41. No, No, No
The thunderclouds followed me, raging like the storm inside me.
Most of my life, I’d kept my power hidden, but at the sight of the crowded courtyard, at the smoke billowing skyward, I couldn’t remember why it had ever seemed important. Electricity surged beneath my skin, burning through my veins in pulses, lighting them beneath my skin in a blue-white glare. Not exactly subtle, but I didn’t care who saw. Didn’t bother to suppress it.
I vaulted to my feet atop Saeth’s back, crouching low to avoid the riptide of wind.
“Bank!”
The horse veered sideways as I leapt into the sky. With an ear-shattering crack, lightning erupted from me, lighting up the dark clouds.
I began to fall, plummeting towards the courtyard far below. I twisted through space, reappearing a moment later, barely a leg-length from the floor. Upon my landing, a second whip of lightning shattered over the ground. Several armoured guards blasted off their feet and lay in lifeless heaps.
Screaming.
At my appearance, the crowd began screaming, shoving and surging towards the exit, but one drawn-out, high-pitched wail cut through them all, right into my soul.
Aliza.
I reached over my shoulders, drawing both swords as I rose from my crouch and turned to face the coming onslaught of guards. I sent my power surging down the blades, lighting them with a skittering, blue-white gleam.
“The king!” somebody cried. “The king has come!”
Unimportant.
Crackling blades poised, I charged.
I pivoted as I drew level, swinging one arm out wide. The sword cut through flesh and bone and sinew. Several heads, I didn’t stop to count how many, rolled. Onwards. A fool met my blade with his own. The swords connected, and lightning plunged into his body with a crack, launching him off his feet.
Beyond him, revealed by his fallen body, stood my uncle. Our eyes met over the corpse-strewn courtyard. Hatred and magic rushed through me, swirling together in a potent storm. The light beneath my skin surged. The snarls of his monstrous hounds turned to yelps as they turned tail, cowering behind their master.
Aliza’s screams fell silent.
No.
A roar shattered from my throat, and power burst from me in every direction, a blinding light cutting through the charged air. Maelgwyn and his dogs vanished a moment before my power reached them.
I sprinted the few remaining steps to the pyre.
For half a heartbeat, I hesitated, my breath trapped in my throat. Roaring flames, crackling, spitting. Hot. They towered over me, engulfing any signs of the woman I had failed.
Aliza was in there.
Smoke scorched my eyes, but I forced them to remain open. Sheathing one sword, I tightened my grip on the other, took one last breath, and stepped into the flames.
My scream curdled against my clenched jaw as I fumbled through the searing agony, reaching blindly. Searching. Every nerve in my body, every instinct, shrieked at me to recoil, to back away, but I had come too far. I would not be overcome. Not now, not if there was still a chance…
I couldn’t see, or hear, or think. Only feel. Feel my skin blistering and peeling and charring as I fought against every reflex I had, and kept my hand outstretched.
The ropes binding her were still intact, barely, but my sword made short work of them. Her scorched body crumpled, and I pulled her to my chest, even as she burnt through my leather, the stench of her cooked flesh finding its way inside me, choking me, even as I held my breath.
Together, we tumbled from the pyre. I wrapped myself around her, fighting the desperate urge to pull my skin away. To save myself. I would heal, but her…
Staggering to my feet, I hauled her out of reach of the flames, and only when the air was cool and clean again did I allow myself to let her go, laying her down on the blood soaked ground. What was left of her, at least.
“Aliza…” My voice scratched, hissing from my throat.
She was a ruin. Her features had melted away. There was nothing left, nothing to mark her as that bright, shining human girl who had mercilessly bullied me into being her friend. Even that rainbow of hair had turned to ash. Her skin was a monstrosity of split, red flesh. And her legs, her poor legs…
Tears streamed unchecked down my face as I took in her charred, bare bones. I was too late. I had not made it in time. I had failed her at the final test. I was always too fucking late.
My chest splintered.
Not again. Not again. I could not stand it. I would not allow it to end like this. I could not stand to lose another person I…
“Aliza,” I rasped, pleading, laying my shaking hands on her raw chest. My already healing skin sizzled, but I bit back my pain and focused on her. Only her. “Don’t go.”
I didn’t know how to use it, this fabled magic. Rhodd Anfarwol. I had not the faintest idea of how it was supposed to work, or if it was even real. In all my years before the curse, I’d never met anyone who’d used it. For all I knew it was just another piece of propaganda, designed to lure our human victims into our clutches. I’d trusted the stories, laid all my faith in them, but now the moment was upon me, doubt set it. But it was my last hope. Her last hope, however little she wanted it. Fuck the consequences. It was a small price to pay. I could live with her anger, but losing her? No, I could not live with that.
I screwed up my streaming eyes, and I wished. I wished with every piece of my ravaged heart, with every fibre of my shredded soul, with every breath I had ever taken, with all those I was yet to take. I begged. I pleaded. I bargained. I promised that, if only it worked, I would not give in to my darkness. I would not take the easy way out. I would live, for as long as fate would have me. I would do anything. If only it worked. If only.
Rain began to fall.
The first cooling drop landed on the back of my splayed hand, and my thoughts were only of her. Of how she would need this when she woke, to drive away any lingering heat. Because she would wake. I was going to fix her, and she would wake, and at least one thing in this wretched, fucked up world would be alright again.
Something new flowed through me. Not electricity, not pain. Something gentle. Something warm and bright and hopeful. Was that it? Was that the magic we’d all heard of in bedtime stories as children, in those tales of great love between our kind and theirs?
“Please,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone. “Please.”
I opened my eyes.
She was my Aliza again.
Somehow, against all odds, it had worked. Her skin was smooth and cool and as pristine as freshly polished marble. And the hair; I was in big trouble, but if she wanted to fight about it, I would do so gladly. Gone were the pastels, but so too was the scorched, twisted, hairless scalp. Beautiful, shining locks the colour of fudge spilled out behind her. And her face…
My breath hitched.
She was so still in her perfection. Too still. My hand, flat against her chest, felt nothing. No reassuring beat. No rise and fall. I dragged her into my arms, cradling her in my lap. She would open her eyes at any moment, she would smile, then tell me off.
Her head only lolled against my arm.
“Aliza.” I tapped her face. “Aliza, come on.”
There was no answer. No flicker beneath her eyelids.
“Please.” The word burst out of me in a sob.
Nothing.
It hadn’t worked. I was too late.
Only, it couldn’t be. I couldn’t accept it. She couldn’t be dead. I couldn’t give up.
As though she was made of cracked glass, held together only by the intricate angles of the fissures, still slotted into place, I laid her down on the ground.
I was cracking too, the already fractured pieces of myself crumbling at the sight of Aliza, still and perfect and dead.
There was no magic among fae or witches or elves capable of bringing back the dead, but the humans had a way. I’d knelt beside Aliza as she’d demonstrated. It hadn’t worked for the witch, but it would work for Aliza. I would make certain of it.
Kneeling, I laced my fingers and pressed the heel of my hand to her chest. I’d watched her long enough. I knew what to do.
The first time I threw my weight down my arms, against her chest, I grimaced. As senseless as it was, as far from pain as I knew her to be, I cringed at the thought of hurting her in any way. I had to do this. There was no other option.
Again and again, I pushed down on her chest, willing her heart to beat. Begging, praying to gods I had no respect for, wishing. But as with Hyacinth, there was no answering flicker of life.
I’d lost count. Not that I knew the details of how this magic worked. As I’d seen Aliza do, I lowered my lips to hers, pinched her nose, and blew my own breath into her lungs.
Live. Come back to me.
When I lifted my head, she was still dead.
I almost gave up then, almost let the familiar black wave drag me down to the crushing depths, but she needed me. I needed her.
Resuming my efforts, I racked my brain for every word she’d ever said, playing over her enthusiastic explanations, searching for a clue. A sign as to what came next.
A defibrillator sends an electric shock to the heart. It can restore the rhythm.
Electric shock. I could do that.
All around me, the bodies of the guards I’d slain littered the ground. My power had stopped their hearts, but humans… Aliza said it could help them live.
If only I’d asked more questions. If only I had the faintest idea of how this was supposed to work. I should have listened. I should have asked. Thanks to my own determination to keep her at arm’s length, I was blind. But I had to try. I couldn’t inflict any more harm than I already had.
Ceasing my crushing jabs, I spread my palm over her chest once more, as I’d done to transform her body. With a glow and a crackle, I sent a pulse of lightning from my flesh to hers. Not enough to injure. The same tiny flicker of power I’d used to revive her phone.
Nothing.
Fine. Not enough. I could do more.
The second bolt was stronger, but as unsuccessful as the first.
“Come on, Aliza.” The third bolt had her arching away from the ground, and my heart leapt, brimming with hope, but when the current died, she lay limp and lifeless once more.
Rain pattered the ground, the drops on her skin shining like tears.
A nearby clatter had me reaching for one of my swords, but it was only Saeth landing. He shook the rain from his mane and approached, his head held low. With all the tenderness of a mother, he nudged Aliza’s cheek. Her head lolled away.
The black wave inside me rose, filling me, obliterating everything but the pain. The all-consuming agony I had grown to know as well as I knew myself. The sky darkened too. Rain splattered my face as I stared at the clouds.
I had come too late. I had tried, raced against the clock, but come too late. A minute earlier, maybe two, and Aliza would still be alive. If I hadn’t fought against the compulsion to turn around, to go back to the human world… If I had known where they were keeping her… If I had leapt from Saeth’s back earlier…
Saeth’s back.
I scrambled to my feet, scooping Aliza into my arms, trying to ignore the way her limbs flopped. Without stopping to think, I threw her over Saeth’s withers and vaulted up behind her. I gathered her, holding her tight to my chest, and buried my free hand in Saeth’s mane. As though reading my thoughts, the horse’s wings spread, thrusting us into the sky without hesitation.
Rain streaked past, a freezing, blinding barrage, but I fixed my squinting eyes on the clouds. Up there, in the charged sky, my magic would be at full strength. Up there, I would try one last time.
My fist tightened on Saeth’s mane as he tilted, almost vertical. The soaking wings pounded relentlessly, with great booming beats. Up and up we surged, riding the wind, and I clutched Aliza to me as the ground fell away. I’d never teleported from the sky with a passenger before, but I would do it today. In the grand scheme of things, the sky and the ground weren’t that far apart.
The clouds loomed, closer and closer, and then all at once, we were plunged into swirling grey mist. It soaked through my clothes, freezing me to the core. I couldn’t see. My lungs filled with watery air.
All at once, we burst out of the clouds, into a breathtaking skyscape of sun gilded, fluffy clouds, and clear blue sky. Gone was the driving rain, the gloom. Aliza would have loved this.
My heart buckled in on itself, and as Saeth levelled out, his wings held wide, I gripped her tighter. Her freezing skin was slick beneath my hand. Her newly grown hair hung in wet tendrils, clinging to her pale face. I was running out of time.
“Same again, boy,” I muttered, easing my stiff limbs into position.
I wedged a foot on the wing joint and detangled my hand from the sodden mane. I could do this. I had to. I could not fail. With one last glimpse of the deceptively serene view, I threw myself into the air, taking Aliza with me.
Saeth wheeled away, and together, Aliza and I plummeted.
Before I could even take a breath, the clouds engulfed us. As we sped through the freezing dark, I eased my hand between our chests, crushed together by the strength of my single-armed grip. I settled my palm between her breasts.
Live.
Lightning bolted between us with a crackling boom. Aliza stiffened, jerking away from me. I tightened my grip, holding her as the magic dissipated and we plunged out of the clouds.
The ground sped towards us, faster than I could have imagined. I screwed my eyes shut, thinking of the cave I’d found her in when she’d stolen my horse. Secret. Warded. Safe.
Darkness swept in, claiming us both.