Chapter 24 #2
He chuckles. “No. I’m going to help you.”
He leaves the rest unsaid, but it flows into me through the bond—he’ll carry me to the end, up the cliff and across the land bridge so I can reach the hourglass. Shatter it before he changes at sunrise and chases me.
Then he’ll wait with bated breath to see which door I choose. Hope with every fiber of his being that it’s the one he wants.
At that, I ease back, disengaging our bodies and rising on unsteady legs. The moment we separate, aches bloom in my joints. The Shadow kneels on the sand for a moment longer, his hands resting on his knees, staring up with a devotion that takes my breath away.
“Thank you.” He infuses each syllable with such meaning that my eyes prickle. “I think I can die happy now.”
I hold his gaze. “I’d rather you didn’t die at all. At least…not today.”
His mouth crooks, the tips of his fangs peeking out. “No. Not today.”
Something inside me unclenches. I nod, and we break apart by some unspoken agreement, me pulling on my wet clothes while he goes to retrieve the dagger from wherever it fell.
When we’ve both dressed again and all my various gadgets and weapons are accounted for, I quickly braid my hair, then consult my bracelet.
Only a sixth of my time remains. Enough to last the night, probably until just past sunrise. I hold out my wrist for the Shadow to see. “Is this enough?”
His mouth tightens. “Maybe. We’ll try.”
My heart wobbles as he sweeps me up, one arm beneath my shoulders, the other beneath my knees. I loop my arms around his neck and tuck my face into his chest, breathing in the smell that makes my belly curl tight and my eyelashes flutter closed.
For a while, we don’t speak.
We don’t need to.
Darkness falls. The sky turns the color of irises, then of the ocean’s depths. We pass through a door and into the shadow place.
Of course we do.
The Shadow rearranges his grip, cradling me closer while an army of eyes amasses in the darkness. I burrow into him, letting his glow eclipse everything else.
That sweet stench wafts around us. Dead leaves snap underfoot.
“I wish you could’ve met my mother,” the Shadow rumbles. “You would’ve loved her. She would’ve loved you, too.”
It’s an obvious attempt at distraction, but it works. I peek up into his face, struck by his tone. “Your mother? She’s…?”
“Dead.”
A pang stabs through me. “I’m sorry.”
He pads along in silence for a while. Then, “Thank you.”
I lay a hand against his chest, my fingers curving against his skin as if I can capture his warmth and keep it in my palm. “Can I ask what happened?”
He lets go of a long breath. “It was a long time ago. Almost a hundred and fifty years. It was…well, I’d say ‘an accident,’ but she knew what she was doing. She was trying to break the curse. To go into the Wildwood by gyre.”
My whole body stiffens, but…of course. That day in the solarium, when Amriel told me the Wildwood doesn’t tolerate magic, his voice wavered.
I should’ve realized right then and there. Because for him, that’s as good as a confession.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, then frown. “But the Wildwood? Why would she go in there? Aren’t I the only one who can break the curse?”
“Yes, but…” A dismayed laugh catches in his throat.
“She was a mother. She couldn’t stand seeing Amriel suffer.
Me. Us. She went to the hourglass every day for years, trying to smash it, and when that didn’t work, she tried the Wildwood.
She thought maybe if she ran the whole thing, if she tried hard enough, if she loved deeply enough, she could overcome Alanna’s curse.
But she couldn’t. She transported herself, and poof. The end.”
An icy weight settles in my chest. “That’s horrible.”
He doesn’t answer, but I feel a pit open inside him, filled with heartache and hatred and loss. With a grief that has festered for centuries.
My chest hollows out. “I wish I wasn’t related to her. Alanna, I mean. I wish I didn’t share blood with someone so vindictive.”
His jaw works. “You’re nothing like her, Princess. You’re everything Alanna wished she could have been. The best of your line, the best thing Aethrolia’s ever made. The most deserving, the most worthy.”
A wet sting saturates my eyes, but I blink it back. Ishanna’s blood, how I’ve longed to hear those words. From my sisters, my father, anyone.
I never dreamed they’d finally arrive from a goblin’s mouth. “You think I’m worthy?”
He glances down his cheeks at me. “I think you’re the only thing in the world that truly is. So. Like I said. My mother would’ve loved you.”
At that, I can’t hold my flood of emotion, and I nuzzle into him again, swiping at the tears that slip down my cheeks.
He sees them, of course. Even if he didn’t, he can still feel them through the bond, but he grants me some semblance of privacy, his gaze aimed ahead while we weave between the shadows.
When I finally regain my composure, I say, “What about your father? Is he…?”
“Alive,” he says, “but broken. He’s at the Cloisters, but he hasn’t spoken a word since my mother died. They were mates.”
My heart squeezes at his despondent tone, at the knowledge pulsing through the bond. He never understood, before, how much his father lost when his mate left this world.
But now he does. Now he does, and it hurts.
I curl against him, offering my sympathy in silence, listening to the steady thump that marks each beat in my veins, too. “Maybe I could meet him, someday.”
His grip tightens. He doesn’t ask if I truly mean that, if I’ve decided which door to go through.
And I’m glad, because I wouldn’t know how to answer. The choice looms closer with every step—with every crunch of dead leaves underfoot, every rustle in the darkness—but I won’t know until I stand in front of those doors. Until it’s real.
Can I really turn my back on everything I’ve ever known? On my family, my heritage, Ishanna? On everything that’s made me…me for the past twenty-eight years?
I cling to the Shadow, my thoughts churning. I don’t know who I am without all that. What’s left over when the rules and expectations are carved away.
The night breathes around us. We breathe with it, and I sit with my thoughts for what feels like miles. Eventually, I doze, and dream, and when I wake again, the forest has changed.
Now the violet treetops of the Wildwood shimmer overhead. Before us, the castle stands atop its cliff, glowing like a beacon.
My throat spasms. It’s so close. My decision is so close. Nearly upon me.
The Shadow’s breath hitches as if he can hear my thoughts. Which he can, I suppose. When I glance up, his eyes find mine, heat and hope and terror swimming there. I feel what he doesn’t say, taste it in the warmth of his skin.
Stay. Please stay.
I nearly answer him out loud. Almost give voice to the confused tangle in my chest. But before I can, light streaks across the sky, a dazzle of violet and blue, a shooting star so colorful I swear I could reach out and touch it.
It arcs overhead for what feels like forever, silent and glorious, burning and burning and burning.
I trace its path with widened eyes. I feel the Shadow watch it, too, reflected in the mirror of my gaze. A memory blooms in his mind, of how he once stood at the top of the castle and hoped to someday find the same thing his parents had.
I used to wish for you.
The star incinerates itself, leaving a blazing shadow across my retinas.
I didn’t wish for him. I didn’t even know he existed.
But maybe I should have. Maybe I should have sensed him out there, waiting.
We stare at one another for seconds, minutes. Stare into one another, and it’s like gazing into my future. Or one of them, at least, depending on which way I go.
He finally breaks away, his brows furrowing as he stops and sets me on my feet.
I shake off my thoughts and turn to the massive cliff that rises before us. It’s the last one I’ll have to scale before crossing the land bridge that leads to the hourglass.
But to reach it, I first have to make my way across a canyon spanned by a thin beam of wood. My last trial, from the looks of it.
The Shadow frowns. “This wasn’t here yesterday.”
I take in the beam, my stomach dropping. Goddess, it’s narrow.
Then I make the mistake of approaching the edge. Nothing but darkness waits below. A fall that will kill me, if it ever ends.
“We can’t cross.” The line between the Shadow’s eyes deepens. “I’m too heavy. If I step onto that beam, it’ll break.”
I nod, already moving toward it. A hand closes around my arm, tugging me back. “That means you’re not going, either.”
I whirl to face him. “What? No. I’m not giving up this close to the end.”
His mouth flattens. “You have to. I’m not letting you fall.”
I tug my arm from his grip. A glance at my watch shows an hourglass that’s nearly depleted—I have thirty minutes, maybe, and already, the eastern sky is waking up. Dawn will arrive before the sand runs out. The Shadow will change before the sand runs out.
Which means I don’t have time to argue. I don’t have time for anything but crossing this beam and scaling the cliff and breaking the curse. Because once the Shadow changes, he’ll find me in moments. He’ll appear at the hourglass, and then all he’ll have to do is come charging over the cliff.
“It ends here,” he says firmly. “It ends with you safe. With you going back to the castle. Going home. Going anywhere that isn’t here.”
I hesitate, then give him a smile. One that hopefully holds all my regret and apologies within it. Before he can react, I spin away and dart onto the beam, my arms spread for balance. The wood flexes beneath me, just wide enough to span the sole of my boot.
“Sariah!” The Shadow’s panic electrifies the air, like a lightning bolt hurled at my back. “Stop! Come back! What’re you doing?”
“Saving you,” I call over my shoulder. “So don’t follow me. If you break this, I’ll fall.”
“No. No.” His voice cracks, naked misery bleeding through. “Sariah, no. Get back here. Get back here now.”
I don’t answer. My focus narrows to the beam, to keeping my weight centered and my steps light.
The wood flexes with every shift of my boots while a chilly breeze buffets me from below, but I breathe past the fear sitting in my throat.
I concentrate on the beam beneath my feet.
The far edge. The cliff I have to climb.
I’m halfway there, and have faced far more difficult trials. This is nothing.
The Shadow screams behind me. Somewhere in the castle, Amriel must be screaming, too—I imagine his rage ricocheting down the vine-laced halls.
But I trust Calen and Ravenna to keep him away. To keep him bound so I can finish this.
Another step. Another. The beam bucks beneath me, and I pause, my knees wobbling, the dress at my belt snapping in the breeze.
Behind me, the Shadow bellows like a wounded animal, claws scrabbling at rough ground. I have no doubt that the only thing keeping him there is the fact that if he jostles this beam, he’ll kill me.
But it’s enough.
I breathe deep, steady myself. It’s only me, here. A princess with a purpose, now two-thirds of the way across a swaying beam.
Another step. Another. With each one, something hardens inside me. I’m going to do this. Save Amriel and his Shadow, unite their broken halves, give us both a chance at choosing our own paths.
A gust of wind shoots up from the chasm, tilting me off balance, and I pause to find my center again. I exhale slowly, carefully, then inch along while the Shadow falls to pieces behind me.
“Sariah!”
I shut out his terror, his need to save me, his desperation. I’m doing this for him, but also for myself. As proof, maybe, that I matter. That my father was wrong about me. That my sisters were, too. All of Aethrolia. I may not have magic, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have power.
It doesn’t mean I can’t change things. Put Alanna’s cruelty to rest.
The beam groans as safety inches closer. Then suddenly, I’m over, my boots hitting solid ground as I dart away from the edge.
I take a moment to prop my hands on my knees, breathing hard. In my bracelet, sand trickles through the hourglass, almost gone. I have fifteen minutes, at most.
I force myself up, draw a steady inhale that reaches my toes. The cliff looms before me, split by crags, and I stare up for half a heartbeat. In the sky, gold bleeds into pink.
The Shadow will change before my time runs out, but I have to keep trying. Have to break the curse if I can.
I spend one last second looking back. The Shadow crouches across the ravine, his muscles bunching as he holds himself back from leaping into the abyss. “Sariah,” he shouts. “Just go. Go back to the castle. Please. Go home.”
I smile. “No,” I call. “But thanks for the suggestion.”
His body coils, battling the urges that will overtake him just minutes from now. I can tell by the frantic heave of his chest, by the hunger infecting his gaze.
“Sariah…” This time, my name is no more than a twisted plea. “I… I don’t have much longer. And I don’t want to hurt you. I’d sooner die. A thousand times over, I’d sooner die.”
I stare at him, at this beautiful goblin I met in a garden just weeks ago. I trace the pointed tips of his ears, savor each resplendent glimmer of indigo and violet. Then look into his eyes one last time. Or maybe one more time of many to come.
“Thank you,” I say. “For everything.”
His despairing howl splits the morning, but I just turn to the cliff, set my hands against the stone, and start to climb.