Two Become One #2
The blacksmith screamed all the way until he landed in the water with a great splash. I was vaguely aware of a large bird diving toward the water after him.
Drayce reached a hand toward me, and momentary surprise flickered across his face when he realized that he could actually touch me. I felt his hand connect with my face—simply because I wanted him to touch me, he could.
“You’re doing wonderfully. Can you put some of your shadow magic into this ring?” He held out the dampener ring to me.
“I suppose since you asked so nicely.” I didn’t see why not. I wouldn’t even use the damn thing.
It was so easy to send a tendril snaking into the ring, making the glythyr glow and smoke.
“Thank you. Can I get the real Naci back now? Your shadows are devastatingly beautiful, but I prefer you solid.” He was looking at me in…awe, not fear.
I laughed and told my shadows it was time to go. It wasn’t as easy as it had been to recall the tendrils, but for Drayce, they obeyed and receded into my heart. I dropped back to the deck, and Drayce swiftly pulled me into his arms and held me tight.
“You did perfectly, Naci.”
I opened my eyes to find color rushing into my world as fast as emotions did. I had felt none at all in that form…
“My vey is just…shadow.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about that yet, but the onslaught of emotions had me crying before I could even process what had happened.
He kept his arms around me and said, “Except for your eyes. They glowed white. It was…beautiful. But more importantly, you listened to me.” He dropped his voice to a whisper as I realized nearly the entire crew was watching us now, making my cheeks grow hot.
“Something you and your vey form share in common is a desire to obey me.”
I pushed away from him with an embarrassed smile as he wrapped me in his coat—my flames had burned my clothes off. There were too many deeper things to care about right now than my nakedness.
This male thought I was beautiful even as a shadow with eerie glowing eyes and a demonic voice.
Shadows and glowing eyes that reminded me of the shadow stag, the demon deer, from the banshee’s trial. Had it been made of the same magic that I possessed?
I shivered when I remembered the moments of insurmountable pain when its shadows wrapped around me. I hoped mine weren’t capable of causing such immense agony.
Or maybe I hoped they could when I thought of Caedryn.
“We’ll, uh, leave you two alone…” Bramick said, shepherding everyone off the top deck.
As I heard the blacksmith’s distant yell of fury, I assumed Aerie had scooped him out of the water. I found that, even back in my fae form, I still didn’t feel bad for what I’d done to him.
“Sevrin, I didn’t hurt you, did I?” I asked as he passed.
“I am fine, thank you. You did well. Maybe after a night or two of rest, we will test your dampener. It may be the only way to control the shadows when not in your vey form.”
I nodded, and he left.
“Do you want to talk about the…experience?” Drayce asked me when we were alone.
“No. I want to process it all, if that’s okay.” The fact that the shadow monster in my chest, which I had feared for so long, was actually just me was unsettling, and I needed to absorb it before I could even voice it to Drayce. To anyone.
“Of course. I’m here when you’re ready. I’m going to get some sleep for a few hours. You can join me if you’d like.”
I smiled at him as he kissed my temple.
He turned to leave, stopping, though, to say, “You showed restraint, Naci, even if you didn’t intend to or know it. You didn’t kill Brennor. Your shadows aren’t bad.”
With a small smile, he walked away, and I realized how exhausted and spent I was. He was right, though. My shadows had wanted to kill, but…
There was so much to process, and I wasn’t sure that I enjoyed being in my vey form. It was extremely unsettling, the…lack of feeling. The duality in my heart made me nervous, but at least my shadows had done what I asked—not harming the ones I care about.
But those that I didn’t? It seemed my shadows didn’t care whether others lived or died. That would be dangerous anywhere but in the presence of family.
Weirder still was how willingly they obeyed Drayce, all jokes aside. I didn’t know why and couldn’t even begin to fathom it.
I supposed he was as good a fail-safe as the magic-blocking ring.
The good news was that I now understood the “beast.” And if I let my vey form blow off steam from time to time, our pact made me believe I was safe from explosions.
Maybe the shadow wielders of the past didn’t have a Drayce. Or maybe their beasts inside hadn’t been so willing to compromise.
Or maybe I was just scratching the surface of my dark powers…
After thinking through the events over and over, and then just staring at the ocean with no thoughts for a while, I took a deep breath and headed back into the main cabin to find it empty except for Bramick.
“Impressive display,” he said with a grunt, filling an empty glass with red wine and sliding it across the table. He seemed shaken.
I sat down in front of it and took a long sip.
“You know what I found interesting?” He gave me a knowing grin.
“Save it, Bramick.” I knew he was going to bring up Drayce and me. I realized with a rush of embarrassment that he’d held me, touched my face in front of everyone.
It was embarrassing to know there had been so many witnesses to our…situation, but it also made me smile. It hadn’t been possessive or clingy. It had been genuine and warm. Not claiming, but grounding.
“Has he told you why he doesn’t let his vey form out?”
I stilled. “No…”
“Course not, the closed-off dunce.” He laughed, but I clung to every word, hoping I might finally understand why Drayce was so reserved and non-forthcoming. “I doubt he’ll tell you, so I don’t mind being the one to. You should know if you’re gonna…ya know.”
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t “gonna” anything yet. We’d slept together, and it had been a spectacular night, but I needed to figure out, after this was all over, if that had been the nerves and fear, or genuine feelings.
Bramick cleared his throat and looked down at his glass. “When Drayce was a child, something happened. I wasn’t there, and the ones who were don’t talk about it anymore, from what I understand.”
My chest tightened.
“All I know,” he continued, “is that he lost everyone that night. And he never once blamed the world for it. He blamed himself. Whatever his vey is…it isn’t small.
And it isn’t kind. And I know he’s terrified that if he ever lets it loose again, there won’t be anything left worth saving—of him, or the ones he loves. ”
I remembered Drayce telling me his whole family had died when he was young. My heart felt as if it was being squeezed in a vice. Had he accidentally killed everyone he loved while in his vey form? Maybe his first transformation?
“You’re the first thing I’ve ever seen in the decade that I’ve known him that makes him forget he’s afraid of himself.”
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream and rage and take it all away from Drayce, because everything about him made sense to me now.
And if Bramick had known him for ten years and had never seen his vey form, then Drayce must be battling every day inside to keep it contained, if it was anything like mine.
I looked at the closed door of Drayce’s cabin and wanted so badly to go in and hold him.
He’d told me he would let his out if I let mine out… At the time, I just hadn’t known how serious that was. I wanted so badly to see it, but not at the cost of Drayce’s fears coming to life.
“I wouldn’t press it with him, but I thought you should know.”
“Thank you, Bramick, for being a good friend to him and to me. I never thanked you for what you said in that war council meeting before we left base. It meant…so much to me. You, Aerie, Kellan, and Drayce have never seen me as anything other than just a girl—not fae, not mortal. Just me. You’ve never feared me. You gave me a chance.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m downright, shit-my-pants kind of scared of you, fireball.” He let out a bellow of a laugh that got me laughing, too, and after a few beats, we were both clutching our stomachs from laughing so hard, tears coming to the corners of my eyes.
It was as if fate was giving me something to live and fight for once more, giving me these moments with the family I had chosen for myself.
I hadn’t had that feeling since Nella. I just prayed to the gods that it wasn’t all in vain.
That they weren’t going to take it all away in our final battle, once I’d finally let my heart love again after such devastation and failure.
I’d failed my loved ones and learned to love again. If I could, then Drayce could too.
With that thought, I smiled, kissing Bramick on the cheek before I headed toward Drayce’s cabin.
I slipped silently into his bed, where he was breathing deeply, clearly asleep.
I didn’t want to wake him, but I wanted so desperately to hold him, so I lightly wrapped an arm around him and nuzzled into the back of his neck.
He didn’t stir, but I swore I heard a slight sigh the next time he breathed out.
* * *
A week passed on the ship after that first night before I even thought to attempt my shadows again.
The dampener ring had remained on the side table next to Drayce’s bed, where I’d slept every night since.
We were only a couple days out from where we would drop anchor off the coast, according to the aerial scouts, so a somber mood had settled over the entire team.
In just a couple days, we’d be stepping deep into enemy territory.
My home continent.
It was now or never, so after a bare-bones sandwich for lunch, I returned to the upper deck with Sevrin and Drayce, the dampener ring clutched in my fist.
They each nodded to me before I slipped the ring onto the middle finger of my right hand. I didn’t feel anything immediately, but the glythyr’s glow and smoke intensified.
I called to the shadows in my heart, envisioning a tendril coming to life in my hand.