Chapter 28 #2
A disturbing possibility, but he could not linger on it. Not when he had to find Ryn.
A yelp of terror was his only warning, and his reflexes were almost not up to the challenge when Ryn finally fell from above, just as he had.
Desperation launched him in a twisting arc that intersected her fall only an arm’s length above the ground.
Before her head could hit the stone, Xavi snatched her from the air, tucking her against his shoulder as they rolled across the floor.
He heard a pained sound as the air left her lungs, and when they came to a stop—her chest pressed tightly against his—he could not feel her breathing.
“Ryn!”
An eternity seemed to pass before she gasped and drew in a wheezing breath. Then another.
His whole body went nearly limp with relief, and for the next few moments he couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to.
“Ow,” Ryn mumbled, her voice slightly muffled. “Um, Xavi? Are you all right? Because you’re sort of crushing me here.”
You cannot be friends.
The fae’s words echoed relentlessly as he released Ryn and rolled away, wondering what had come over him.
Why had his reactions grown so strong where she was concerned?
The only other person he’d ever felt so desperate to save was Kel.
But how could their friendship already be deep enough to compel him so strongly?
“That woman,” Ryn growled, sitting up with a wince. “She’s lucky I couldn’t reach my pencil. I would have stabbed her with it.” Her gaze darted around the cavernous space and went round with dismay. “Where do you think we are?”
Swear to abandon your traitorous feelings, and this torment will end…
“Another trial,” he answered flatly. But of what kind?
Ryn pushed to her feet and gazed around the room, her eyes brightening with curiosity. “This is different. All these doorways suggest that this is probably a labyrinth of some sort. Perhaps we’re meant to stay lost in here until we give up and do what she wants.”
Strangely, she hadn’t once looked directly at Xavi. And her face… It was oddly pink again.
“Ryn.”
She paused in her perusal of the room, but did not turn around. “Yes?”
“Did I make the wrong choice?”
A moment ago, she had said only that “feelings don’t change just because you tell them to.” Could it be that she would have chosen differently? Chosen to end the friendship in order to break the curse?
“If you wish to renounce our friendship for the sake of ending these cursed trials,” Xavi said curtly, “I will not stand in your way.”
Ryn hesitated. “So, are you saying that’s what you want?”
“Did you not hear me?” Frustration at his own helplessness lent bite to Xavi’s words. “She can force me to walk where I do not wish to go, but she cannot dictate whom I choose to protect. My heart is my own, and that will not change, no matter how she tries me.”
For a moment, Ryn looked as if she might cry. But then she nodded, drew in a deep breath, and lifted her chin. “Well, all right then. We are agreed. Whatever this trial is, we will simply have to win.”
Except Xavi was beginning to wonder whether they had always been doomed to fail, in this game where the fae made up the rules and seemed to draw power from every moment they were trapped within her curse.
Indeed, it seemed possible that Ryn had been curious about exactly the right things.
How had the fae known of their friendship? How had she pulled them out of the trials, back within the walls of her own prison? And how could she choose to punish them if the trials were dictated by the curse itself?
“I begin to doubt,” he said slowly, “whether winning is truly possible. Did you notice how she and that room of hers have changed?”
“I did,” Ryn replied with a nod. “She’s stronger now. And she’s been watching our every move. You don’t suppose…”
She paused. Bit her lip, as she always seemed to do when deep in thought.
“What is it?”
“Did you hear the last words she said as we went through the doorway the first time?”
He thought back. “‘May the strength of your resolve prove equal to the pain that lies ahead’?”
Ryn shook her head. “After that. It was almost like an echo. I heard her voice saying, ‘And may your pain prove equal to the cup that it must fill.’”
The words carried a chill that seemed to leech every bit of warmth from the air, though they also provided answers to a question that had been haunting him since the university.
“She’s feeding on our emotions,” Xavi said grimly, his certainty only increasing as he spoke the words aloud. “Growing stronger with every moment that we struggle within these trials. I wondered why…”
“Why these so-called trials took us to the places and moments of our worst memories?” Ryn finished for him.
“Forced us to relive our greatest regrets and placed me in conflict with the ones I love? I wondered the same, but it made no sense. All that we know about the fae indicates that they avoid dark emotions, and cannot bear proximity to those who engage in violence or bloodshed. She even mentioned that the first time we met, so how could she be drawing power from such things?”
A sudden memory struck him, like a fire in the darkness, and he reached out abruptly to grasp Ryn’s arm. “If they cannot bear violence or bloodshed, then why was she not repulsed by me?”
She looked up at him, eyes wide, lips slightly parted. “You’re right. When we first met, she noted that I did not reek of violence or death, but had no reaction to you.”
He nodded. “If all this is true, it suggests she’s been lying all along. If not in fact, then at least by omission. Which means we must remember her exact words if we are to discover her true purpose.”
“And answer our three questions,” Ryn murmured.
“Why use a bride, why steal your memories, and how was she entangled by her own curse? Though I think we might now know the answer to the second question. If she can access our memories and use them against us, she might also be able to gain power from them as well. That would explain why you don’t remember the brides.
Why Kel doesn’t remember exactly what happened with the volcano. ”
As for the others…
“We will find the truth, Ryn. Whenever next we see her.”
If they could survive. If they could escape. But for the moment, they were once again trapped within the stranglehold of this curse—once again at the mercy of the vengeful fae enchantress, who it seemed may now possess sufficient power to snuff out their lives whenever she chose.
If she had once been powerful enough to defeat even Kel, and now grew stronger with every drop of pain, sorrow, and uncertainty they experienced…
By the time they escaped this labyrinth of stone, it might well be too late to challenge her.