Chapter 46 #2
Cedric scoffed. “Yes, I believe I remember you saying as much when you cut the crown from Elle’s hand and flew off.”
Zephyr didn’t speak right away. She simply clung tighter to the branch, eyes wide, small shoulders jerking, her breath coming in short, jagged pants. She looked panic-stricken, and the anger simmering in Cedric’s gut started to settle as a different emotion took its place: pity.
It was quickly followed by the sour taste of disgust—at himself, for the immediacy with which he felt sorry for the sylvan, and maybe a little bit of it was pulsing down the bond from Elyria for the same reason.
“You don’t . . . You d-don’t—don’t understand,” Zephyr squeaked out between rattled breaths. Cedric could see the hysteria cresting on her face, guilt etched into the furrow of her green brow. Elyria met Cedric’s eyes, rolling her own with resignation.
“For fuck’s sake, take a breath and come down here. I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.” She crossed her arms, jaw ticking as she stepped back, giving Zephyr room to descend. “I better not fucking regret this,” she added in his head.
Zephyr’s green-eyed gaze was on Cedric, questioning. He nodded at her. She hesitated—long enough that he wondered if she was planning on staying up there forever—before leaping from the branch, landing softly on the grass below.
“Fuck me over the Chasm,” Elyria said under her breath, turning on her heel and stalking back over to the table they’d been sitting at before Zephyr’s interruption.
Thraigg choked back a laugh as he followed.
“Let me know when the dust settles, will ye, boyo?” He plucked his overturned mug from the table with a shake of his head, exchanging a look with Ollie before disappearing inside the shack—what Cedric now understood must essentially be this place’s version of a tavern.
Cedric eyed Zephyr warily as he slid onto the bench beside Elyria. The sylvan bit her lip as she sat down across from them. Ollie stood a few yards back, hanging on the perimeter with an expression that told Cedric he was perfectly happy not to be involved.
Cedric leveled a cool stare at Zephyr. “What did you mean before? When you said you were never meant to be here?”
Her gaze was fixed on the wooden tabletop, thin green fingers picking at a splinter of wood. “Just that. I went into the Sanctum fully prepared not to come back out. It was part of the deal we struck.”
Elyria let out a derisive snort, and under the table Cedric laid a reassuring hand on her leg.
“What deal?” he asked guardedly.
Zephyr grimaced. “I was to enter the Crucible. Needed to ingratiate myself with you. He said—he said I needed to form a bond with you. That we wouldn’t make it to the end without it.”
Cedric tried very hard not to wince. He knew she had used him. Knew it had been her plan from the very beginning. He still didn’t like hearing it.
Elyria was, predictably, less restrained. Shadows began leaking from her hands, spreading over the table like mist. Behind them, the forest seemed to shudder.
“It’s true then,” Elyria said darkly. “Just as Evander said. Malchior knew exactly what to expect, because he had already attempted the Crucible and escaped the Sanctum. Which means you knew what to expect. You knew what would happen in the trials.” She narrowed her eyes, her shadows lengthening.
“You let Cyren and Gael die. Had you only been honest, had you prepared the rest of us for what would occur, they might have made it out with us!”
Zephyr glanced up, her eyes wide with fear as they flicked to Elyria’s face then back to the tiny tendrils of shadow creeping across the table.
“No!” she said, scooting back on the bench.
“I mean, yes and no. He told me about the trials. Told me what I might experience. But none of it turned out exactly as he described. The trials were the same in concept, but in practice . . .” She swallowed.
“I swear to you, I never meant for anyone else to die.”
“Tell that to the nocterrian you murdered,” Cedric said.
At that, Zephyr bristled. “To save you.”
“Why?” He pounded his fist on the table. “Why me?”
Her shoulders sagged. “Because you needed to make it to the end. That was the one part that turned out to be exactly as he described.”
Elyria blinked at her. “He told you to get Cedric to the final trial.”
“Yes.”
“You knew it would demand a sacrifice.”
Zephyr paused. “Yes.”
Cedric held his breath.
Elyria’s shadows snapped to her, as if she yanked them back. Her voice was a saw-toothed blade when she said, “You were prepared to let him die?”
He didn’t know when he had moved closer, hadn’t realized he’d eliminated those few inches between him and Elyria, their bodies touching as they sat on the bench.
But Cedric was suddenly glad for it. Was glad that his hand was still on her leg, that he was able to press down and restrain her from lunging clear across the table at Zephyr, who had now scooted so far back on her bench it was a miracle she hadn’t yet fallen clear off the back.
He was also glad that Elyria was letting him. She could easily have pulled free from his hold; she was strong enough to shatter the table entirely. With or without her magic, she could have Cedric on the ground and be squeezing the life from the sylvan in an instant, if she so chose.
“It wasn’t like that!” Zephyr cried, lifting her hands. “No. I was the one who was prepared to die.”
Cedric’s heart clenched.
“And what good would that have done?” Elyria slammed a hand onto the table, the ground rumbling beneath them. “Cedric would have claimed the crown, and you would have failed your mission.”
“That was my mission. First and foremost, get Cedric to the crown. And only in the event that I should fail, that he should fall”—she bit her lip—“was I to get the crown for him.”
“Why would you ever strike such a bargain?” Elyria asked. “Why would you gamble your life like that? What could possibly have been worth handing over the Crown of Concord to Varyth fucking Malchior? What could be worth putting the entire realm—the entire world at risk?”
“It only ended up being half the crown,” Zephyr protested, though her words held little conviction. She just sounded tired. “He hasn’t been able to do anything with it.”
“Yes, but did you know that when you agreed to hand it over?”
Zephyr didn’t reply. She turned her head from one side to the other, taking in the grove of silveroaks behind her, the grassy glade in front.
Cedric followed her gaze, heat creeping up the back of his neck when he realized a group of spectators had gathered behind Ollie.
Several of the mixedborn children were interspersed with a smattering of sylvan onlookers, all of them watching the three of them with wary expressions.
“This place is why I did it,” Zephyr said quietly. “He found it. Found us. He knew of the children here—our sanctuary.”
Cedric and Elyria exchanged a look.
Zephyr’s hands shook. “He said if we did not help him win the Crucible and secure the crown, he would raze this place to ash. Burn every mixedborn child. Kill us all.”
“An empty threat,” Elyria spat. “Varyth Malchior would never have even been able to make it inside. This place is protected. Ask me how I know.”
Zephyr winced. “That is how the elders felt too. They did not agree. But I—I couldn’t just do nothing.
Couldn’t risk it.” Her gaze once again went to the mixedborn children, most of whom had already lost interest in the discussion and had wandered back over to the stream to play.
“I couldn’t risk them. He would have waited.
Would have plucked us off, one by one. Would have found a way.
He’s powerful, Elle. He—” She cut herself off at Elyria’s answering glare.
“You don’t. Get to. Fucking. Call me that.”
Zephyr nodded meekly. “I did everything he demanded. Every awful thing. I protected Cedric.”
“You fooled me. Played me. From the very beginning.”
Again, Zephyr only nodded her head. No denials. No excuses. “I tried to forge that bond. But when I realized it was you two who had done it instead, I . . . I let you go instead, knowing I would still be able to get him his crown.”
“You sent us in there knowing one of us wouldn’t be coming back.” Elyria’s voice was like stone.
“Yes.”
“You hoped it would be me.”
Zephyr hesitated. “Yes.”
Rage pulsed through Cedric, and for a moment, he was confused because it wasn’t coming down the bond from Elyria. It flared, hot and volatile, from deep inside his own chest.
Elyria, on the other hand, was laughing. “Well, at least you’re being fucking honest for once. I suppose that’s progress.” She took a long breath. “What is he planning?”
“I don’t know. I am not his confidante. Never even met the man properly. I only did as I was told, dropped the crown where instructed.”
“I still do not understand,” Cedric said, his free hand going to his waist, wrapping around the amber stone in Ashrender’s pommel as though searching for something to steady himself.
So many questions hung in the air between them.
Regardless of her intentions, Zephyr’s betrayal was like a wound that had only just begun to scab over. Now they were picking it raw again.
“Why me?” Cedric asked again. “Why was it so important that I get to the crown? Why would you have been willing to die to let me have it? Surely, if what you say is true and Malchior threatened this place, you would have wanted to survive. With the power of the crown, you could have protected Elderglade from him.”
“My life is not worth more than yours,” Zephyr said. “I only wanted to keep the sanctuary safe. He wanted you alive, and he wanted the crown. It was a price I was willing to pay. And besides, I . . .” She looked down. “The more I got to know you, the more I wanted you to live too.”
“I bet she fucking did,” Elyria’s snide voice bounced down the bond.
Squeezing her leg twice, Cedric finally removed his hand, bracing both elbows on the table and scrubbing at his face. “I suppose it would be asking too much to think he might’ve told you why he wanted me to be the one to claim the crown? Why he wanted me alive at all?”
Zephyr opened her mouth to respond, but the words Cedric heard next did not come from her.
“He is not the only one who did, dear boy.”
Cedric froze, some strange blend of confusion and recognition pulling his attention to the spectators behind him. To the elderly sylvan woman emerging from the parting crowd.
He didn’t know how old the sylvan woman had to be in order to look so deeply weathered—as though she was halfway to becoming one of the surrounding trees.
Her brownish-green skin was deeply lined, almost bark-like.
The wispy hair on her head had faded to a shade of green so light, it was nearly white.
From what he remembered being told during the Crucible, Zephyr herself was some three hundred years old, yet looked barely a day over twenty.
The elder’s robe dragged along the grass as she approached the group; Young Shep and Jocelyn exchanged a sheepish expression as they trailed behind her.
As if he’d been waiting for this exact moment to make his dramatic entrance, Thraigg emerged from the shack and trod straight toward the sylvan elder with a broad smile on his bearded face.
She gave the dwarf a warm nod. “Thank you, my friend. For everything.”
Cedric’s brows shot halfway up his forehead.
The dwarf huffed a tired laugh. “Jus’ doing my best, Lark. In the Sanctum and outside it.”
“That you have, my friend.”
“Who is this?” Elyria demanded, standing in a flurry of motion, wings fluttering with irritation. “Who are you?”
“Elyria—”
“My lady—”
Both Zephyr and Shep cut off their low warnings as the elder raised a wrinkled green hand.
“It is all right. She has questions. Has every right to ask them. My name is Elder Larkess, but at least one here knows me by another name.” She looked at Cedric with a tender expression that immediately muddied his thoughts.
“Wha—Me?” Cedric shot to his feet, bending at the waist in a respectful bow. “Apologies, madam, but I do believe I would remember rather distinctly if I ever had the pleasure of meeting you.”
Elder Larkess smiled sadly. “Maybe this will help.”
She began to glow, her form shimmering, green skin being replaced with beige, the faint tinge of color in her hair fading as it lengthened into longer strands of gray. The pointed tips of her ears shrunk into perfect curves.
She raised a hand toward Cedric, two fingers curling as though she meant to tuck back a lock of his hair. Just like she used to when—
Cedric’s knees nearly buckled beneath him as he whispered a single word aloud.
“Alouette?”