23. A Cold Chill – Elias
A Cold Chill
ELIAS
A wild pain throbbed within my skull as my eyes cracked open one at a time.
They felt stiff, as if a layer of sleep still coated my lashes as I blinked away the darkness.
Dappled light filtered through the thick brush, and I sat up, grunting from the effort that tugged at the wound in my side.
Leaves brushed along the skin of my cheek, but I ignored it, crawling out from the brush and into the clearing.
My breath froze like a lump within my throat at what lay before me. Grass prickled my fingertips as every muscle tensed. My heartbeat thundered within my ears, and my wide gaze locked onto the prone form.
Rosemary.
Her pack lay in a heap at her side. Her brassy blond hair fanned out around the pale skin of her face.
Her fingers clutched at the ground in front of her, as if she’d been pulling herself forward, desperate to keep going.
Yet, her eyes remained closed. Her chest lay still.
And no breath fell from her parted lips.
I tripped over myself to reach her, my fingers reaching for the smooth skin of her neck. There was no pulse. I shook her, gently at first and then with more force, rocking her body while I cried, “Wake up! Rosemary! Wake up!”
I pulled her into my lap, not caring that tears fell from the corners of my eyes as I hugged her to my chest. So cold. So quiet. I cast my gaze around the meadow, wondering what the hell had happened. It was supposed to be me who lost my life today. Not her. Anybody but her.
The coloring of the trees ringing the meadow seemed off. The leaves hanging from the branches hung unnaturally still. No birds chirped, nor did any squirrels skitter. Everything held as still as Rosemary’s chest. The clouds in the sky didn’t even shift or drift.
As I glanced back to where Rosemary lay within my arms, her body faded away into nothingness, and I jolted, clutching at nothing but air.
My mother’s cruel voice sounded behind me. “You are nothing, Elias. Just the spare I never asked for. You’ll go to the borders and fight. Learn to be a soldier for your people. At least then you will be useful to our court.”
I spun, rising onto unbalanced feet. The grassy meadow disappeared within the blink of my eye, replaced with the throne room of the unseelie castle. “I do not want to go, Mother. Please! I want to stay,” I begged her, my eyes damp with unshed tears.
“You’re pathetic! Nothing like your brother. Only a disappointment. You always were too emotional, too wrapped up in your feelings. Hell, there have been days where I have wondered if you are even unseelie at all,” she spat the words like an insult.
I stared at the marbled floor at my feet. “I love her,” I replied, announcing the truth of how I felt to my mother for the first time. She couldn’t send me away. I would lose her forever if she did.
“You don’t know what love is, boy,” my mother muttered, her lip curled with disgust as she looked down at me. “You are like an infant. Our lives are vast. You will learn. For now, I can only pray that war will age you faster.”
I knew the words she spoke. They had repeated within my mind over the decades. Now, they faded into nothingness, just as her body shimmered away too.
An explosion rent the air at my back, and I spun again, staring out at a war-torn battlefield.
Soldiers I had learned to call my friends lay scattered in pieces at my feet.
My fingers gripped a sword so tightly, my knuckles throbbed from the effort.
Something large towered over me, and I glanced upward, eyeing the yeti with fear.
This creature, one who still visited my nightmares, had been my first kill.
What the hell was happening to me?
A massive, clawed hand swung at me, and I barely ducked in time, raising my blade while pulling for my magic. I had to kill him. I had no choice. It was either him or me. But I had already killed him, hadn’t I?
I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, my blade pierced his heart. My heart clenched with the pain of this kill even as its blood coated my blade, my fist. The yeti’s eyes had widened even as it swiped its massive claw toward my neck.
Magic had raged through its land, poisoning them into madness.
Our army had been sent out to end the threat, even though their numbers had dwindled to near extinction.
After that day, none would remain. My hands would never feel clean of their murder, and my neck would forever hold that scar as a reminder.
The air shifted around me, and the cold hard marble of the throne room settled beneath my feet once more.
I marched through the room, past our people waiting to see our queen, and came to a stop at the bottom of the dais where my mother sat.
I refused to drop to my knees to tell her of our victory over the magically crazed creatures of the outer lands.
When I had finished informing her of our army’s progress, a crooked smile lifted the corners of her blood-red lips.
A wicked glee flashed behind her gaze as her fingers danced along the arms of her throne.
It was then she informed me about the plight of the seelie court, the curses she had laid upon their blood, and the deaths of their royal family.
“I was going to make you heir,” my mother had said, not an ounce of despair held within her voice as she spoke. “The loss of your brother was… inconvenient.”
That pain from her words sent me to my knees. It hit me so hard, it consumed me. They were gone? The two people in my life that had meant anything to me, who had shown me even a kernel of kindness, gone? I refused to believe it.
Yet, this was a memory. I shook my head trying to pull myself back. My mind grasping that thought, this was a memory. I had already been here. Witnessed this. Felt this loss only to learn far too late that they weren’t dead. Just waiting to be found, to be saved.
I turned from her and walked from the throne room without even a backward glance as I left her court.
Each step I took increased the darkness clouding my mind.
No, that wasn’t right. I didn’t remember any such darkness that day.
A cold chill creeped along my spine, through my veins, into my very breath and being.
I collapsed to my knees, curling in on myself as weakness overcame me.
My gaze faded. My body numbed. And death approached.