Chapter 8
Cillian emerged from the carriage with his pack—rearranged and carrying only what he thought both of them would need in one bag he could wear on his back, as he didn’t want Alise burdened with any weight—just in time to see her crumple to the ground.
Cursing himself for being an idiot, he unceremoniously dumped the carefully packed bag and dashed to her.
At least she hadn’t hurt herself in the fall, that he could see, but she’d gone past pale into fully transparent.
Her skin was clammy and glassy, clinging to the bones of her skull, the shadows deep in the hollows.
The effect of seeing her death mask rattled him beyond reason, even while his wizard senses reassured him that she still lived.
Her magic smelled weak and attenuated, however, a drift of scent from roses long-since wilted and dying in a vase of fouled water, the bitter dregs of red wine dried in a glass left from the night before.
He stroked her face, wiping away the cold sweat, and speaking her name as if the old stories were true and calling her would summon her back to the world of the living.
She’d gone so far inside herself that he couldn’t feel any of her usual vital presence, and he had to fight the wave of grief that threatened, poised over him like a wave to drag him under forever.
How tragic would it be if he and Alise had made it this far, escaped and fought off so much, only for her to perish here on a lonely, rocky road outside of her ancestral homelands.
What could he do? He had no idea. Cillian wished, not for the first time, that he’d been born a Refoel, with healing magic instead of useless library wizardry.
Better to be a familiar than a wizard with such a niche magical ability.
If he could be Alise’s familiar, maybe she would be more willing to take his magic instead of draining herself to the point of no return.
But she had to return. She must recover from this or not only would he be lost, but so would so many of them.
Nander would become Lord Elal, worse than his father.
And his world would be bereft of its brightest star.
His chanting of Alise’s name had gone beyond a simple call to her and had become an endless futile chant, his voice ragged with unshed tears.
Again, not at all useful, but he was unraveling in his panic.
They couldn’t stay here. Alise needed help and he wasn’t some buff hero who could carry her leagues through the mountains, to his great regret.
He needed to keep his shit together, as Jadren would say. He could almost hear Jadren’s voice, in fact.
A hand seemed to squeeze his shoulder. “Cillian,” Jadren repeated. “Get your shit together.”
Cillian blinked bleary eyes at the red-haired wizard who now crouched beside him.
Hand still on Cillian’s shoulder, Jadren shook him a little.
“Seriously, man. I’m the last one to throw stones at a person having a perfectly well-deserved meltdown, but you’re not helping Alise and you’re in the way of me helping her. ”
“You’re not really here,” Cillian informed the El-Adrel wizard with conviction, but he released his hold on Alise, realizing only then that he’d been fully bowed over her, blanketing her slight body. “It’s not possible for you to be here.”
“Highly improbable,” Jadren agreed, “but clearly not completely impossible.” He laid hands on Alise, his magic smelling like well-oiled metal clockwork, with an underlayer of something indefinable that was his ability to put anything or anyone back together.
Not at all the fresh green scent of Refoel healing magic, but uniquely his.
He wore black leathers with the El-Adrel lightning bolt symbol and a variety of implements he could use to enchant into useful artifacts on the fly.
“Seliah, sweetheart,” he called. “If you’re satisfied the nasty-wasty hunters are all dead, I could use your able assistance.”
Cillian had seen Seliah’s alternate form before, but the sight of the huge black cat, glossy as obsidian and sinuous as death in the night, strolling toward them, pink tongue lolling between white fangs, made his battered heart skip several beats.
She swiped the side of his face with that raspy tongue, long tail waving in feline amusement.
“It’s unkind to tease him right now,” Jadren told her reaching over Alise’s prone form to touch Seliah.
She flicked back into human form, sitting companionably next to Cillian, taking Jadren’s hand to feed him her magic.
Wearing black leather fighting gear also, it was clear she and Jadren had come dressed for battle.
“Hunters are all duly melted. We’re safe. For now, anyway.” She gave Cillian a warm smile. “Sorry—sometimes the cat instincts win out. I only meant to give you comfort.”
Cillian nodded, rather dumbly, his deranged mind still scrambling to keep up. “How—”
Seliah put a finger to her lips, shushing him. “He needs silence while he works,” she whispered and rolled her amber eyes expressively, her smile going conspiratorial. She offered him her free hand to hold. “It will be all right. You’ll see.”
“What happened to silence while I work?” Jadren growled without looking up.
Seliah stuck her tongue out at him.
“I saw that. Silence and stillness, please.”
To his surprise, Cillian found himself taking her hand and, along with it, her offered comfort.
He wasn’t accustomed to having close friends, or really any friends at all.
He’d never minded that, as he’d always felt comfortable in the company of books and the pursuit of his various studies.
When the whole Szarina debacle had gone down, he’d lost the few friends among the staff and faculty that he’d had.
Or, rather, they’d proved themselves to be the sort of fair-weather acquaintances that distanced themselves from his scandal, rather than offering support.
Now, the simple gesture of Seliah holding his hand made him feel like the person he used to be had dissolved and been reassembled into someone else. Someone who had a friend to sit by his side. Friends who’d inexplicably arrived to… rescue them?
Surely not, because it would’ve been impossible for Jadren and Seliah to know they needed rescue.
And yet, it would be more improbable that they’d just happened to be here at this place and time.
A thousand questions tumbled into his mouth, but he closed his lips firmly to keep them from escaping.
Jadren’s magic clicked cleanly and brightly, fed by waves of Seliah’s fresh, purely silver water and moon magic.
Gradually, Alise regained color, her skin losing that distressing waxy translucence, her shallow breathing deepening into sleep. Cillian started to reach for her, but Seliah tightened her grip on his hand, preventing the movement. Silently, she shook her head at him, mouthing “not yet.”
Apparently she was not only offering comfort but acting as a leash to restrain him. Just as well, he supposed. After another long, nearly unendurable moment, Jadren sat back, releasing Seliah’s hand and removing the other from Alise, briskly rubbing them together.
“All right, I’ve put her wizardry back together. She sure did shred herself though. I’m not sure she’d have been able to recover, the way she pulled her sorcery apart at the seams. She just needs to sleep it off now. Good thing I was here, though.”
“And so modest, too,” Seliah commented drily, though her affection showed on her face.
“I’m a wizard of many fine qualities, it’s true.
But what in the dark arts were you two doing?
” He held up a hand to stop Cillian. “Never mind. You can tell the story once we’re away from here.
” Giving the broken-down Harahel carriage a jaundiced squint, he shook his head.
“That carriage looks like Baby Elal’s magic felt.
Good thing we brought the big carriage.”
“Told you,” Seliah said, uncoiling gracefully to her feet. “I’ll grab your things while you reassure yourself that Alise is all right. Come on, Lord El-Adrel. Make yourself useful.”
“I just did,” he complained, but he followed suit.
Cillian crawled back to Alise, taking her hand and wrapping it in both of his.
She did appear to be sleeping more or less normally, her lovely face drawn, but no longer a frightening mask of her impending death.
He truly had nearly lost her, yet again, and this time forever.
He brushed the hair away from her eyes—her fringe of bangs was growing long—and feathered a kiss over her unresponsive, but warm lips.
“I love you, Alise,” he whispered, wishing he’d said the words to her more often and at the same time knowing mere words didn’t encompass the breadth and depth of his immense feelings for her.
“Cillian?” Seliah said, summoning his attention. “I think we’ve got everything. You might want to check though. A few things are so sullied with hunter goo I think we’re better off just ditching them.
“Agreed.” Jadren cocked his head in a listening pose. “Also, your pursuers may be at it again. Whatever you two did to slow or stop them, they’re amassing serious power to blow through it.”
“Alise did, not me,” he corrected automatically. “She altered the border barrier to prevent anyone from coming after.”
Jadren whistled, low and long. “Impressive feat. Too bad the hunters slipped through anyway. All the more reason to go now.”
Seliah and Jadren had already stowed everything in the El-Adrel carriage, as shiny new as the Harahel carriage had been antique.
“I put the really befouled stuff that seemed valuable in the boot,” Seliah explained, watching as Jadren and Cillian lifted Alise between them.
Slight and delicately built as Alise was, they didn’t want to risk jostling her too much.
“You could have ditched them,” Cillian told Seliah.
She shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal. Besides, you know I’m not bookish and I didn’t want to be the one to accidently lose the sole remaining copy of some priceless tome.”
“That sounds like something you would do,” Jadren commented, stepping backward up into the carriage. “We can lay Alise on this seat, if you don’t mind squishing in with us on the other.”
Cillian looked at himself, then at the not-nearly so befouled, but still far from clean Alise.
“Why don’t I sit with Alise and spare you two the mess?
” he suggested, moving to lift Alise’s head and scoot under her so her head rested in his lap.
The interior looked as shiny new as the exterior, all done in black and gold leather.
Cillian thought certainly he’d never ridden in such a luxurious conveyance, not even the Elal one Alise had appropriated from Convocation Academy when they fled from there in the middle of the night.
Come to think of it, he and Alise had spent an unreasonable amount of their time together fleeing from one danger or another.
That needed to change. But not until they’d finished out this mission. Just change the entire social structure of the Convocation was all. Then they could settle down and figure out what they really wanted from their lives and each other.
The carriage moved into smooth and speedy motion, the almost frictionless glide almost a shock after the beleaguered springs and missing wheels of the old Harahel carriage. Jadren sprawled in the corner of the opposite bench, his hand affectionately resting on Seliah’s thigh.
He stroked his close-cropped beard, looking Cillian over with sharp eyes. “You do look like shit,” he commented. “Ow!” He rubbed the ribs where Seliah had elbowed him sharply. “He does. They do.”
“It’s not kind to say so. Cillian melted a dozen hunters,” she informed Jadren. “And liberated Alise from House Elal, singlehandedly, I might add. Something you failed to do.”
“Only because I was prevented,” Jadren snarled at her, squeezing her thigh. “Which you know full well.”
She patted that hand. “I do know. Weren’t we on the way there to do that very thing?”
“You were?” Cillian blurted. Of course they had been. He rubbed his aching head. He’d used up most of his magic freezing the hunters so he could melt them and wasn’t thinking at all straight. “That’s why you’re here.”
“Yes.” Seliah gave Jadren some sort of warning look that Cillian couldn’t interpret. “We were traveling to House Elal to, ah, discuss the Alise situation, when we ran across you.”
“I planned to give Piers fucking Elal a piece of my mind is what,” Jadren corrected with contained vehemence.
“I rank him now and as Lord El-Adrel, with access to my dear maman’s papers, I discovered a few interesting tidbits to use by way of convincing Elal to quit being such a flaming asshole.
” He sighed wistfully. “I’m almost sorry I didn’t get to. It would’ve been so fun.”
“Having fun wasn’t the point,” Seliah reminded him with exasperation. “Doing the right thing was—and it would’ve been dangerous.”
“There’s no reason doing the right thing can’t also be fun,” Jadren argued.
“Did you hear the part where I said it was dangerous?” she nearly hissed.
“I could take him.” Jadren curled a lip. “Piers Elal wouldn’t know what—”
The scent of bitter wine-soaked roses hit Cillian like a blast. Like Alise’s magic and not. Elal magic. “Looks like you’ll get your chance,” he said grimly. “He’s here.”