Chapter 30 On the Road Again #2
Elyria scoffed. “They don’t know everything.”
“They seem to know a lot,” Tristan said. “He makes a fair point.”
Ollie scowled. “Do you have to sound so surprised?”
Cedric’s brows lifted when Elyria huffed a laugh. Then fell when she quieted, shifting in her saddle, her mouth opening and closing as if she couldn’t decide what she wanted to say.
Everyone waited.
“I know I made her, but I also . . . didn’t?” she said after a few moments. “It’s like she’s a part of me as much as she’s a wholly separate thing. She just sort of . . . happened.”
Nobody seemed to know what to say to that.
Cedric cleared his throat. “Well, regardless of what she is or how she came to be, at least one thing is perfectly clear.” He dropped his gaze to where a shadowy paw now poked out of his saddlebag, playing with a stray length of leather near where Ashrender was strapped to Polonius’ side.
“Pray, tell us,” Elyria said with a smirk.
“She likes me better than you.”
A low branch met the back of Cedric’s head, and both Tristan and Ollie erupted in a fit of snickers.
“You should watch where you ride, Lord Victor,” she said. “These trees can be quite wily.”
“Mmm, yes, even more so when they’re wielded as weapons by even wilier wildshapers, I think.” Cedric rubbed the back of his head, casting her a sideways look.
Ollie let out a low whistle. “So, if Sid’s a part of you, what does it say that she prefers the Lord Victor’s company, then?”
Elyria scowled.
“I think it says our fair Lady Victor might want to conduct an examination of her own self-loathing,” answered Tristan.
“Or her split loyalties, at least,” added Ollie, grinning once again.
Two more branches hit their targets with thwacks that echoed across the trail.
Cedric tried—and failed—to stifle a laugh as Tristan and Ollie fell back to nurse their new matching welts. Elyria didn’t say anything, but he could’ve sworn he saw the tiniest twitch of her lips before she turned forward again.
He would take it.
He would take anything she offered.
They made camp late in the afternoon in a small clearing, the ground blessedly dry enough for a fire.
Cedric had to admit he was impressed with the easy way the group had come together to complete their various tasks each night on the road.
Between setting up their campsite and portioning rations, cooking and cleaning and cross-checking the map, everyone seemed to have something to do, and, for the most part, did it without complaint.
Cedric, for one, enjoyed keeping busy. It quieted the increasingly incessant noise in his head, gave him something to do with his hands other than constantly reliving the feeling of Elyria’s skin against them.
He was just about to set the last pole of yet another tent when Tristan yanked the stake from his hands, one finger pointing in the direction of the firepit Thraigg was setting up on the far side of the clearing.
“Take a break, Ric,” he said.
So, Cedric took a seat by the would-be fire, where the dwarf was colorfully cursing the flint in his hands.
Loosening the straps of his pauldrons and vambraces, Cedric heaped his armor pieces in a small pile next to him, breathing in the crisp air.
He could hear Tristan and Ollie arguing over where to place the final tent, saw Jocelyn parsing through saddlebags and tossing supplies to Thibault and Hargrave, watched Sephone and Raefe water the horses with his lip curled.
Sid prowled nearby, stalking a cricket. And though he did try not to at first, it wasn’t long before Cedric’s gaze wandered to who he was really looking for.
Elyria knelt beside a large pine at the perimeter of the clearing, palm outstretched. A wisp of darkness coiled in her hand, blooming into a shadowy sparrow that tilted its head, then lifted into the air and vanished into the trees.
Some minutes later, it returned.
Elyria held out her hand. The bird flitted into her outstretched palm before she lifted it to her ear. Cedric couldn’t hear whatever returning message it carried, but after a few moments, Elyria nodded to herself, and the sparrow dissolved in a puff of smoke.
Sid pranced around her ankles as she walked back toward camp, and wonder propelled Cedric into motion, catching her wrist as she passed. He gently tugged her arm, encouraging her to sit beside him on the grassy ground. She didn’t resist.
“You form them so effortlessly now,” he said, Sid hopping into his lap with a low yowl.
She pursed her lips. “Everything’s been coming more easily lately. It’s strange. My powers felt knotted up for so long, almost . . .”
“Inaccessible.”
Elyria’s eyes flared wide for a moment before she nodded.
“I don’t know if it’s because I’m simply using my shadows more, or if there’s some other reason.
” She threw her eyes to the grass in a sudden refusal to meet Cedric’s eye.
“I do worry about the reliability of the sparrows as we get farther from the city. The messages are already clipped with as far as we’ve journeyed.
Fewer and fewer words can be relayed at a time.
But I suppose it’s something that they work at all.
That I can do that. That I can do this.”
Cedric watched, awestruck, as Elyria splayed her palm over the grass next to her.
The blades parted, revealing a single stem rising from the earth.
From it grew a large, tightly curled flower bud, the color of midnight.
With a soft hum, Elyria waved her hand, and the bud opened, each dark silken petal unfurling with an accompanying wisp of smoke.
When the flower finished blooming, there was a sphere of pure shadow sitting in its center. A sphere that quickly reshaped itself, splitting, forming a trio of the same shadowy butterflies that had enchanted the children of the Walk.
“What is—” Cedric found himself at a loss for words as the butterflies flitted into the sky on a ribbon of black. Sid leapt from Cedric’s lap in an instant, chasing them, and moments later, the cat and butterflies alike disappeared into the moonlight with a poof.
Cedric returned his mesmerized stare to the flower Elyria now held in her hands.
“First Sid, now this,” he breathed. “How are you doing it?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Elyria, twirling the stem between her fingers.
“It just happens.” She looked to the spot where Sid had disappeared, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes with a huff.
“And believe me, nobody is more frustrated at not fully understanding it than I am. I’ve had my magic mastered for nearly two centuries, but all of this feels so new. ”
“You think it has to do with the combination of your powers?”
“That’s what Nox suspects.”
Cedric nodded. “Your power is rooted in wild magic, but you have your shadows too. Somehow, you’re weaving the two together, embedding life into darkness. It’s not wholly unlike what I’ve been reading about Verdancy—sylvan magic.”
She finally looked at him, her mouth tipped to one side. “Been studying up on our scary Arcanian ways, have you?”
“Yes, well”—he met Elyria’s gaze. Held it—“turns out, there’s much I needed to catch up on.”
A charged silence settled between them, only relenting when Cedric plucked the shadowflower from between Elyria’s fingers.
He let out a low whistle. “So, what do we call this newness then? What do we call you? Shadowshaper? Night-wild-wielder?”
Elyria snorted and shook her head. “I don’t think we’ll be adding Namer of Magics to your growing list of titles, Sir Victor.
And I’ve got more than enough monikers of my own as well.
I am perfectly happy to continue simply being Elyria.
” She arched a periwinkle eyebrow. “Elle, when you’ve been good. ”
Cedric laughed, light bursting behind his ribs. “Fair enough. So, what news from King’s Keep then?”
“No news. Which is good news, I think,” Elyria said with a shrug. “Nox reports that your Lord Church’s presence has been scarce. Which has certainly made things easier for Tenny.”
Cedric wondered if Elyria could hear the way his heart suddenly started beating faster. “Tenny?”
“She’s been working to get Kit access to the royal archives. They’re seeing if they can find anything that will help either of us.”
Cedric drew a slow breath. If Kit and Tenny were working together, spending time together, there was every chance for many truths to slip out. He didn’t want Elyria learning about his prior history with Tenny secondhand. Even knowing no agreements had been made.
Cedric still wasn’t sure whether Lord Church had actually spoken to his daughter about his intentions, still didn’t know how Tenny truly felt.
If her friendly farewell in the courtyard of King’s Keep was any indication, he felt quite confident that things could continue as they had.
They were friends. They always would be.
Still, his final night in Kingshelm had shifted things considerably. Where before there might have been a sort of residual wonder between Tenny and him, a lingering sense of nostalgia, a kernel of “what if” and “one day,” now there was only Elyria.
There was no way in all four hells he would jeopardize whatever this was, however improbable.
Sucking in a breath, Cedric steeled his nerve. “Elle, I should probably tell you—”
“Great Gaia’s fucking tits,” Thraigg grumbled, hurling the flint and steel in his hands into the grass as he got to his feet. “Useless! Wood’s too wet and the damn flint’s dulled. We ain’t gettin’ a fire out of this tonight.”
And with that, the dwarf stomped off toward the circle of tents.
Alone by the firepit, Elyria gave Cedric an expectant look. “Well?”
He arched a brow, his previous train of thought entirely derailed by Thraigg’s ill-timed outburst. “Well, what?”
“Are you really going to make me eat”—she shuddered dramatically—“cold food? Help the poor dwarf out.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
She sighed. “Light a fucking fire, Thorne.”
His eyes widened. “Somebody will see. Hargrave—”
Elyria looked very much like she was trying not to roll her eyes. Instead, she flicked her green-eyed gaze to the camp, then clucked her tongue. “Nobody is looking. You may as well give it a try. Here, I’ll even help you pretend.”
She stood, moving closer to the firepit. With the crook of her finger and a small wisp of shadow, Thraigg’s formerly discarded flint and steel soared into Elyria’s hand.
Cedric gave her a look as he joined her, taking a knee in the dirt beside her, eyes fixed warily on the small pile of sticks that Thraigg had left assembled in its center. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It is easy. Or, at least, it can be. You already know you’re fully capable of doing it.”
“Yes, but never on purpose. I haven’t learned—”
“No time like the present. Or shall we add Lord of Procrastination to that aforementioned list?” Elyria scooted closer, the fingers of her free hand brushing Cedric’s forearm. “First, breathe.”
He inhaled.
“Good,” she murmured, her hand sweeping up his arm. “Now, close your eyes.”
He closed his eyes.
“Reach into the well of power that sits right”—he felt her palm on his sternum—“here.”
Cedric could not stop himself from leaning into her touch, his entire body shuddering with relief, the tether pulsing dully in the exact spot where Elyria rested her hand.
“Your magic is already within you,” she said softly. “It is not something to force, it’s something to summon. Think of your power as a well—it is there, waiting for you to draw upon. You just need to find that first spark.”
“Then what?”
It was like he could feel her smiling. “Then, you harness it. You wield it.”
Cedric took a slow breath. Then another. Tried to focus on the words she was saying, not just the way it felt to have her voice curl into his ears.
Finding his fire, letting the heat bloom, that was the easy part. At any given moment, it simmered just beneath his skin. And with Elyria right there next to him? Touching him? It roared in his veins.
The hard part was figuring out how to secure it, to use it, without letting it consume him—and her, and every member of their party, and every stars-damned tree surrounding them.
He narrowed his focus to the singular sensation of Elyria’s hand on his chest. On the warmth he felt there, even though he knew he must be imagining it.
He knew any heat had to be coming from himself, not from her.
In his mind’s eye, he visualized it as a deep pool, a well of light.
He dipped his hands in and scooped some up, cupping liquid sunlight between his palms.
Harness it. Wield it. Elyria’s voice echoed in Cedric’s mind, as clearly as if they’d been spoken anew, and hearing them bolstered something in his spirit.
Cedric imagined strings of light forming, weaving together into a kindling flame. He tried to visualize the wood waiting in the firepit, what it might be like to ignite it, his magic ready to—
There was a whooshing sound, and Elyria let out a frustrated groan, pulling her hand back and leaving an ice-cold chill in its wake.
Cedric’s eyes snapped open, promptly landing on the roaring fire that had just come to life before him.
His brow creased.
Because while he had been just about ready to throw his flame toward the wood, he hadn’t actually done so yet.
Which meant that the fire hadn’t come from Cedric.
It came from—
“What do you want?” Elyria’s voice was tight, the words sour.
Cedric tensed. Turned. Followed the line of her dagger-filled gaze.
To the fae standing a few yards away, blond hair pulled back in a low ponytail, hand still stretched toward the fire.
Raefe.