Chapter 27
All appeared like melted stained glass, distorted and painted in blocks of color that washed into each other. I saw neither depth nor details as blood poured down my waist and leg, leaving me teetering away from life.
“Hold on, Rhoswen. We are near.” Edith sounded distant and dire, and I barely felt her hold me at the waist.
All I felt was broken bones, burning in my leg. But, gods, I was cold. You’ll die here, resurrected in my head, and Deceit let it drown both him and my thoughts. I breathed in to speak, but no words came. Air hardly left.
Faded behind the hazy scenery, a mare’s neigh loomed in the layers of distance. Ivory specks bounded in a mass of leaden fur. My neck was tossed back, Skye pressing her wetted nostrils on me. She neighed again, wedging against me. Then, an ebony curtain whisked over the melted glass, vanishing at the ends like mist. As it neared, the blanket morphed into a silhouette.
“What has happened?” A masculine voice rumbled, and it met me like arms of safety. His hands tussled my cloak, and I shivered against the cold air.
“We were attacked,” Edith said with urgency.
A silence was lasting, and I was taken from Edith and set against another. Swathed in black fabrics, I finally gleaned a sliver of warmth. The lands smelled like sage. I rested against Alistair. My head raised and lowered with his chest.
“Alistair, I do not have potions to heal her.”
“I do.” He set his fingers beneath my chin and lifted my face.
“Can you hear me, Rhoswen?”
I managed a blink, staring into the eyes of black diamonds that caught no dawn, fire, or moonlight. Eyes that made my breath flutter, but my breath was too weak to flutter this day.
Sweeping hairs from my face, he tucked stray strands behind my ear, severity in his gaze. He looked at each shape and line that drew my face. Time slowed in this moment, though that may have only been the effects of my failing body.
His reach lowered—one hand at my back and one behind my legs. Alistair lifted me from the ground, and I was cradled in his arms. Cradled in warmth and sage, feet hovering over cobblestone. Breaths tried to knock into my lungs. I fought for air, but it was too thin.
I attempted to focus on Alistair’s sharp jaw, his thin lips, the hairs covering his brow and ears, but all began to fade as my eyes closed.
“Stay awake, Rhoswen.” As all appeared far, his voice sounded so near.
“Stay awake.”
Sleep. A soft voice echoed.
Deceit hissed.
Sleep to never awake, she said. Let your crimson hands fall lifeless.
I could not speak to the voice. Behind my eyelids, a subtle luminescence peaked through the dark. Whitened hands clawed, draped in eerie light, and a young woman revealed herself with snarling lips and swelling eyes. Amelia.
Deceit swelled in my mind.
Murderer, she said, and sang a disturbing laugh as Deceit cast her spirit away.
A door opened, the hinges creaked, and any light bowed to the shadows once the door shut, us sequestered in the dark. I was set upon a couch, Alistair vanished, and my skin withered in the cold. I held onto myself through painful shivers. For a moment, I was left to die alone, but hums of firelight began to fill the room, snuffing out shadows and radiating heat.
Glass clanked nearby.
I squinted in the fire’s glow, seeing an assortment of bottles set at the table beside me. Some were dull and lifeless, while others twirled in starlight.
“What do you need from me?” Edith dawdled in the background.
Alistair rolled his sleeves and plucked out a couple of vials.
“Remove her cloak. I need to see the wound.” He studied a scarlet potion, his eyes honing in on the beads of pulsing thunder. He then looked at me. Back to the bottle, then at me again. Each second, his attention was divided, as if he were waiting for the moment my eyes would roll back.
I lay there, shivering, watching him. Waiting for rescue, waiting for death—I didn’t know yet.
Edith laid a wool blanket upon my legs and began to remove my cloak. Fighting tattered fabrics, she peeled back each layer, and blood spilled.
Alistair knelt beside me, his fingers rough on my stomach.
“Gods,” he uttered, not allowing his stone demeanor to crumble. There was devoted concentration set in his eyes and in each movement taken between me and the potions.
“Aunt, fetch a basin of water and rags from the kitchen,” he said, parting the sea of red from my skin over and again. No footsteps sounded, and Alistair bit down. “Now.”
Feet knocked the floor, hinges creaked, and the door latched.
Alistair held my blood at bay with a palm pressed hard against my side. With his other hand, he fetched the scarlet potion, put the cork between his teeth, and yanked it off with a pop. My nose ached with the smell of sulfur.
He spat out the cork.
“Rhoswen, drink.”
Command was offered obedience—I had no other choice. Lifting myself with what strength I could give, Alistair set his hand behind my head and helped me rise, then set the vial to my lips. It tasted as bad as it smelled. Worse, even. And, stronger than the smell, it burned. Sliding down my throat, it was like a hundred needles held together by sludge.
The potion pooled in my stomach and drifted to my ribs, as though it knew exactly where to go. The heat rose and thundered through each of my veins, my skin, my hair. A gasp ripped into my lungs, air meeting me like water to the thirsty.
A potion of vitality.
My eyes widened. I looked around, my hazy vision becoming defined.
I lay on a crimson couch. Unlit torches and candles peppered the quarters. Quarters I did not know. The windows were mucky, the hearth was in flames, and shadows danced along the walls and shelves. A table was stationed at the other end of the chamber, where scrolls upon scrolls were piled in a pyramid.
I then saw the man, that black silhouette, who had taken me here.
My blood covered Alistair’s skin, hands to forearm, before fading into his shirt. Black eyes hid between his messy hair, studying my skin while taut shoulders flexed in the firelight as he held me up. Veins mapped his arm. His jaw was tight and his brows hard.
With a weary breath, I whispered his name.
He chased the air, finding me with those dark eyes. My heart tugged. I could not tell if it was relief or alarm in his temper. Maybe it was both. Kneeling before me, his lips began to move, but his words were formless. It was becoming deafening, those unspoken things between us.
I let out a deep groan, my stomach tensing in ache. I held myself, blood pooling through my fingers before vanishing into the red couch. I gasped and inhaled to tell him anything, to speak, to know that I could speak, but every fiber in my face tensed and shut my lips.
Alistair reached behind him, taking a potion of night and moon. He set it down and picked up another filled with clear liquid like thick water.
Wiping the sticky hairs from my face, he set his palm upon my wound, and hushed.
“Rhoswen, be still. You will be all right.” Holding me in his eyes, Alistair then shifted attention to my stomach.
His hands rummaged through blood and fabrics, touching my bare skin, and leaving me with one, disastrous question—
How did my heart feel so alive when death was so near?
Another pop sounded, and another potion fell from its vial. It pooled upon my skin, drifting down where the blood outpoured, and then I felt nothing. The potion was neither hot nor cold, wet nor dry. My flesh lost all feeling, becoming numb.
My tension unraveled, every piece of me at ease… except for my pounding heart.
“What was that?” I asked, lifting my spinning head only enough to see him.
“A numbing potion, though it does not heal.” He returned his attention to the potions.
I took a slow breath.
“Alistair—”
His eyes followed my voice, and his thumb pressed to my lips, silencing my words and any thought I could possibly conjure. Any thought, except how his skin was rough and warm against mine.
“You need to be silent, Rhoswen.” Sage carried on his breath.
“Whatever strength you have, you need to keep.”
One corner of my lips curled slightly, and I couldn’t help myself. His thumb followed the line of my lips, and his skin was coarse. Calloused. Where our eyes met, a nigh grin flitted across his face.
Alistair returned to his potions, taking another of sapphire flames. It stirred in the glass, teeming with life. He opened the container, and odors of soot and ash filled the air, chased away by salt.
The door kicked open, a cold gust sending shivers across my skin. The embers almost died. Edith stepped inside, waddling with a silver basin in her hands, ivory linens wedged between her arms. She lugged to my side.
“How is she?” Edith asked. Her plump cheeks had been flattened out and lost color.
“Alive,” I managed to hush in a breath.
Alistair’s lips tugged at one end, his dimple catching the soft light.
“Hush, Rhoswen.”
Edith’s eyes widened at the sight of the potion. She tucked her wavy hair behind her ears and asked in shock.
“Nephew, is that Everflame?”
“It is.”
“How have you come by this?”
Alistair spoke low and measured.
“Clean the wound, Aunt. We need to be precise. This is all I’ve managed to craft, so every drop is vital.”
Water splashed and rang in the basin. Edith set the wet rag upon my stomach, the water warm. It saturated my skin and melted away winter, apart from where Alistair’s potion had left me numb. Once my pale skin showed, Alistair set the potion above me.
Patiently, he tilted the glass. A blue flame, no larger than a drop of water, trickled down, flickering in the air. The luminescence reflected in Edith’s awestruck eyes, and we all watched as breathing magic descended. The flame met my skin, and it broke into a dozen pieces, burrowing into my flesh. My veins then glowed like sapphire, much like the aurora lights.
There was something so beautiful, so fragile about it. But then, a repugnant odor wafted from my wound—burning flesh. Blue veins turned to wet skin, sloshing into the wound, filling the crater, melding together. I gawked.
My flesh was stitching itself together with no thread and no needle.
This was magic, crafted by the hands of man.
Alistair let the entire potion fall to my skin, fire droplets raining down, and my body easing as magic stormed through me. The final drop fell. The bleeding ceased, my wet skin had hardened, and the wound was cauterized. I was healed.
And for a moment, we all remained still. I only heard my heart in my ears, the breath down my throat, and the cracking embers. In the stillness, my eyes began to close. Rest, tempting.
“Rhoswen,” Alistair said in that inherent, deep voice.
“How do you feel?”
I’m all right, I said within myself, my lips refusing to move, my tongue refusing to speak.
He cupped my cheek.
“Tell me you are well, and I will leave you to rest.”
My tired eyes widened, looking at his. And, dammit, my lips tugged again. And so did his. He wiped the sweat from my brow, and I closed my eyes.
“Rhoswen—”
“I’m all right,” I said with closed eyes and that dumb grin on my face.
“I will fetch her tea.” Edith’s footsteps sounded near, then far. The door drummed one beat at her back, and the iron latched.
Alistair’s hand fell with the crescent of my neck. I narrowly opened my eyes, watching him stand. He took a fresh cloth from the pile, plunged it in the waters, and wrung it over the basin. Studying me again, he set the cloth on my skin, stroking away the hardened blood. Then, he froze, his eyes following the scar of my father’s hatred.
Lying on my side, I set my hands under the pillow, snuggling deeper into the cushions with heavy eyes.
“I am honest about some things,” I hushed, watching him examine the scar from end-to-end.
Reluctantly, he tore his eyes away and lifted the blanket over me.
“Of everything you have told me, I wish this to be a lie.” His voice did not disturb the quiet, speaking softly. He lowered the blanket, setting the trim at my shoulders.
My eyes followed his spine as he walked from me until he fell into the makings of the dark.
“Thank you, Alistair,” I whispered in an easy breath.
I was unsure whether he had heard me, but then his voice carried kindly across the quarters.
“Rest well, Rhoswen.”
And once more, I obeyed his commands, the warm wool pressing me down into my dreams.
…
A startle quaked the quarters.
“What have you done?” A voice stifled.
Deceit dwelled in the corner of my mind, quiet and brooding.
It took me a moment to gather myself—remember where I was—but Deceit dug up my recollection with his sharp, invasive nails.
“I was offered no choice,” Alistair growled.
“What has happened needed to come to pass.”
Edith roared in a whisper.
“Not like this! You had made a show of it, child.”
“Do not detest my actions, deeming them a show. It is a sacred custom, dating back centuries.”
Deceit and I held onto Alistair’s words with keen interest. My eyes ripped open, curiosities enticing my attention. The voices carried from a door’s crack at the other end of the room, where moonlight and seething poured in.
“It is not our custom!” Edith’s rage damned her soft-spoken tone.
“Let your mother’s bloodline die with her, or you too will die before your time.” A lasting pause swelled in tension.
“Ali, what happened to your mother—”
“You will not speak of it.”
She ignored her nephew.
“What happened to your mother was dreadful. What your father did was dreadful. And I will remind you until my last breath that you are not your father. You must also choose not to follow in his path. You are not a murderer, Alistair.”
An ominous cackle sounded.
“Then you do not know me, Aunt. The years have changed me. My beliefs. How I see the souls of man.”
“No, the years have not changed you. They have only confused you.” The floorboards creaked.
“What of the little boy with dreams beyond this land? With eyes that glistened in the light? They once teemed with so much life.”
“I no longer remember such days. I have been marked, my sights have been darkened. My life is destined for Shadows. Nothing of years past can change this.”
Edith strung out a sigh.
“Be careful of yourself, Alistair. Many dangers fill this land, and you must protect yourself, but not only yourself—you must protect the young boy that you once were, for you are still he.”
“The young of this era have lost their innocence. Do not be persuaded otherwise. This family blood is burdened by the curses we bear.”
She raised her key.
“And you’d say the same of Paisley and Oliver, would you? That their souls are destined for the Shadows to corrupt and puppet?”
“Is this how you see me? A damn puppet?”
“After your deed this day, I am inclined say yes.”
“Do not speak of what you do not understand. In a land where the light is suffocated, we are tasked to wander through the greys. Rights and wrongs have bled into each other, leaving morals tangled.”
Edith spoke knowingly.
“Yet you say you uphold your mother’s hallowed customs, but I knew your mother well. I loved your mother, and what you have done, she would not condone.”
Alistair’s words dampened in a strain.
“Not even my mother would understand. She was denied her life before darkness plagued Andrael.”
Edith muttered.
“You will not speak for the dead.”
“And you will not speak for me!” Alistair’s roar echoed in the quarters.
“You denied yourself rule before the light was vanquished. You do not understand the burden of the family legacy, for you cast off your name years ago. I cannot be washed of the Ravens,” he growled his surname.
“The Shadows forbid it. Though you cannot understand, you know what curse poisons my veins. The influence it takes. My name, my father’s name, has given me no reprieve since the day I was born. You might never know, and even if you did, you might never accept. Briarwood needed to die.”