Chapter 37
Sleep feels like an indulgence, knowing that the Hellions are on the prowl. But my eyes are so heavy they sting with exhaustion.
“Is there time for this?” I mumble against his chest, my lips grazing his tunic, as he reaches my door. The man carried me up an entire mountain’s worth of stairs and he isn’t even breathing hard.
“For sleep?” Roiven’s voice is a rumble against my cheek.
“The Hellions…”
“Rest, beautiful. You need it. Nor says they haven’t moved from Lusern yet.” An edge of grief cuts through Roiven’s last remnants of pleasure.
He sets me down on my bed. Roiven pushes a cup of water into my hand. I chug it gratefully, strip off my sea-soaked boots and trousers, and collapse into sleep.
I roll over and wake in a blaze of panic, because I can’t move my right arm.
Then I remember. The enchanted armor is gone, and it doesn’t move on its own anymore.
I stretch into a new position, and wish I wasn’t so far from the sea.
I should have told Roiven I wanted to sleep down on the shore. I fall back asleep.
I dream of the day Roiven and Sava attacked Rampage.
Except this time I’m not trying to reach Roiven to kill him.
I’m trying to tell him I’m on his side. When I finally reach him I can tell he doesn’t care; he’s going to kill me anyways for all the evil I’ve done.
Sava barrels over, like she did in real life, and suddenly I’m burning alive as I fall through the sky.
It’s so hot. Unbearably hot. It hurts too much to be part of the dream.
I come wide awake. The bed I’m lying in has gone up in a blaze. I’m in the middle of it. Flames ravage the gauzy canopy.
It’s real life, not a nightmare. My heart pounds and I thrash out of my blankets.
Fire surrounds me. There’s nowhere to run but through it. Smoke chokes me and I cough. Throwing myself off the bed, I hurl through the flaming canopy curtains and crash onto the floor.
Everything burns. My lungs catch, and I scream again but only coughs come out. There’s no ocean to catch me this time. The fountain, against the wall—I should reach it, but I can’t see which way is which through the smoke. I cough again, rolling on the floor.
There. I can hear the fountain splashing against the stone floor.
I can’t crawl on my right arm, but I stay low on the three limbs that do work, dragging the right arm behind me.
I can barely breathe as I hop and shuffle along the floor toward the sound of the waterfall.
Cool water pours over my skin. I’ve made it.
I let out a choked sob of relief, but I haven’t escaped.
Smoke billows up through the opening in the ceiling, rising over my head.
Turning over my shoulder I can see the bright fire through the black smoke.
The whole bed is up in flames. And the fire has extended across the plush rug and to the desk, forming a wall of flames between me and the door.
How did this happen? There wasn’t a lit lantern or candle, nothing that could have caught the room on fire.
The only way out of here is through the slit in the wall above me.
My heart pounds in my chest as I look up at the smoky sky through it.
It’s fifteen feet above my head, but looks wide enough for me to squeeze through.
The wall is slightly slanted, but I can’t climb it with one hand.
And it’s far too late to get the chair from the desk, since it’s now wreathed in fire.
The plants are in ceramic pots. The tallest of the containers comes up to my knees. Could I stack them? Do I even have time to find out?
My lungs constrict and a wracking cough tears through me, doubling me over as my whole body shakes. I blink away tears as the smoke stings in my eyes. I don’t have time to question this. I just have to climb.
If I don’t make it, I’m going to die alone in here. Hundreds of feet above the sea, hours after finally realizing part of me was missing. My heart clenches tight.
The shirt I’m wearing is already wet from being under the fountain.
I pinch it up over my nose and stumble upright.
Planting my right foot on the edge of the container, I leap up.
The ceramic base is heavy but it wobbles for a moment, then settles as my left foot lands on the other side.
I lean against the wall and reach my living arm as high as I can.
Between my reach and the height of the container, my fingertips are still feet from the lip of the opening.
I jump, but my fingertips barely graze the lip.
The pot wobbles when I land and I have to jump off it, landing awkwardly on my ankle.
I can’t pull my entire body up with just my fingertips.
Could I walk up the wall while I pull? Maybe, but I still need to be taller, to get a better grip with my whole hand.
I tug at the container next to the one I climbed. I’ll have to stack them. It doesn't matter that this will crush the plant in the bottom container. They’re both going to burn anyways.
“Cai!” That’s Roiven’s voice, coming from the hallway.
I don’t know what he’ll be able to do. There’s still a blazing fire between us, and the wall of shelves is in flames now. If I want to live, I’m going to have to figure this out by myself. The air is so smoky I can barely see a foot in front of my face.
If we hadn’t taken off the armor, it would be easy. I’m sure I could climb the wall if I had both arms. But the moment of regret I taste on my tongue is easily dismissed. If I don’t make it out, at least I’m myself now, without an enchantment poisoning my mind.
The door crashes open, slamming against the wall. A gust of air shoots into the room from the hall and the fire roars and doubles. Heat washes over my skin and I cry out. But it doesn’t burn me. None of it has burned me. It’s just the smoke that hurts.
“Caiteven!” Roiven says again. I can feel his worry, frantic and nearly mindless. He’s going to come into the fire for me. But I know his people need him, and he shouldn't risk himself.
“Don’t,” I try to yell. The effort sends me into another coughing fit.
My hand grips the edge of the ceramic, sinking into the dirt. Far too heavy to lift one-handed. Crouching down I slide my good arm around the pot, grasping it against me, and struggle upright to my feet. If I can just get this onto the other pot and climb on top of both of them…
A downpour of water crashes through the room. So much it can’t be coming through the slit above me. It’s like the ceiling itself is raining.
The fire hisses and steam billows up to cloud the room.
Wind follows on the rain’s tail, a moaning gale that sweeps the steam and smoke up toward the slit above me, like a toothed whale herding a school of fish.
As the room clears, Roiven takes shape through the smoke and steam.
He rushes toward me as I slump down, the pot in my arms booming as it crashes down.
The rain stops as Roiven falls to his knees in front of me.
The beautiful witch is shirtless, barefoot, wearing nothing but dark cloth trousers that hang low on his hips. The rain water drips from his skin, over the lines of ink and scar that swirl across his body.
“I thought…” he starts. His voice cracks. The guilt and fear roiling off him are overpowering. But I’m alive, and for a moment I’d really thought I was going to die alone. So right now? I don’t want to shut him out.
“I heard screaming,” Aria cries from the doorway. She rushes toward us. My eyes are still stinging and I let them fall shut.
“Fire. Help her,” Roiven begs his sister.
A gentle hand presses lightly to my forehead. I can tell it isn’t Roiven’s. Aria’s, then. My skin cools. As I draw my next breath, my lungs seem to expand, no longer catching and choking.
“She’ll be alright. Can you hear me, Cai?” Aria asks.
“You’re a healer?” I mumble.
“It’s my fault,” Roiven rasps. “I should have realized taking off the armor would free your magic. I should never…”
“You couldn’t have expected this,” Aria tells him.
“But I knew. I knew it was fire magic. I pushed her to take off that armor and then I left her alone like a thrice-damned fool instead of sleeping next to her where I belonged.”
“Roiven…” Aria sighs. “She wasn’t even burned. The smoke damage was bad, but she’s fine now.”
How could I not burn? The heat was so intense. It’s not like I’m immune to fire. The scars from Sava’s still line my face.
Is it because dragonfire is more intense?
…Or maybe it’s because, even if my familiar is ignoring me, I’m more in touch with him and my power than I ever was before.
Aria’s hand slips off my forehead. In all honesty, I feel fine. So exhausted I can barely move, but fine. Minutes ago I may have been choking on smoke, but whatever Aria did is magic. Literally.
The emotion billowing off Roiven is heavy, thick, like the fire’s smoke.
It’s clogging my brain and I don’t think he’s even conscious of what he’s sending down our bond.
He’s dragging himself down, down, deeper, because he’s the kind of man who blames himself for not preventing anything that goes wrong.
Because I almost died, and he thinks it’s his fault.
I reach my living hand toward him. Roiven’s breath hitches as he takes it in his own. The lines of our bond touch.
I’m glad he came for me.
And I might still hate that he tricked me into becoming his wife instead of telling me the truth about the bond, but I don’t hate what we are, and I don’t blame him for this.
Roiven’s hand squeezes tight on mine, his palm warm and his fingers calloused. The guilt in him lightens, just a little. Not all the way. He’ll blame himself whether or not I blame him.
“What if I hadn’t. What if I’d been too late,” he whispers.
“I’m not easy to kill.”
“I know that,” he says fiercely.
“I’d have made it through the opening. I’d have found a way.”
“I’m sure,” he says, and his chin tilts up as he looks at how far it is above our heads. “But you never should have had to—”
“Enough,” I mutter.
Aria clasps my shoulder lightly.
“I’ll find you something else to wear,” she says, and stands to leave. I glance down. I wasn’t wearing trousers to begin with, and now my shirt is nothing but burnt, tattered rags.
“So. Fire,” I say to Roiven as she walks away.
“Fire,” Roiven answers. “I should have said something. After you asked if I burned your trousers.”
“I sort of guessed,” I mutter, thinking back to that day and then the plant I caught on fire. But I wasn’t even conscious of doing anything either of those times, and I almost just burned myself to death in my sleep. My heart thuds loudly in my chest.
Just when I began to believe my magic isn’t evil, is it going to kill me after all?
“It seems backwards. Shouldn’t I be the one with water powers, and you have fire?”
“Storm, not water,” he corrects me absently. “Like I said, your familiar doesn’t determine what your power is.”
“How am I ever supposed to sleep again?”
Roiven is silent for a moment, his hand still gripping mine tight like he’s afraid to let go.
“Next to me,” he answers, his voice low. “Where if anything burns, I’ll be right there to stop it. Until you learn to control it yourself.”
I gulp. But I slowly nod.
For a moment a spear of warmth and longing pierces through Roiven’s cloud of guilt, and the emotion is gone just as fast, like he’s stifled it from reaching me.
He stands without letting go, pulling me to my shaky feet. My shirt is charred and burnt, and wet from the fountain, and I'm not wearing trousers at all. But apart from soot my skin bares no evidence of the blaze that almost killed me.
“My room’s next door.”
“Maybe this is a sign it was time to wake, anyways. The Hellions…”
“It’s barely been an hour. You need rest. We both do, if we’re going to win this.”
He’s right. Because if the Hellions aren’t attacking now, it could be the last opportunity before I see if Roiven was right to believe in me—to see if I’m capable of ending the monstrosity I once fought for.
And while there are a million more useful things I could be doing, like trying to find my familiar or understand how to wield my magic, right now I’m more exhausted than I’ve ever been.
Aria knocks on the open door to announce she’s back. I tear my eyes away from Roiven and am startled by how bad the room looks as I examine it with fresh eyes. The shock of the fire is still wearing off. Everything is burnt, the stone roof blackened, the furniture reduced to charcoal.
Roiven’s sister approaches and hands me a folded set of clothes.
“You’ll be alright?” she asks me. Her eyes are rimmed with red, and I remember that she can’t have gotten much more rest than either of us. She was at Lusern, too.
“I’m fine. Thank you for healing me.”
“Get some rest. Both of you,” Aria says.
“We will,” Roiven tells her.
“I should wash. And change,” I say, gripping the clothes tight in my living hand.
“Do you want my help?”
I’m tempted to say yes. But I think there are some things I need to do for myself. Whatever’s between us is fragile enough without me leaning my full weight on him.
“No. Next door?”
“To your left,” Roiven confirms. “If you need anything, you know you can call for me. Through the bond. You could have called for me.”
“You came anyways, didn’t you?”
“But maybe I could have come faster,” he says hoarsely.
I shrug, and he and his sister leave. But as he walks to the door Roiven glances back at me over his shoulder, his golden eyes burning as they run over me, bare-legged in my tattered shirt.
I know, because I haven’t taken my own eyes off of him.