Chapter 18 - Aurela
When I start to gain consciousness again, it’s with the deep, herby aroma of a healer’s tinctures around me. And when I finally start to open my eyes, I see three faces staring down at me, their eyes intense and hopeful.
I can see we’re in a healing bay, but I’m the only patient.
“You’re awake!” Valerie exclaims, leaning down to hug me, her voice echoing through the large, empty room. Other than Soren, it’s the most physical touch I’ve felt in years, and embarrassingly, I burst into tears.
It’s all too much. Being here. Everything that happened.
Soren marking me, me wanting him, grappling with everything that happened back in high school.
Finding out that the series of events leading to the worst thing that’s ever happened to me—watching Tara go up in a column of flame—was directly caused by my parents.
They meddled in my happiness to preserve their image.
And now here I am, surrounded by the three friends I thought I’d lost forever, gasping for air and waiting for the sobs to relinquish their hold on me.
“That’s right,” Phina says, one of her hands on my back, rubbing steadily. “Let it out. It’s okay. Just try to breathe. You’re okay.”
I am trying to breathe. I’m trying desperately to stop crying, to pull myself together, but it’s like the more I fight against the hysteria, the more it takes root.
The girls stay with me, swapping out a cool cloth, bringing me water, and rubbing my back until I finally get too tired to fight it, and it peters out.
“I get the feeling that was long overdue,” Maeve says soothingly, resting her hand on my knee.
I nod, take a sip of water, and lean back against my pillow, feeling wholly wrung out.
“Now that you’re awake,” Phina says, swallowing, “Xeran is going to want to talk to you. But we wanted to talk to you first.”
I blink up at them, stunned. “I don’t know how you all don’t hate me. What have I done to deserve you standing by me, having my back? Leaving you on the ridge? Hiding away in my mansion while your reputations—your lives—were ruined?”
“My life isn’t ruined,” Maeve counters. “And it never was. Everything that happened was the catalyst that forced me out of this town. It’s what I needed, at least for a little while.”
“I got Nora,” Phina says, lowering her chin to meet my eyes. “And I wouldn’t give her up for the world.”
“Yeah, shit sucked for a while,” Valerie deadpans, making the others roll their eyes. “But I don’t think your life is as easy as you’re making it out to be. We see your parents at most once a week, and that’s enough to make me go crazy.”
I just stare at them, sobs threatening again at the back of my throat.
“What do you know about Tara?” Phina asks, her tone dead-serious. “We all need to have an honest chat about what happened back then, and what’s happening now.”
I gulp. Honest, open chats have never been the way in my family. The Cambiases don’t talk about their feelings. They fight against them, guard them closely, ball them up, and stick them in the back of the closet.
They tell them to stay home, starve them, and give them a beautiful room to rot in.
“We have to hurry,” Maeve says, looking at her hands for a moment, then back at the girls. “It looks like Xeran is on the move.”
So we talk. They tell me about everything that’s happened while I’ve been holed up in my room, hiding away for the past fifteen years.
Of course, I know that the fires continue to rage, though they’ve never come close to my family’s home.
Not with the private firefighters and the intense protection around our area.
Phina tells me about discovering that the previous supreme—Xeran’s uncle Declan—was running a sort of insurance scam, burning down homes and buying up the property.
They thought he was the one starting the fires.
But after he died, they continued, and they found out Xeran’s brothers—Dallas, Tanner, and Farris—were attempting to harvest daemonic energy, starting even more fires and working with Phina’s brother, Lucian, to sell the daemonic harvest on the black market.
When they all died after unsuccessfully trying to kidnap Valerie and sell her off to repay debts, there was a brief interlude from the fires.
Even while I mostly kept to myself and hid away at home, I knew this was true.
My parents talked about it constantly, especially in regards to their real estate investment.
And finally, they tell me about the first time they all saw Tara again. All three of them were tugged out to the woods—exactly the same feeling I’ve been having all these years.
“But she was only mildly interested in us,” Maeve says. “She asked about you right away. And she…she mentioned taking power from us. Said it’s something she’d done before.”
My mind flashes to that night Soren found me with her. That gentle, easy emptying out of me. The fires around his grandfather’s cabin after that.
How she must have taken my magic to start them, to have the strength to pull up the daemonic energy and set the woods ablaze.
“He’s here,” Phina whispers, and we all tip our noses, catching Xeran’s scent. Fear flushes through me when I remember what Soren said about his missive.
Make it clear that if anyone is harboring Tara, they will be executed. If they make contact with her and don’t immediately tell us, they will be executed. If I find out a single member of this pack is connected to her or these fires, in any way, I will not show mercy.
“Don’t worry,” Phina whispers, moving to my side and taking my hand. “I’m here. We’re all here, and we’re on your side, Aurela.”
Then, the door opens.
Xeran walks in, and I know I have to finally own up to the things I’ve done.
***
When Lachlan and Soren come bursting through the door together, Xeran is sitting in a chair on the other side of the healing chamber, talking to a different patient who’s just come in, asking what he can do for him.
Xeran looks up, and Lach and Soren stand speechless for a moment, both of them looking at me.
“No,” Xeran says, shaking his head and standing up, pointing at them. Phina, Maeve, and Valerie are still standing around my bed, their hands protectively on the frame. “Not here, and not now.”
“I’m claiming her,” Soren says, looking right at me. It sends a cascade of shivers running the length of my body.
“The fuck you are—” Lachlan starts.
“I said enough,” Xeran growls, stepping toward them both. “This is a place of healing.”
“I think she’s ready to leave,” Valerie says, her voice quiet. Even a woman as bold as her finds it hard to speak too loudly in the presence of a furious supreme.
“Great,” Xeran says, and his gaze swings around to me, landing heavily. “Remember what we talked about.”
No magic until we do a thorough investigation of what I’m capable of. I have to work directly with Phina. And I’ll be using my magic to participate in the still-ongoing rebuilding efforts, as a way to atone for my involvement in the fires.
And if I see Tara again, if I even so much as smell her, I’m to alert him immediately.
At first, it seemed like Xeran might not believe me, or he might decide to execute me just to make an example.
But his wife and the other women were by my side, just like they said.
They all corroborated my story about Tara’s pull, admitted that they’d felt it, too, and that’s what drew them up into the mountains the night Felix was almost burned alive by Tara herself.
“I want to go with Soren.”
I see the look on Lachlan’s face, how much his expression darkens. That’s when I realize that I said it, that it was me who spoke those words into existence.
When Soren turns and looks at me, it’s with such adoration, such gratitude and possessiveness, that I have to hold the side of the bed frame tight to keep from doing something I shouldn’t, like crossing the room and jumping into his arms.
“No,” Lach starts to say, shaking his head, but Xeran appears, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“Aurela is a grown woman,” Xeran says. “And Soren is a good man.”
Lachlan falls into a stormy quiet as we gather up our things. I’ll have to send word to my parents that the engagement with Caspian is off, that I’ve found another man willing to love me.
My mother will be furious. Especially when she sees the mating mark. But that idea doesn’t terrify me anymore. Instead, it almost fills me with a sense of levity, of hope. Like the world might be changing for the better.
“Can we talk later?” I ask, turning to Lachlan just before Soren and I leave the building together.
When he looks at me, it’s not with the rage he’s shown toward Soren. Instead, it’s with this deep, pitying look, like he still believes I’m being taken advantage of. Like this whole thing is a mistake, but it’s not my fault, because I don’t know any better.
It’s the same look my parents have given me my entire life.
And for the first time, it doesn’t feel right to me.
I’m not weak. I’m not a silly girl to be pitied. I’m strong and capable, and it’s time that Lachlan learned that.
“We will talk,” I state, pressing my lips into a flat line. “You can come to me when you’re ready.”
The surprise on his face is a balm to my anxiety, and I turn, nodding at Soren once before he and I walk out of the hospital and into the bright Silverville sunshine, together.