Chapter 30
It was strange sitting here. The Lord of Ravens watched me in the corner of his eye, half lost behind his hair that just passed his chin. His hair had grown since I first arrived at the estate. It’d become messier too, covering his ears and sending distinct shadows over his brow and sharp jaw. Though I believe his hair had always covered his ears and brow.
Alistair’s usual black attire emphasized the breadth of his chest and the darkness in his hair and eyes. He considered the differing potions laid out on the table. His journal sat beside them, but I had no pull towards it. The maps of the lands, information of the Andraelian houses, the Amulet of Light—it was all… unimportant.
There was no god within me to beg otherwise.
This place, that journal, this man—it was so familiar together, yet entirely changed.
My only memory here with Alistair was the day after his blade took Hendry’s life. I remembered Alistair’s black eyes, consuming anything civil about him, but today—in recent days—he held the dark at bay. The hearth did not glow in his gaze, though firelight kissed his sharp jaw and caught hints of muscle under his loose shirt.
Beneath the white tree with branches twisting above, my ankle on Alistair’s lap, he seemed an entirely different man.
Unswathing the leather, Alistair let the wood stilts fall, and my blackened ankle showed to the firelight. Bone bent wrong, skin swollen, I might have been worried, but Alistair wasn’t. So neither was I. He lifted a potion of sunrays and greenery. Flipping it upside down, the colors swirled together and became a vivid jade.
This magic, the potions and their properties, was a wonder to me.
Alistair pinched the hem of my gown, fingertips patiently gliding along my skin, and any wonderment was stolen and bartered for a startling urge. Once he crawled my dress up to my knees, he stayed his touch for a second that could never last long enough.
He resumed his attention on my bruises.
“What is that potion’s use?” I asked, trying to ignore the painfully apparent squeak in my voice.
“Healing lesser wounds,” he said with a low, steady breath that curled along my bare skin.
“It is a simple potion drawn from magic-bearing plants in the far west.”
“Where the elves are?” My question cracked, and his dimple flickered.
“Yes, they grow near the cusp of Ethereum.” His voice was ever-deep, ever-calm.
Tipping the vial, Alistair let the potion drip onto my ankle. My skin drank it without contention and glowed as jade as the potion. Then, all bruises faded without a trace.
“It is a wonder how many small things can be fashioned together and create—” I motioned towards his potions.
“—all of this. It is far more than I could ever understand.”
“It is only years of study.”
“Years of study, hidden behind boarded windows and doors, never to see the light of day?” I spoke with amusement, but there were curiosities lingering beneath my question.
“I’ve heard numerous times now that you rarely joined the estate. No one seemed to really know you until recently.”
Alistair found me between the cracks of his hair with a wicked depth to his eyes. His lips flourished a spell, though I could not quite say it was a grin.
“I prefer the silence.”
“Likewise.” I gave a dead chuckle—silence was unreachable in this age.
“Do you miss the days when you could simply disappear?” I asked, glancing past my healed skin and counting my toes.
Alistair’s brow tightened and jaw flexed.
“I do not trouble myself with what could be.”
“I feel an ache when considering what could be.”
Alistair’s spine straightened. He wiped his face, pulling back his hair in a groan.
“Considering what could be is an act of suffering.” He groaned a second time.
“It is a dagger in the heart, poison in the blood. We were born into damned days. Nothing can change this.”
Words weighted, the quiet was then filled by his breaths and the crackle of the fire. His shoulders fell as if strings were attempting to pull him under.
“Your meeting today,” I said quietly.
“I am sorry I did not attend.”
He looked at me with kind eyes.
“You needed rest.”
I lifted my ankle from the chair and set myself upright. Searching him, I found the aggravation framing the corner of his eyes, the tight rope of his lips, the pulsing temples.
“What weighs your thoughts?” I asked.
“Are you troubled?”
He scoffed with a devious curl at the edge of his mouth.
“When the Shadows, the crown, and the estate’s duties are all biting at my heels, yes. Troubles tend to find me.”
“Will you tell me?”
“We can discuss it later. You need to focus on healing.”
I shook my head.
“You are taking care of my healing. Please, Alistair, I’d like to help if I can.” Saying his name without title, how he looked at me in response, was intense—as though a tether tightened, pulling him closer.
Alistair set his elbows upon his knees with his hands clasped together. Face controlled, his lordly tone molded to his tongue.
“The retaliation between men and elves continues its strife. Our neighboring village of Cindermoor has been overrun. Men continue to fight, but at a cost. The king’s men are falling. Captain Tynan’s men are weary.”
I bit my tongue, but I needed to know.
“So, is it war?”
Defeat bowed his head.
“Yes. An inevitable war since the crown enforced slavery in Andrael. And now, the war has breached the lands beneath my family’s sigil only weeks after I was handed Eadric’s rule.” Brows stiff, he spoke through gritted teeth.
“I only need to ensure my house is not perceived as weak.”
I suffered an ache—an ache to reach out. To let him know he was not alone in his life of discord. But instead, I merely asked.
“What will you do?”
Like a stone, his shoulders tautened.
“For now, there is nothing more I can do. Word is being sent to the king. Prince Knox and King Paden will discuss what resources they might give. Though, as we search for the scattered Guild of the Gods, the crown is spent.”
We, he had said. Alistair and his people. Killer of the God Servers. There was a deep pang in my gut, reminding me of the split within myself—the deep roots of my vow stacked up against that beating thing in my chest.
I shoved down my qualms.
“And is your home threatened?”
“No, not for the time. Tharen Crest is being reinforced as a stronghold. No elves would dare venture this far now.”
I had run dry of words, of thoughts. My mask as an advisor could not match tales of war such as this. I was the shadow to not be seen, the face to be changed, not a commander or strategist of battle.
Alistair said to my silence.
“There is no counsel I search from you, Rhoswen. There is nothing further we can do for now.”
“I am truly sorry.”
An elusive smile blinked beneath his distress. He fell back in the chair, fingers wrenching through his hair, and his chest broadened in a low breath. His shirt tightened around his muscles, and a warmth outspread from beneath my sternum to my veins, tingling through my body.
“Now, you tell me,” Alistair said, leaning forward. The depth in his eyes burned me from within. He studied me before his question was offered, as though he already knew my answer.
“Who attacked you in the wood?”
Sands. He did not believe my lies, but why? I am the daughter of Deception.
I concealed the blood pooling in my cheeks.
“I could not see their faces.”
“That was not a wound given by a blade.”
Alistair only beheld me, abandoning accusations, and seemed to grant me a period to speak. To reveal the truth I’d buried. But if Alistair were to know the corpses sought my death—the corpses craving only those with godly magic in their blood—his speculations would confirm the very truth I needed to hide.
I lowered my eyes, my chin and honesty falling with, but a hand reached out.
Alistair lifted my face. His eyes softened. His breaths were slow.
“You do not—” He began gently. A burden wrestled upon his brow, and he ceased another slow breath.
“You do not need to fear me,” he whispered.
No, not fear. Fear is not what I felt. At least, I did not fear him. It was the unspoken that I feared.
“I…” I did not know what to say. What I could say.
Alistair slowly lifted his hand to my cheek, tucking stray hairs behind my ear. I yearned to close the distance between us, but I instead held still and let his fingers fall within my tresses. He carefully stroked the nape of my neck, sending a river of… desire. It was desire that trickled throughout my body.
I lifted my hand to set it upon his.
A tense expression I couldn’t read flew across his face, and he removed his hand as though I was afraid. I caught his hand and set it back where it was, his palm warm against me. I wove my fingers between his to keep him here. To let him know I wanted him here.
His demeanor relaxed, though a severity was still stitched between us. His breath grazed my skin, and I was intoxicated by the aroma of sage. My eyes were obedient to his, his own stare set on mine.
This tether between us tightened.
“You do not believe you can trust me,” he hushed, and my hair swept in his breath.
I smelled the sage. I was rapt by the sage.
“And you,” I matched his whisper.
“You would say the same of yourself. You do not trust me.”
A crevasse carved between his brows.
“What I do not say, you do not need to understand.”
There was no anger lining his face. Only burdens.
Hand firm behind my neck, he needn’t compel me closer—I came willingly. His arm flexed, his chest flexed, everything flexed. And I fell further into the eyes that knew no light. Eyes that left me wanting.
I said his name, weak on my tongue. I wanted to tell him everything. To tell him without consequence. His eyes fell to my wordless lips, as though waiting for the truth, the trust, to come.
But I could not give him what he desired.
“What I do not say is to protect myself. I am not like you, Alistair. I do not have sway or rule to govern the people. If I speak what is not to be said, if I am chastised for my words, I will become nothing. I’d be abandoned—left alone with the dark of this age.”
His eyes searched me with a hand sliding down my spine.
“Rhoswen, I will not let that happen.”
“But you cannot say for certain. You do not know what I do not say.”
His hand tightened at the small of my back, stirring my desires, and a shade of demand left his lips.
“Tell me, Rhoswen. I want to know you.” He lessened his tone and lessened the distance between us. “Tell me.”
“I cannot,” I managed to say in a shaken breath as he watched my lips.
“Then where does that leave us, Miss Fallen?”
Considering those eyes, unknown to light, I watched the blackened seas that stirred in his gaze, and I knew—
“Treading dark waters,” I hushed, because that is how I felt. Anytime I saw him anymore, I was treading the darkest of waters.
His lips curled in a charm.
“No, Rhoswen, we cannot tread dark waters. Dark waters consume without mercy. We are drowning. Suffocating.” His thumb followed the path of my lip.
“Breathless.”
Wetting his lips with his tongue, he set his hand on my thigh—my breasts rising in a flutter—and his finger hardened against my skin. I let the tether tighten, following the path to his breath and brushing my knee along his leg. The apple of his throat hitched, but he did not break his demeanor. Not a demeanor of stone—he let everything he wanted speak through the depths of his eyes, the space between his lips, and every edge of intensity that drew his face.
The dark waters were upon me, nearly drowning me. I could barely breathe.
“One cannot live breathless,” I said, my fingers weaving into his dark hair.
“You can.” His lips relaxed.
“But only for a moment.”
Something stirred within me—an ache, deep and sore and startling—and I suddenly believed a moment without breath was worth whatever was on the other side of this veil.
Alistair’s lips were less than a needle point away.
He growled my name and asked.
“Do you want to be breathless?”
Yes, I yearned to be breathless. To suffocate myself in the dark waters that poured between us. To let his lips fall into mine, thirsting and longing. To let the dark waters drown me until there was nothing left.
A rapid breath filled my lungs, and I only hoped it would be my last.
“That hurt, Oliver!” A childish cry broke into the library.
I tore myself back in a fright, looking towards the doorframe hidden behind the tree.
Unwillingly, I had been rescued from the dark waters. Scooped up and set upon dry land. Alistair still wore every bead of intensity, looking at me like something untouchable, only… he was still touching me.
Alistair’s skin was hot. My thigh and lower back could have been on fire beneath his hands—it would have felt the same as this. His lips were sealed, wordless, because there were no words to say here. Nothing of what we longed for could be expressed in the shallowness of words.
Footfall echoed at the other side of the tree, and he peeled back from me.
“Paisley, Oliver, stop fussing.” Reuel scolded, and Edith heaved a sigh.
Yellow locks escaped from hiding, Paisley frolicking to the field of bookshelves, Oliver close behind.
“They need to run circles around the estate before we sit them in the carriage,” Reuel said with amusement in his voice.
“Gods, their energy is unforgiving.” Edith emerged from past the tree, and her face splayed open with surprise.
“Rhoswen?” Halting her steps, Edith’s eyes skipped between Alistair and me.
“I do hope we did not interrupt.”
Alistair held onto his stone temperament, austere chiseling the furrow on his brow and the grit of his teeth.
“No, Aunt,” he said sternly, and I could hear, I could feel, the leftover tension from their conversation about Briarwood.
“You’re not interrupting at all,” I said, cloaking the heat of my face and trying with all I was not to look at Alistair sitting there with his unruly hair, hard physique, and harder demeanor.
“Lord Alistair and I were only—”
“Healing, I take it.” Edith finished the sentence before I could, eyeing both the potions and her nephew with speculations looming in the air.
“Yes, healing,” I muttered.
“Healing?” A little cry summoned somewhere beyond the parchment.
“I want to see! I want to see!”
As little feet chased between bookcases, Edith came nearer to see me, truly see me, and I knew leftover tension of our conversation lingered—a server to the gods in the same house as her nephew. After a bite in her stare—an unspoken threat, perhaps—her attention left me and settled on Alistair.
“Your marksmanship has far surpassed mine, Ali.” Edith smiled to herself, lifting potions from the table, fingers following the vial’s length.
“I do believe your mother would be proud of you.”
No heartening met Alistair, Edith’s words seeming to drag him closer to the ground.
“Do you have all you need for the journey home?” Alistair asked, refusing to show any emotion.
Edith sighed.
“Yes. The servants finished loading the carriage some moments ago.”
“You’re leaving?” I asked.
“Yes, it is time we go home. Our time here has been far more eventful than anticipated, with the company of guests, and royalty, and—” Cutting herself short, she looked at my bending bone and cleared her throat.
“I am simply ready to be home.”
“I hope you visit again soon,” I said.
“I have enjoyed your company.”
The way Edith bowed her head, the way her lips bent shyly, I did not believe she had intentions to return. Though I could not blame her—an estate of Shadows and wood of corpses was far from ideal for children. Far from ideal for anyone, really.
“I want to see our cousin heal her!” Oliver leaped from the bookshelves with beating red cheeks, wildness in his eyes, and panting breaths.
“No, Oliver. Rhoswen needs quiet.” At the word, Edith pressed her finger against her lips.
“Mummy.” Paisley tiptoed with a whisper.
“If we are quiet, can we watch?”
“I don’t mind if they stay,” I said, looking at the pure awe in their eyes. I found Alistair, his dark eyes upon me, and his temper cracked just enough for me to see a nigh grin.
“If it’s all right with you, my lord.”
Dimple casting a shadow, Alistair tilted his jaw.
“Of course.”
Not a second later, the children were dangling over my leg.
“What happened to you?” Oliver asked, teeth bucked beneath his smile.
Paisley sighed.
“Oliver, you cannot ask a lady such things.”
“Hush, children,” Edith huffed.
“Let your cousin concentrate.”
Alistair lifted my leg, rearranging the hem of my dress and assessing my ankle with tight eyes. Lying out a thin linen upon the table, he set several drops of an ivory potion upon it, then wrapped the linen around my ankle. The potion seeped into my skin, feeling frigid as ice, then hot as the summer sun of childhood. Brilliant silver lines formed along the cloth, like magic threading. Beneath the potion, my muscles flexed and bones twisted.
Then, a crack, crunching and wet, pierced my ears.
Oliver and Paisley threw themselves backwards, Oliver gagging.
“That was disgusting!” Oliver barked, throwing his hands over his stomach and mouth.
It was only when the children flew away, and once Alistair unswathed my leg, that I realized my ankle had made such a noise.
Bruises healed, bone straight, I appeared to be entirely healed.
Flexing my foot and stretching my toes, I found myself giggling. Giggling at such an odd thing—my own arch and five squirming toes attached.
“Is it… Is it entirely healed?” I was baffled. Before last night, the only likeness to potions I’d encountered was Beauty’s wine.
“You’ll be fine to walk as normal,” Alistair said, fingers trailing my ankle in a final assessment.
“Though, be mindful. The potion is tethering your bones together, but if the tether snaps before the healing is done, the bone will fracture.” He clasped my gown, dragging the hem to my feet.
Edith spoke while the kids giggled, but… they began to fade. I looked at Alistair, the room darkening, and I felt the rumble of his voice more than I heard it. Then, everything fell silent—not because the realm hushed, but because something was stealing my senses.
A weight pressed against me, concaving my mind and swelling my skull.
It was him—he who I banished. He who left in a flurry of rage and resentment.
The void in my mind was brimming with uncased echoes. Firelight diminished. I held onto myself, within myself, trying not to fall back in my chair, but I thought I might collapse onto the ground.
Hello, child. His voice overwhelmed me. The God of Deception tapped my skull with his ironclad nails. Enjoying yourself?
Deceit, I bit to the dark. Lessen your hold.
Does it hurt? He asked cynically. Hurt to have one you trust betray you?
I have betrayed no one.
Then why is your lord still breathing?
You said it is not his time, I uttered.
The god gnashed his teeth.
“Rhoswen?” My name filled my ears.
“Are you all right?” Alistair asked, leaning beside me with raised brows.
“Yes,” I nodded.
“I’m fine.”
Deceit’s shrill laugh grinded within. Another lie. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Tell me, Princess, when the truth is spilled—when he knows what you are—where does that leave you? Each gnarled finger tightened, his nails piercing, my mind throbbing. Will you grovel at my feet, pleading for another chance? I am not a god known for offering second chances.
Please, Deceit. I articulated within myself, Lessen. Your. Bind.
His spiraling lips were spikes in me. Ah, she already grovels. How predictable.
The god snatched at the air, releasing his hold on me, but he was still heavy and agonizing, dragging my soul downward like an anchor in the seas.
“Do you need to lie down?” Edith asked, somewhere outside this dark chasm the god filled.
Deceit sulked in the corners, the library coming back in hazy layers. The shelves towered, the fire roared, and I sat upon velvet with the tree twisting above. Alistair’s eyes were narrowed upon me, searching my face.
“Rhoswen, what’s wrong?” He asked.
My stability wavered, my tongue weak.
“I think I only need to lie down.”
“Ali, give her one of your sleeping tonics.”
I bat my hand.
“No, please, I’ll be fine without. It is only the excitement of these last few days.”
I dared to stand, Alistair close behind with hands at-the-ready should I stumble.
Deceit’s spine curled, reminding me he was there. Reminding me we needed to talk. And, by the impatient tapping on my skull, I could tell the conversation was to be had very soon.
Edith embraced me and whispered for only me to hear.
“Remember our promise.” Though her words were kindly spoken, I could distinguish the threat.
“I will, Edith.”
Deceit punctured my mind again, leaving our goodbyes hastened.
Cradling my head, Alistair stood tall behind me, shielding me from the firelight. I angled towards him to give my thanks, but was instead tortured by the great divide between gods and man. Vows and heart. Deceit lay heavy, and my heart did not bloom. It shriveled.
The Raven Lord held concern in his eyes.
“If you need anything, Rhoswen, you need only ask.”
I suffered that desire to reach out to him. To the man I was coming to know.
Deceit threw a talon in my mind, hissing, biting.
I bowed, not in respect, but because a god was twisting his tail around my spine. I spoke through a tight jaw.
“Thank you for everything, my lord. I wouldn’t have seen today if it were not for you.”
Deceit yanked the knots of my spine, my feet provoked backwards. As I pulled away, I saw it in Alistair’s eyes too, and in the way his hand twitched at his side—the desire to reach out.
Deceit laid sieged, the walls of my mind crumbling to his touch. Do not keep a god waiting.
I left them there without a final glance. The door shut behind me.
Deceit was quiet as I paced down the hall, melting into the folds of my mind, sprawling out like creeping vines, and breathing his ancient breaths. The god was reminding me—reminding me that he was free to plague my mind and wrap my thoughts in his bony fingers.
His tongue flicked his teeth, his words gnawing at me. For years, I have been with you. For years, I have protected. But my child, your faith has been neglected by your heart, so lamented. You cannot beg otherwise. My spirit, you did not miss.
It was far quieter while you were gone, I clipped. Tell me, did you throw yourself into someone else’s mind while you were away? Did you judge them for their weaknesses, or did they simply do your bidding without question, like a mindless dog?
His laugh was unnerving. I do not waste my days on others. That is why we speak, Rhoswen. That is why I stay. If it were not for your failings, you and I would see the crown fall.
The crown will fall, I gnashed at the dark.
And how will this be done, child? He asked, his nails drawing circles. She who refuses to kill. She who I plucked from her father’s guillotine. She who swore her allegiance to the gods.
I was only a child when I made my vow.
Deceit’s teeth crash together, like he wanted to slit my words in two. I wish you were still a child. You were easier to manipulate.
But my purpose has not changed.
And yet you will not see the lord die.
I stalked the halls, my feet pounding against timeworn floorboards, lifting clouds of olden dust. I wanted Deceit to understand—or at least try—but he was stubborn. He did not care for man. If the gods cried for Andrael to be erased, he would be at the cusp of the wreckage, watching with his star-dusted eyes in odious joy.
My knuckles whitened in a clench. How do you see the lands? How do you see souls? The nature of man, however foolish you perceive us, is not simple. There is more to mankind than rights and wrongs. There is more to the lord, Deceit. I only do not know what it is.
Where you do not see, man’s acts are sickening! Thieves, liars, murderers. Malevolent and drenched in wretched sin. The god was heavier than lead. He fell silent for a moment, his ancient breath shifting beneath my skin. His words crawled out with a deep, tattered voice. Rhoswen, the guild is dying. The God of Sight has shown us what is to come should we fail.
This held my feet still. What is to come?
If man and Shadows are to reign.
The god snatched at my mind and held my heightened interest.
You want to see, he breathed.
I… I do not know.
An aftermath of Shadows, where light did not endure—it was a nightmare. A living nightmare that I knew was coming. I felt it in my bones and the roots of my god. I felt it when Percy was killed, when Hendry was killed, and when I stood before the ashes of the guild.
The point of precipice was nearing.
Tell me to show you, and I will, the god said, tail slithering around my spine.
You want me to see.
I want you to forget your heart. If this is what will drag you from the prison of desires, so be it.
My back fell against the wall in the dark. Deceit slithered and writhed beneath my skin.
I gave in to the god’s desires. Fine. Show me.
The god came forward, clasped my eyelids, and dragged them down.