Chapter 20 #2
“Ohhh,” a sigh came from outside the door, turning into a mournful moan. “Days. Possibly a handful of weeks, if we’re lucky.”
“What?” Horror struck me like a blow under my ribs.
My limbs grew cold, trembling. The urge to have Timur here with me grew so intense, I’d run after him. If we only had days left, I didn’t want to be apart from him for another minute.
If only I knew where to run.
The familiar dreadful hopelessness seized me. How stupid I’d been. Planning, dreaming… Like Timur and I still had a future together. Like we had lots of time for our plans to come true.
“We need to hurry, Sweet One,” the voice slithered under the door like a lick of shadows.
“There is very little time to save him.”
Save him.
The two little words anchored in my mind, giving me a lifeline.
“Are you saying you can save him?” I asked eagerly, crawling to the door on all fours.
“I can, sweet Elaine.” The way he slinked his tongue around the syllables of my name felt as if he’d licked my skin, sending a shiver of repulsion down my arms, but I didn’t move away from the door, leaning closer so as not to miss a single word.
“How?” I asked.
“The general’s affliction is difficult. So difficult indeed that all the magic of Alveari combined is powerless against it.”
“But you’ve just said you could help,” I snapped.
“Only with your help, my dear. I’ll need you to work with me.”
“But how? I have no magic.”
“That’s what you think. Except that just because you can’t disperse into shadows or use a spell, it doesn’t make you powerless.”
Powerless, helpless… That was exactly how I felt every time I faced the prospect of Timur’s inevitable demise.
“What can I do?”
“You feel affection for the general, do you not?” Suhai prodded.
My feelings for Timur had grown far beyond mere affection. I loved him, deeply and against all odds. But Suhai didn’t need to know that.
“Why does it matter what I feel for him?” I countered with a question instead.
“Because your feelings are your magic, Sweet One. The stronger they are, the more power you hold.”
“If my feelings were that magically fabulous as you say, Timur would’ve been long cured,” I said with a bitter smile.
“Magic that strong takes time to bloom. Sadly, it’s time that we don’t have. I will have to extract your affection, then distill it into its strongest form, and fortify it with your compassion and your caring for the general to consume.”
“What are you talking about? How do you distill affection?” I mumbled, confused.
“Well, that’s when my magic comes into place, dear Elaine.”
“Can you really do it?” I used skepticism to hold hope at bay because hope had devastated me way too many times already.
“I wouldn’t come to your door if I couldn’t deliver what I’m offering,” Suhai scoffed haughtily. “But even I cannot create something from nothing. I can’t give the general the centuries of life he’s lost. What I can do is share the decades of life you still have ahead of you.”
“What do you mean?”
His sigh filtered through the door. “Humans’ lives are so short, Sweet One. Are you prepared to cut yours in half to share it with the general?”
“Is…is that even possible?” I tripped over my words in shock. “Do you know how long I have to live?”
“About sixty years, give or take,” he replied casually. “Not much, not much at all. I can reduce it to mere thirty years. But these would be three decades spent with the general. You and he each would have thirty years.”
“You’ll take my expected lifespan and share between the two of us?” I repeated, flabbergasted.
“Yes. Thirty years for you, instead of sixty. Thirty years for him, instead of the few days he still has left. He’ll stop dying. You’ll stop aging. For thirty years.”
“Wait. What? He’ll live? I won’t age?” I had a hard time keeping up with all the incredible things the mage tossed through the door at me.
“Exactly. One can’t get something for nothing, remember? A longer youth for you would be his payment for the extended time in this world that you would give him.”
One can’t get something for nothing.
Yet it felt like a win-win situation to me. I was twenty-five. Thirty years felt like an eternity to me, longer than I’d already lived. And I won’t have to lose Timur. He’d be with me for three decades instead of a few days.
“Will he be cured from the dragon’s poison? Completely?” I asked.
“Completely and absolutely,” Suhai exhaled quickly. “Not a trace of it will remain. No more pain. No more dread. No more bones taking over his body.”
In that case, what did I have to lose?
To shorten one’s life by thirty years sounded terrible.
That’d be more than a third of my entire lifespan.
But when I thought about it a little longer, those would be my elderly years, the years likely riddled with pains, aches, and decline.
And anyway, that time seemed to be so far away right now, it felt like Suhai’s offer came with no payment at all.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “How do we make it happen?”
“Good, good.” Satisfaction spread thickly through Suhai’s voice. The quick sound of skin rubbing on skin came next, and I would’ve sworn it was the sound of him rubbing his hands in celebration. “All you have to do now, Sweet One, is to open these doors, and I will do the rest.”
“You want me to open the doors?” I repeated slowly.
“Yes, yes. We need to make the deal, remember? Then, I’ll have to collect your affection and the other beautiful, magical, delicious emotions of yours.”
His voice didn’t really change. It still had the same sleek quality, the same hushed tone that made it run like a velvet river, hiding all the sharp rocks in the placid stream. But it’d grown slightly more eager after I’d accepted his offer.
“How exactly will you collect my affection?” I inquired.
“With absolutely no discomfort to you,” he rushed to assure me. “You don’t have to worry. All it’ll take is just a drink of sweet, warm tea—”
“A tea?”
My chest hollowed with dread. Tea used to be my favorite drink before…before I watched the traders force it down Peter’s and Maria’s throats back at the camp. Of course, there were many different kinds of tea. I didn’t mind drinking the tea Timur made for me.
But I trusted Timur.
I did not trust Suhai.
Only, did I have any real reasons not to trust the mage? So far, he’d delivered on everything he’d promised. He made my glasses, exactly as we’d agreed.
“Yes, just a little bit of tea with a tiny, harmless spell,” Suhai continued.
“What kind of spell?” I asked, far more warily this time.
“Nothing to worry about,” Suhai’s voice flowed easily under the door. “Sadly, I can’t recite it for you here in the open where others may overhear it. Please let this humble mage keep his trade secrets, sweet Elaine. For what would I be without them?”
That did nothing to assuage my hesitation or to remove the needle of distrust that kept poking through my desperation.
I shifted away from the door but still asked, “What’s in it for you, Suhai? What do you want for your service?”
His reply was quick. “Gold, of course. I trade my magic for gold.”
That wasn’t entirely true, though, was it?
“He doesn’t just sell magic, he trades in lies and manipulation,” Timur’s words rang through my memories like a warning bell.
“I’ll think about your offer, Suhai.” I walked away from the door.
“Oh, but there is no time to think,” the mage urged.
Maybe he’d told me the truth, as devastating as it was. Maybe Timur really had only days to live. But if I opened the doors, I risked being taken. And then I would possibly never see Timur again, dead or alive.
“If we decide to make the deal, Timur and I,” I said firmly, “we’ll come to you. Both of us.”
Together. That was how it should be done. Even if Suhai’s every word was genuine, even if he truly had the power to help where all the other magic had failed, I shouldn’t be dealing with the mage behind Timur’s back. He had to be a part of this agreement too.
I made sure the doors were closed tightly and that Timur’s bracer hang on it securely, then I went to the bathing area, ignoring Suhai’s hasty pleas behind the doors.
Suhai had seen me with Timur. He’d watched us closely.
He’d guessed the connection between us correctly.
His calculations weren’t wrong. He bet on my affection for Timur and my desperate wish to save him, and he’d almost won.
But I couldn’t afford making mistakes, not in the city like Ashgate, and not when Timur was too far away to come to my rescue if anything went wrong.
It hadn’t been easy to part from Timur, not after we’d spent six weeks side by side, sharing pain and hardship along with joy and prosperity. His departure left a hole in my chest, and it ached with longing and disquiet.
But he shouldn’t be away for too long. Flying was faster than walking. He’d set up everything for our new life in Teneris and be back in a couple of days. Just a couple of days longer, and we can discuss Suhai’s offer then.
Meanwhile, I had everything I needed in the cave to wait for his return safely.
Talking to Suhai had made me thirsty. I filled a tumbler with water from our fountain in the bathing area and drank it all. I didn’t even need to worry about running out of water here.
The following evening, I woke up from a feeling of discomfort I couldn’t quite name.
I patted Timur’s side of the bed in search of him before remembering that he wasn’t there.
It’d been two days since Timur left. I’d managed to survive on my own so far, but I missed him terribly.
His chair stood in the corner, looking empty and abandoned.
The green glow of Gorgonian magic was fully extinguished without its master.
An ache tightened around my heart. Wincing, I ran my hand over my sternum as if I could alleviate it like that. With the touch, a sharp spasm of desire clenched low in my belly.
I blinked, realizing what had woken me up.
Lust.
I felt horny, plain and simple. I didn’t recall having any sexy dreams today. I missed Timur, but on a much deeper level than just physical. Though, he had an amazing dick…
Oh God. At the thought of his thick, ridged cock, desire spiked so high, my mind seemed to black out for a moment.
I often slept naked nowadays, and the sensation of the sheets touching my skin suddenly felt invigorating, like the touch of invisible hands. My nipples tightened into hard buds. My inner muscles clenched, sending a gush of arousal to wet the sheets under me.
Falling back onto the mattress, I quickly slipped my hand between my thighs. I had no idea what got me so incredibly excited, but at least I could do something about it. Except that the more I touched myself, the higher my desire grew.
There was no relief.
I scrambled out of bed and staggered into the bathing area, then climbed into the pool.
My body felt hot as if set on fire. I almost expected the cool water to hiss from the heat radiating from me.
I dove under the water, then opened my mouth under the trickle of the waterfall.
Instead of gulping, I tried to drink it slowly, hoping to calm my nerves.
What was happening to me? And why was it getting increasingly worse with every passing moment?
My heart sped up. I breathed in short shallow gasps. My muscles tensed with the strain I couldn’t ease. Heat throbbed between my legs. But when I pressed down on my swollen clit, I felt only pain with no relief.
I needed Timur to touch me.
My vision blurred, and I didn’t think that even finding my glasses would help it.
Bright light alternated with deep darkness.
My nerves seemed to come to life all at once, making my skin crawl with a multitude of bizarre sensations.
The water in the pool only made everything worse, its glide and splashing against my body added to my arousal.
I accidentally slipped in the pool and went under again. Terror struck me that I might drown here, burned by lust and lost to insanity.
Panicked and disoriented, I climbed out of the water. The warm air of the cave slithered around my wet, naked body, amplifying the torture of desire. I moaned, kneading my breasts, then trying to rub between my legs again—all to no avail whatsoever.
“Fuck me…please, please somebody fuck me,” I begged the darkness.
And the darkness answered.
“Come out here, Sweet One, and we will help you,” it replied in a soft, coaxing voice.
I twisted, turning toward the voice.
“Come where? Where are you?”
“Come to the doors.”
What doors? Where were the doors? I stumbled forward with my arms outstretched. My hands touched something hard and rough—the rock of a wall.
The trickling of the water in the bathing area was the strongest sound in the cave.
It came like a whisper of a traitor. Timur and I had closed all the doors and warded all the gaps to make this cave a safe space.
But the water source was outside of the cave.
Outside of our control. And I had drunk from it freely.
Alarm pierced through the fog of confusion in my mind. Fear filtered in, but it didn’t last long.
“Water…Something is wrong with the water…” I wanted to ask a question, but I already forgot what it was.
Silence scared me even more than the darkness, more than the menace that had entered my sanctuary in the shape of drinking water.
“Are you still here?” I called out, afraid to be left alone to my torture.
“Yes, we’re still here. We’re still waiting. Come closer,” the voice beaconed.
“Who are you?”
“Someone who can help.”
I longed to believe this promise. I had no choice. My legs shook, and I feared my knees would buckle, and I’d fall and wouldn’t be able to get up again. I’d die here alone in the darkness, burned from inside out by this all-consuming need.
“I can’t…I can’t take it anymore,” I whimpered.
Tears burned my eyes. My nails scraped against the rock wall in front of me. I took another wobbly step to the side, and the rock under my palms was now wood.
“You’re so close,” the voice praised. “You don’t have to suffer, poor sweet thing. Open the doors.”
Open the doors?
“Don’t ever open the doors for anyone but me,” another voice sounded in my head. The beloved voice of someone who wasn’t here and couldn’t help me.
I knocked the rounded metal thing from the hook in the wood and pushed the doors open.
“I need…” I moaned, stumbling out into the cool evening air.
“We know what you need, Sweet One,” the hissing voice murmured with deep satisfaction, sounding far less tender now.
“Get her!” a female voice ordered.
Hands grabbed me. Rough and unyielding.
I should be scared. I knew I had to be scared. Fear could possibly still save me. It could send me running at least.
But I had no place for fear. All I felt was the torturous, all-consuming need and hope that it’d be over soon.