Elven Heartbound: The Third Season

Episode 69 Nothing Between Us

Nothing Between Us

Pure darkness shrouds the void beyond the train.

“Where are we?” Arisanna asks behind Cerian, and when she shifts closer to him, he squeezes her hand tighter.

The darkness. It terrifies her.

Using his magic, he creates an orb of light and directs it into the inky blackness, but the void is cavernous. His light finds nothing off which to reflect. It’s just darkness everywhere.

Arisanna shifts even closer as her heart thrums faster in his chest. She really is terrified.

“Why is it so dark?” she whispers.

“I don’t know. I wish for daylight.”

They watch, waiting for something to happen, but no sunlight appears to chase the shadows away.

“Perhaps we’re underground,” he suggests. Her fingernails dig into his arm, but he doesn’t complain.

The way she clings to him when she’s frightened adds to the heat running through his veins after their kisses moments ago. The memory of his hand sliding along her leg threatens his control.

He needs to harness his fire so he can be her safe place now, but when she presses herself against the arm she clutches, his heat intensifies.

“Don’t be frightened by my fire,” he says before pressing his lips to her hair. “Stay by my side, and it won’t hurt you. I promise.”

She nods as she inches even closer, and he struggles to focus. Does she grasp the effect she’s having on him?

With his free hand, he creates a fountain of flames, angling it forward and up, and Arisanna flinches, but she doesn’t move away.

If anything, she presses closer.

At least his flames take the edge off his heat.

There’s still nothing beyond his firelight other than more darkness.

“Maybe the heartlanding doesn’t want us to get off the train,” Arisanna whispers.

“Perhaps.”

Or perhaps it wants them to venture into the darkness for reasons he can’t comprehend.

“I wish for the mountain chalet,” she says, but nothing happens. “Has it refused our requests before?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Why now?”

He extinguishes his flames before turning to face her. “I would protect you. If you...if you wished—”

“To get off the train?”

He nods, and for a moment, she stares at him. Her fear is obvious, but she doesn’t respond, and he gives her time for the thoughts reflecting in her eyes to sort themselves out.

“I want to say no,” she eventually whispers. “But you once suggested the heartlanding is teaching me to trust you.”

He frowns at her words. Does she still not trust him? After everything they’ve been through together?

She lays her hand on his chest and gazes up into his eyes. She looks terrified. Vulnerable. Redness stains her cheeks from her tears earlier, but it only makes him love her more.

“I-I do trust you, Cerian. So if you think we should leave the train...” Her voice trails off as she searches his eyes.

At least she trusts him. That’s a relief.

It may be unwise, but he wraps his arms around her and pulls her close. “I don’t know if we should leave the train or not.”

“I love when you’re warm,” she whispers, and as he lets more of his heat blanket her, she sighs contentedly.

Does his embrace really calm her fears so completely?

“What would Elowyn do?” Arisanna asks, and Cerian chuckles.

“She would have already left the train.”

Arisanna lifts her chin to gaze up at his face. “Then let’s leave the train. For Elowyn.”

Her words touch a deep recess of his heart, and he squeezes her tighter as she rests her cheek against his chest again.

“You don’t think we’re in any real danger in the heartlanding, do you?” she asks.

“According to Elowyn, you can die in the heartlanding and still live.”

Arisanna snaps her eyes to his again. “She knows that from experience? What sort of heartlanding do they have?”

A smile teases the corners of his lips, and he shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“I have so many questions now.”

“Questions they’ll never be able to answer.”

Her breath tickles his chin as she stands in his arms. Her nearness prods his fire magic again, and the longer they gaze into each other’s eyes, the more her own heat shines back at him.

“Are you ready?” He needs to focus on something other than how much he wants to get lost in that fire in her eyes.

“To get off the train?” Her voice is tremulous, and he barely nods. “Promise you won’t let go?” she whispers.

“Do you even need to ask?”

Rather than respond, she gently presses her lips to his. It’s torture and perfection wrapped up together.

When she lets him go, he offers his hand again, and she takes it, wrapping herself around his arm as his palms start to tingle.

Whistling wind. Hopefully, there’s water somewhere in that void.

Together, they step through the open doorway as he leads the way with her following at his side. Instead of throwing out orbs of golden light, he creates more fire in his free hand. If he doesn’t let off some of this heat, he’ll soon grow too hot for her to touch.

And he promised not to let go.

Tentatively, he lowers his foot past the last step of the train stairs. Relief fills him when it connects with the ground, but it’s not rock or solid wood. Peat or loose dirt, perhaps? What sort of place is this?

“Watch your step,” he says as she finds her footing beside him.

As soon as they lose contact with the train, the bright, open doorway behind them vanishes, and Arisanna gasps, her fingernails digging into his arm again.

“You’re safe,” Cerian assures her. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”

She nods against his arm, but her heart races in his chest, her pulse thrumming in his ears.

“I think we may be outside,” he says. “The ground feels natural and soft.”

She shifts at his side. “Yes. Like the forest floor.”

“I’m going to use my magic to search for any plants around us now. All right?”

She breathes out slowly. “I’m ready.”

He leaves his flames in place, reaching past his fire into the void. Thank the fates Father insisted they all learn to wield multiple magic threads at once. It’s second nature to him now.

Traces of plant matter in every direction fill his senses with the heaviness of decay. It’s a familiar sensation.

It’s what rich soil feels like before anything is planted in it.

But beyond that...it’s just more of the same void. There aren’t trees or roots or vines or anything with which he can connect.

It’s an eerie sensation, but he keeps that thought to himself.

“I sense the plant matter in the soil but nothing more than that,” he says.

“What do we do now? The train is gone.”

Before he can respond, something damp hits his cheek, and a heaviness fills the air.

“Is it raining?” she asks.

His fire becomes difficult to keep in place as tiny droplets hit his hand. “I believe it is.”

“At least it’s warm. And misty. Does this feel natural to you?”

“Nothing about this feels natural.”

If only Elowyn were here. She could analyze the rain and mist for them.

He swallows back the lump in his throat at the memory of Elowyn’s limp form lying in the bed at the hotel in Feressa.

Arisanna is right, though. They can do nothing for Elowyn here other than rest so they’ll be stronger for her when they wake.

“Let’s keep going,” he says. “For Elowyn.”

“All right.”

He steps forward, and she follows as the air grows more humid and the mist dampens his clothing and hair.

“This mist is hard on my fire magic,” he says. “If my fire goes out, don’t be frightened.”

She stops abruptly, and he turns to look at her in the flickering light from his waning flame.

“The mist...is dampening your fire magic?”

He meets her gaze, and the heat written across her face lights his own fire all over again.

It’s not his fire magic this time, though. It’s fire like the desire flaming in her eyes.

“Your arm is cooler now,” she whispers. Then she glances at the ground at their feet.

Her heart races along with his as he tilts his struggling flame down.

It’s loamy soil, as he sensed. Dirt.

“I wish...” Her voice is breathy and hesitant as she lifts her eyes back to his. “I wish for a bed.”

And as if the heartlanding hasn’t been refusing them all along tonight, roots hit Cerian’s senses as they shoot from the ground, weaving a platform in the shadows before them. A thick layer of moss erupts from the wood, layering over the top of the bed.

It’s identical to the bed in his chamber at Windhaven, and heat fills his core as he stares at it.

“Cerian,” Arisanna whispers, but he has no idea what to say.

Is the heartlanding pushing them toward this?

He lifts his eyes to hers again. Does she want this? She must. She’s the one who asked for the bed.

“No more walls.” Her voice is soft as she repeats her words from the train.

“Nothing between us.” His breath grows heavy at the intensity of her gaze, but the misty, humid air blunts his fire magic, and his palms don’t tingle. “It will grow dark if I abandon my flame,” he whispers. “And I-I don’t know if I can hold my lights if we—”

She presses her finger to his lips. “Promise not to let go?”

He can barely breathe, but he drags up words. “I will never let you go. Especially not tonight.”

Then she gently grasps his other arm—the one holding the weakening flame—and blows the fire out as he lets it go.