41. Chapter 41
Chapter 41
Alyssa
S tanding at the railing of the ship, I watched the shoreline slowly growing closer, wishing we were heading in completely the other direction. It wasn’t the first time I’d wondered if it was time to accept that Nymeria was lost? Maybe we should turn to the seas and look for a new land where the fae could start again. It would be no use, though. Arik would only come after them. I knew he would. He’d never let them go so easily. How else would he fuel his armies?
Fizzle landed on the railing beside me with a grace that shouldn’t have been possible when the ship was rocking like it was.
“Are you ready?” he asked, his gaze moving to the ever approaching land as well.
I thought about it for a moment. Was I? I seemed to have accepted that this was what had to happen. It was the next logical step. Being ready to take it was a luxury I didn’t really have.
“I think we’re past the time of getting ready to fight,” I told him wryly. “If you’re asking me if I’m strong enough, then I’ll admit I don’t really know.”
“I know I’m hard on you, Alyssandra, but you can do this. I’ve seen how far you’ve come, and I know you have so much more inside you.”
It meant a lot to have someone like Fizzle believe in me. I knew it bugged the guys that he seemed like my harshest critic at times. But honestly, it had never bothered me. I liked that he didn’t bother with the bullshit most people did. What you saw with Fizzle was what you got, and because of that, he’d made me stronger. He’d helped me see the world in a light I wouldn’t have managed on my own. One that cut through to the truth and didn’t account for the warm, fuzzy facade that most people seemed to prefer.
“Breaking his connection with the Endless isn’t the problem. I know I can do it. My magic does most of it of its own volition. As soon as I find the connection and my magic makes contact, it almost takes over, flooding it until it breaks. I’m more worried about surviving the loss of that much power. We don’t know exactly how many Endless we’re going to face, but we know it will be a lot. Not to mention, there could be others experiencing something similar. I don’t have the court’s magic to fall back on this time. This has to be all me, and I don’t know if I have enough inside me to do it and walk away after.”
Fizzle sighed, and it was the note of impatience in his tone that strangely had me finding some hope. This was what I was talking about. There wouldn’t be any fluffy speech about how he had faith in me. He’d cut through the crap and give it to me straight. And that type of unwavering confidence was worth so much more than weak platitudes and compliments.
“I had thought you would have the brains to work this out for yourself,” Fizzle said, shaking his head.
Okay, that wasn’t quite what I’d been expecting. The need to ask him to explain was so strong, it almost burned, but I knew Fizzle well enough to know that wasn’t the right way to go about this. It had to have something to do with this ridiculous prophecy, and getting annoyed and demanding answers from him would only result in him closing himself off. So, even though it was physically painful to do, my only option was to wait in silence until he got impatient enough to tell me what he meant.
I could play the Fizzle game. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as he did.
“Tell me about your bond,” Fizzle finally said, and I glanced at him out of the side of my eye, not entirely sure where this was going. “What comes through it?”
Comes through it?
“I… can feel their emotions. Not all the time, but I get glimpses of them. I also get a sense of where they are. Like I know, if I concentrated on it, I’d be able to follow the pull of the bond and follow it back to them.”
The sigh that Fizzle gave at that information sounded like he was on the verge of giving up on me. Personally, I thought it all sounded pretty impressive. Especially considering that most fae wouldn’t even dare to make such a bond, so there wasn’t exactly a manual out there about it.
“Their magic!” he said in exasperation. “What of their magic comes through it?”
My head reared back at the words; I was that surprised by them. It wasn’t until I opened my mouth to deny that any magic was involved in the bond that I actually thought about.
The bond was magic, and it wasn’t a far stretch to believe that it was partially responsible for what the guys could do. Yes, they’d shown signs of magic before we’d bonded, but part of me wondered if it was already there, but in a different form. A bond made through fate that we hadn’t yet had the opportunity to solidify. But if that was the case, then the magic would have to travel between us, and in some form, I’d already experienced this. I’d felt the pull on the bond and the curiousness of my magic when it reached out for it.
“I’ve felt my magic reach for it,” I started slowly. “But I don’t think I’ve felt any move through it. Not in any amount that I’d be able to sense, at least.”
It seemed like a reasonable answer to me. I’d even taken a moment to think it through before speaking. Fizzle, however, looked at me like he was about to throw me overboard, and I was rethinking my earlier thoughts of how I preferred Fizzle’s way of teaching. I could do with a few of those meaningless platitudes right about now.
“Sometimes, I honestly don’t know what to do with you,” he complained and then sighed again. “Stop thinking of the bond like it only works in one direction. Think of it like a loop, one where the magic you all contain can freely flow through. You are all joined, making you greater than any one of you alone. You don’t need to drain yourself on the battlefield. You need to look to your bond and share the load with your mates.”
I knew I was looking at Fizzle with a blank look on my face. It was probably the shock to my system of him trying to tell me now that my magic worked in an entirely different way than I’d ever used it before. Or maybe it was the annoyance at the fact that he could have told me this weeks ago and saved us so many problems.
“If you’d told me this before, we would have had the opportunity to practise before literally taking a perilous journey that ended with a fight where everyone’s lives fell on my shoulders.” My voice was slowly getting louder as I spoke, and I knew it was a mistake, but I couldn’t hold it back.
Maybe this was Fizzle’s version of the bullshit I’d always assumed he didn’t bother with, because right now, I couldn’t think of a better word for it. How could he be this irresponsible? Holding back information like this could help me keep every single person walking into this fight safe. It shouldn’t matter if it would prevent whatever prophecy he didn’t want to tell us from taking place. My life would never be more important than all of theirs. Otherwise, what the hell were we even bothering to fight for?
I thought he’d shout at me then. I was expecting a Fizzle-sized tantrum as he called me a child for not knowing my magic and then sulked off in a corner somewhere for someone having the audacity to question him.
Instead, Fizzle just seemed to deflate on the spot, his wings sagging to his sides as he watched the other ships move to drop anchor around us.
We were here. It was time to go to shore and face why we’d come here in the first place.
“You don’t need my guidance, Alyssandra. You never did. Look at all you’ve achieved since you arrived here. All the things you’ve done by working it out for yourself. You were always fine on your own, but for some reason, you always felt like you needed an explanation, a set of steps to follow to reach your goal. Giving you those only leads to you making assumptions. Setting yourself limitations that don’t even really exist. You need to feel your magic, get to know it on a personal level. Trust it, and it will guide you through even the darkest of nights.”
He sounded so defeated, and it was so unlike Fizzle. It was shocking, to say the least.
I wasn’t so sure he was right about this, though, and I looked at my old friend in concern. Now felt like the time to ask him to tell me the prophecy. He looked so beaten down and ready to give up that I almost thought he’d relent and actually tell me. But I wouldn’t do that. Fizzle was hurting right now, and I knew it came down to the real risk that we wouldn’t make it out of this. I wouldn’t exploit that just to get my way. Besides, what he’d said was right. Even now, I couldn’t afford to assume anything about what I could do and what I couldn’t. We were always saying that Arik was continuing to get the upper hand because he could do things we didn’t even know were possible. So, maybe that’s what our problem was. We placed too many limitations on what the power we contained could do. It was time to let it flow and do as it pleased.
The words of the dryad came back to me about how our incessant need for control did nothing but smother the magic. How many times did people need to tell me this before I’d actually listen?
Fizzle and I watched in silence as the crew slowly lowered the rowboats to the water. It was time to get everyone to shore. This was the point of no return. We could turn back now if we wanted to. Head out for that new land instead of fighting for this one, but none of us would.
Nymeria was home. If we didn’t free it, we lost everything, and then what was the point of surviving, anyway? Besides, if we ran, Arik won, and that future was enough motivation for me to stand up and fight. Even if it was just pettiness that fuelled me.