.
From across the room, Bronwen locks onto Xylie and Lora, and she must sense something because she draws near.
“What’s going on?” Bronwen signs.
“I want to go to Velphin,” Xylie signs back. “I have a plan. ”
Lora watches Bronwen carefully for her reaction. Bronwen is the only one who has been to Velphin. She’ll uniquely understand the dangers that Xylie would face. Bronwen’s eyes widen, only a fraction, but enough that Lora sees it.
Xylie must see it too, because her gestures grow more urgent. “I can’t do anything for Ayc here, but I can help him—and you, Lora—if I go to Velphin.”
“Marcellus is going to win,” Lora signs, hating every gesture she makes to spell out the bastard’s name. To Xylie and Bronwen, it’s time she admitted it.
Xylie’s shoulders slump as she gazes at the chronicler on Lora’s wrist, and Bronwen goes pale as the moonlight, all color draining from her cheeks. She's paler than when they were in that pit of snakes. After all, Bronwen has told Lora of the cruelty Marcellus wrought upon her as a young child. He made Bronwen feel that she was wrong and broken, lies that inflicted wounds Bronwen still struggles to heal. This must be Bronwen's most dreaded nightmare.
And Lora hates herself for failing them both.
“I know,” Xylie signs. “And that’s why I need to go. Let me do this, or at least, let it be my choice. I know I can do it.”
Lora swallows, her mouth dry. She understands Xylie's desire to help her friend, but Xylie is her cousin. More than that Xylie’s father and Lora’s own were friends. From the time Xylie was a toddler, they ran through the trees of Elodie and in the heights of the Stella Rune Mountains. And when they both suffered unimaginable loss seven years ago, they survived it together. If there is one thing Lora cannot sacrifice to save Ayc, it’s Xylie.
But Lora has lived her life on a path she was forced to take; she will not take a decision from someone else .
She looks to Bronwen who studies Xylie carefully. Then Bronwen’s hands move. “If you’re going to do this, there are some things you need to know. Do not accept any deals with the Supreme sorcerer. Offer to pay them money. Nothing more. The Supreme is ancient and their magic is old. They know and wield magic that has otherwise long been forgotten. No deals. Understand?”
Xylie’s motion is confident. “I understand.”
Bronwen’s hands hover in the air and then fall. She nods at Lora.
Lora hesitates for one more breath before she signs, “Tell me your plan.”
Lora watches as Avabeth fusses over the blankets on Ayc, who still lays sleeping. Lora avoids looking at him directly, least she notice the signs that he is not comfortable, not at all: the sweat on his brow, the sallowness of his skin, the hitch in his breath. She focuses solely on Avabeth.
The girl would make a great healer, if she was born in a different clan or a different sex. Maybe, her husband sees it too, and that’s why the male has allowed her to come back and tend to Ayc, which she has done frequently over the last day. It has been Avabeth’s movements that Xylie has been watching, the one who Xylie’s plan formed around. They need her help if this is to succeed, and Xylie cannot ask her, so here Lora is.
Before Lora entered the room, Bronwen insisted, “ Ask her. Do not threaten her.”
Pity. That would be far easier .
“Can I ask you something, Avabeth?” Lora asks, trying to stick to the script she rehearsed in her head.
Avabeth keeps her eyes low and folds her hands demurely before her. “Yes, my lady.”
“Did you like the cake Ayc made for you?”
She blinks. “Yes. It was incredibly kind.”
“Would you repay him if you could?”
She shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Lora moves around the bed that separates them. Avabeth freezes in place, her eyes wide. Lora knows that she shouldn’t intimidate her, but she can’t help it. She has no time to be more gentle. She is taking a risk, telling Avabeth their plan. But it’s the only chance they have.
“I need your help. Ayc needs your help.”
Avabeth studies Ayc, breathing softly in the bed, his skin nearly blending into the white blankets beneath him.
“What do you need me to do?” she says at last, looking back at Lora. A spark flashes briefly in her blue eyes.
A little bit of courage. That’s all she has. It’s all Lora needs.
Twenty minutes later, Lora watches Xylie walk from the waiting room into Ayc’s room. The other three pretend they are still sleeping, exhausted from the lack of rest they got the day before. Erech glances up from sharpening his sword. He notes Xylie at the door, carefully counts who else is here, and then resumes dragging the stone over the edge of his blade. Xylie peeks back at Lora. Her face is framed in the hood of the colorful, blocked coat that Lora made her .
Lora makes a gesture, a single simple one: “ I love you.”
Xylie signs it back and then closes the door behind her.
It’s a couple of hours later when the door opens again. The hooded head hangs low as she hurries out and sits hard on the chair, her back to Erech. Erech watches her come out and Peregrin go in.
Even from her spot across the room, Lora can see that her hands shake. Her pale hands.
“Hide your hands,” Bronwen whispers from the chair beside Avabeth, and she tucks her hands into her sleeves.
Xylie’s coat and spare clothes fit Avabeth perfectly, just like Xylie knew they would. Xylie put them in a cupboard in Ayc’s room, just before she slipped out the window onto Tempest’s back. Avabeth snuck the spare key from her husband’s office so she can use the front door of Ayc’s hospital room. Erech is a brutal and efficient man, but he’s hardly an observant one. All he needs to see is the right number of bodies, and occasionally, a girl in a colorful coat.
The plan is working, and by now, Xylie and Tempest are flying toward the sea and the island of sorcerers who are Ayc’s last hope.