35. NO SOLACE IN SERVITUDE
Memories. Myself. That was the cost. Something I’d worked my entire life to hold onto. And the damned wraith might as well have just crumpled the notion like paper and thrown it into the fire.
The cost would be everything that made me who I was—all that I’d experienced. All that I longed for, but couldn’t let myself have.
Somehow, I had known it would come to this. Whatever the Aura was, it was attached too deep. It was everywhere, woven into the thread of my very being, twined around every memory and emotion I possessed.
My heart seemed to shudder as I turned the information over in my head.
Niall was speaking now, arguing with the wraith, from the sound of it. But Auren . . . Auren was looking at me, nearly in tears.
She must have put the pieces together.
The woman hadn’t known me long, but I had a keen sense that she saw me for what I really was: a lost soul, bottling up every emotion, afraid to let my guard down and grant the Aura any further access to myself.
Auren had always been able to understand that which was left unspoken. Looking at her now, I knew that she knew.
What if I lost everything in the process? The question smothered any ounce of hope I had left in me. But, like usual, I kept my head high, and swallowed the lump in my throat that was rising all too quickly.
Nivelle was saying something . . . My name . . .
“Aremis? Aremis?”
I snapped back to the present, leaving my thoughts to scatter.
“When you release the Aether into the world for your spying, or whatever it is you do, does it come back willingly? Or do you have to force it?”
“I—uhh . . . it comes back willingly. Or, naturally—if you will. I’ve never had to worry about it, if that’s what you mean.”
Nivelle’s brow pinched, more so in disappointment than confusion. “It is content with its vessel . . .”
Content indeed. Being the longest Cheshm Zadan to live—according to record—had to mean something.
Perhaps the Aether favored me.
I didn’t know if that made me feel better, or significantly worse.
“If it is, indeed, content, that makes ridding myself of it all the more difficult,” I concluded.
“And dangerous,” Nivelle added.
“Unleashing such a force could be used to our advantage,” Niall said. He was now staring at me like I was a map spread across the war room’s table.
Shit. I knew that look. “Let me guess, you’ll have the perfect spot for me on the battlefield?”
He raised a brow, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Something like that.”
I huffed a laugh, the best response I could muster, given the circumstances.
Gods, how was I going to tell Maeson about this?
Ever since she had become a permanent part of this group, I’d struggled even more than I had before.
In her presence, I was simply undone. There was something there, an emotion I wouldn’t let myself become too attached to.
I felt more whole around Maeson. A baser instinct in me came alive in her presence.
Had the Aura not been a part of me, the feeling would be stronger, deeper.
But I couldn’t test it, because the more I allowed myself to feel, the more the entity sank its claws in.
I had no choice but to distance myself from those feelings whenever they surfaced.
I’d tried for years to decode how the Aura worked—what it was stealing, dampening, and inhibiting.
My conclusion was that it stripped me of the ability to experience the fullness of my emotions, the pure enjoyment of life, and the ability to truly love.
I knew the beginnings of those things. Knew I was capable of them.
But I always had to pull myself back from experiencing them to their full extent.
Niall, Roirdan, and Remic were the only ones I’d ever spoken to about the struggle, before Auren came along.
Each of them resonated with me on a different level.
But Niall had always been the one to understand me the most. He knew what was at stake if too much control was lost. His power had a grip on him too, no matter how much he tried to deny it.
He knew just as well as I, that if either of us let go—truly let go—and gave in to what we really felt deep down, we might not come back from it.
My power used emotions as a tether to control my reality.
His was brought forth through impulses, moments of weakness.
Both had their consequences.
Neither were anything good.
Knowing what the Aura was, knowing it was the Aether, made so much more sense. Though, there were more unknowns now than ever. And not knowing was worse.
I inhaled deeply, mentally walking myself back from the precipice of complete overwhelm . . . only to find everyone staring at me.
Niall looked particularly concerned. “You all right?”
“Got lost there for a moment,” I said, unsure of how long I’d been swept up in my thoughts.
“It is only natural to wonder about that which we do not know,” the wraith mused. “But if I may offer some advice . . . Do not let your worries consume you. They are often far more detrimental than the things we anticipate.”
Easier said than done.
Auren didn’t seem to be finding peace of mind in any of this. I managed to offer her what I knew was a pathetically sad smile, if only to ease us both away from the depths of despair.
It didn’t convince her.
“We should get back,” Niall said. “Storms will be here soon.”
I nodded.
“Witch.” The wraith reached out and grabbed onto Nivelle’s arm, something like desperation in her eyes. “Please, if your goddess ever returns home, tell her to take me back with her. I wish to roam free once more.”
Nivelle glanced at the wraith’s hand and the whitening of her knuckles as she held on. “And what makes you think she would go back?”
“If Skadi has come for her amulet, then she has also come for revenge. And when war blooms here, there is no guarantee that anyone—wraith, human, or fae—will be safe. If Torin flees again, do not forget about me.”
“She wouldn’t leave our world to suffer the same fate,” Auren said.
Auren always saw the best in everyone. She even gave those she didn’t know a chance to prove themselves.
I admired her greatly for that. But from what I’d gathered out of this entire encounter, there were things about Torin that even her own witches weren’t privy to.
There was a reason they respected, yet feared her.
Whether or not that meant she had something to hide, I did not know.
But if she did have something to hide, then no one knew what she was truly capable of.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Nivelle murmured to Auren in response. She raised her eyes to the wraith. “But regardless, I will not forget you.”
The creature nodded slowly, letting go of her arm and latching, instead, onto the promise in the witch’s words.
If I were in her position, I would probably be just as eager to step out into the world again too.
To feel the wind on my face and see the stars in the night sky.
Even if I were the last of my kind, it would be of some solace to my lone existence to live out the rest of my days where I could be free.
It seemed the wraith and I were more alike than I cared to admit.
“Thank you for what you’ve given us today,” I said. Wraith or not, foreign being or not, what she had told us was information we might have otherwise never known.
Niall reached into his pocket in space, and to everyone’s surprise, he withdrew a glass-paned lantern.
He held it up in front of him and opened the hinged panel.
We all watched as a cloud of shadows gathered in his palm and wafted into the lantern.
Darkness pressed against all sides of the glass until the space was filled, and the door was latched shut.
“It’s all I can offer at this time,” he said, staring at the lantern. “Not an ideal vessel for it, but it’s what I have on hand.” He extended it to the wraith, whose eyes widened in shock.
She took the object, her pale, veiny hands gripping it like it was a treasure chest containing the most precious of gems. When she met his eyes, something like respect and admiration reflected in them. Her voice wobbled as she said, “You are a gracious lord. I am forever grateful.”
“Don’t use it all in one bout,” he said, offering her a grin.
She clutched the precious vessel to her heart. It would probably never leave her sight until she’d fed on every last bit of the shadows.
Then, she held up her hand. “Wait! There is something you should know. The witch who died trying to release the Aether . . . she befriended a wraith, and a fae female, not long after we arrived here, back when the witches dwelled in these lands with the fae for a brief time. The fae was a healer, and the witch was known for testing the limits of her magic. I remember the three of them keeping close tabs on a book. It was with them wherever they went, and they were always scribbling notes in it. I am not saying the answers you seek for the unbinding spell are in there, but perhaps it could point you in the right direction.”
“Where is this book?” Niall asked.
The wraith hesitated. “I do not know. It was last seen in the hands of the fae female after their group was . . . separated.”
“Separated?”
“The wraith had spent so much of her time with the fae and the witch, that when the witch died in the process of unleashing the Aether, the wraith’s clan became fearful that perhaps the curse had latched onto the wraith and cursed her as well. Out of fear, they . . . sacrificed her.”
“That’s terrible,” Auren said.
The wraith nodded. “It was the beginning of internal strife between what was left of our kind. I know nothing of what happened to that fae female, but she lived in these mountains. If she retained the book, it could be nearby as well.”
I exchanged a look with Niall. “It could be here or in Vahrenhall.”
“Mmm.” He slid his hand along his jaw. “We can check with Vanir.”
“I know it might not be of much help,” the wraith continued, “but it is all I know of the matter.”
“Thank you. We are grateful for the information, and we will try to look for it.”
She dipped her head.
Niall reached for Auren’s hand, and Nivelle turned to follow them toward the entrance.
I gave one last nod to the wraith, noting the change in her demeanor.
Gone was the mischief in her eyes and the unpredictability of her posture.
She stood there, on the shore of her gloomy pool, like a lost child, holding a mere sliver of sustenance in her arms. It made walking away feel like complete abandonment.
I had to remind myself that she had survived before us, and she would survive long after.
Damn my sensitive soul.
Damn it, because I wanted, just for once, to embrace the completeness of feeling something to its full extent. I wanted to fucking feel, without restraint.
Instead, I pushed the image and the emotion to the back of my mind, where all the other things I’d abandoned rotted away.
There was nothing more I could do without risking myself.
And even if I did risk it, even if I did let myself feel, the sinking notion that the Aether would sneak in and steal all the glory reminded me that I couldn’t risk it.
Better to live the life I was able to, even if it wasn’t what I longed for.
This lonely, stoic existence was better than having nothing at all.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.