Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
ARYELLA
I didn’t dream. Not even of him.
I supposed no dreams at all were better than nightmares. And certainly, a dreamless sleep was preferable to a world where he was gone.
The first time I woke up, voices faded in and out, shouting and arguing all around me. It went on that way for a while, and I couldn’t make sense of it, so I refused to open my eyes.
I’ll just sleep a little longer. Maybe this time, I’ll dream of him.
When I woke, the quiet felt eerie. I found myself in an immaculate four-poster bed with a lace canopy pulled back.
The room was lit with a chandelier, scattered wall sconces and a roaring fireplace built into a stone wall.
Carved wooden furniture lined the walls and an expensive-looking rug stretched from one end of the room to the other.
It was a beautifully designed space, but the walls and ceiling were rock. There was no natural light, no windows.
The Winterton Caves.
Next to me, sitting leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, was my betrothed.
“Elias?” I whispered.
But he wouldn’t even look at me.
“Elias,” I said louder this time.
Maybe he was still in shock. The battle against the Insidions was a bit of a blur, it had happened so fast. The fire. The water. Gemma captured, rescued, then?—
“Where’s Gemma?” I demanded, tossing the covers off my legs to find myself dressed in a white nightgown. “Where’s Gemma? Is she?—”
“Gemma’s fine,” he answered coldly.
I released a relieved, shuddering sigh. “And the b?—”
“As far as we know, the baby’s fine, too.” His voice softened. Still, he wouldn’t look at me.
He hadn’t seemed angry on the battlefield, but I could see how when the shock dulled and the relief faded, the truth would have begun to fester.
I had lied to him.
“How long was I out for?” I asked.
“Eleven hours and twenty-three minutes.”
“Where are we?”
“The Caves.”
“How did I get here?”
“I carried you.”
“You carried me?”
He grimaced. “You’re not that heavy.”
When he finally looked up, I realized he wasn’t angry, after all. There wasn’t fury in his blue-gray eyes, just disappointment and confusion.
“Did I harm any of our own?” Our people had been behind me, but what if I had? How would any of them ever trust me again? Simeon had warned me I was a danger.
“We lost a few in the battle, but your blaze was kept to the enemy’s side. Gemma and her travel partner were rescued. Only a few more were injured in combat.”
I let out another breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Elias, I’m?—”
“Why?” he demanded. “ Why? You owe me an explanation.”
“And I can explain.”
But he rose to his feet and began to pace, leading me to believe he wasn’t quite ready for my explanation. “You’re… her.” His eyes were drowning in a whirlpool of emotions: rage, despair, joy, relief. All at once. “You’ve been her this whole time.”
“I’ve been me ,” I corrected him. “Just with different-colored hair and eyes.”
He scowled and stopped mid-pace. “We thought you were dead, and I had no reason to believe you were someone else.” He ran his aggravated hands through his normally perfect hair, his face twisting with pain and betrayal. “We mourned you. I mourned you! How could you let me believe you were dead?”
“You were mourning an idea, Elias. You’d never even met me.”
“But I’ve been waiting for you my whole life!” he shouted, causing me to flinch. “My sole purpose since the day I was born has been to become your commander and your husband!”
The spiteful side of me wanted to ask what he’d really waited for. We both knew he hadn’t held out anything for me besides marriage. And what did he really know about waiting? What was twenty-six years compared to four hundred and two?
I also didn’t want to embark on whatever our future would be with one of us in the dark. But if I told him all my truths, he would know that my heart could never fully be his. For now, I decided to tell him just enough that he might understand. In time, I would tell him everything.
“Almost a year ago, I woke up without any memories of the first nineteen and a half years of my life. I didn’t remember Elowen or Phillip or Oliver. It was as if I was meeting them for the first time.”
His brows knit together. “What?” He lowered himself back into the chair at my bedside, so we faced each other, knees touching. “How?”
“I was told that I fell,” I explained.
Elias narrowed his eyes. He didn’t believe it. I should never have believed it at the time, either.
“I felt like I didn’t even know myself. And then Gemma and the others showed up and told me this story about the prophecy”—a lie —“and how I was supposed to wield the power of the gods and save us all from Molochai. I was starving and scared and I went along with it, because I didn’t feel like I had a choice. ”
And because of him . Because something inexplicable within me was desperate to go with him.
“I needed to figure out where I fit in all this without the burden of some preconceived idea of who I was supposed to be,” I went on. “And I’m sorry it took lying to you to achieve that.”
“A burden,” he scoffed and shook his head. “I see.”
“Even you said that it’s not easy having your entire life planned out for you,” I rushed out in defense. “I needed to prove myself. To you, to Simeon, to Elowen, to your grandparents, to Valda. To everyone.” I dropped my hands in my lap, shrugging helplessly. “And to myself .”
There was only one person in this world who I’d never truly felt the need to prove myself to, who’d loved me exactly as I was.
“If I was going to sacrifice my heart, my life ,” I pleaded, “then I needed this one thing for me.”
“Sacrifice your heart?” Elias winced and tore his rejection-filled eyes away. “Well, you more than proved yourself, Aryella.” He leaned back in his seat. “You’re far more than we could have asked for.”
My lips parted in shock. “You don’t hate me for it, then.”
“Am I angry?” he snapped. “Yes. Do I feel like an idiot? I sure fucking do. But as you said, I know exactly how it feels to have only one path. Your life has been no different.” He rubbed his hand over his jaw.
“I can’t say I blame you. I’ve acted out in my own ways, as you have unfortunately seen.
So how in the hell could I ever hate you ? ”
I stared at him, speechless. I’d been expecting more of his wrath, even if I didn’t deserve to receive it after what had happened between us.
“There are some people who want to see you,” Elias continued. “I’ll take you to them or bring them here, but as far as venturing out into the main areas, I think it’s best that you stick with me.”
My stomach dropped. “Why?”
Elias paused, carefully choosing his next words. “So many saw what you can do. Word spreads quickly, and people are a bit unsettled. Relieved, of course, but alarmed. We need to come up with a plan.”
“We?”
“Yes.” He folded his hands in his lap and nodded. “ We. ”
I wasn’t sure I ever wanted that with him. We. And yet, I found solace in hearing it. I hadn’t forgiven him, but part of me wanted to start.
“Is… Damond Bellamy here?” I asked. Elias now had to wonder what had happened after Brinnea.
They believed the Butcher had stolen my body, and then what?
“When I came back to life after Brinnea, Damond helped me.” I left out the part about how exactly he got hold of me.
As Elias assessed me, I held my ground, refusing to show any signs of uncertainty.
“Well, thank the gods for that,” he finally said. “He arrived here about a month ago, I believe. I’ll have to thank him. Damond Bellamy’s family have been friends of my grandparents for many years. Would you like me to send him in?”
“Yes, please. But first…” I trailed off. If losing Gavin felt like losing half my heart, being without Shera was like missing a limb. At least her, I could recover. “I need you to let my cat in.”
Elias stared at me like I was speaking another language. “You… have a cat?”
“She’s an umbra,” I explained. “She’s almost a year old.” “Umbras are extinct,” he stated dryly.
I hummed out an awkward laugh. “Well, this one’s not.”
He rubbed at his jaw like he always did while contemplating. “Where has she been this whole time?”
“Just… in the woods.”
“That shouldn’t surprise me,” he sighed, arching his brow at me. “And you’re sure it’s safe to bring a creature like that in here?”
“ Not for him ,” Shera grumbled from afar.
“I really am still astonished that you can hear us through so much rock.”
“She’s safe,” I promised Elias. “Unless someone harms me.”
While mulling over my warning, I wondered if Elias was thinking of how he’d harmed me by not believing me. By disregarding me. I would never let Shera draw blood, but a little fear might be good for him.
“All right.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ll help you get her in here, as long as you promise that she won’t… eat anyone.”
I laughed nervously. “ Did you hear that? ”
“ No promises ,” answered Shera.
Before he left, he brought something for me to eat.
Waiting impatiently, I ate and sat on the edge of my bed and stared into the fire.
Each suite of living quarters had a fireplace built in with a carved-in outlet for the smoke to dissipate into the upper reaches of the mountain.
And running water via an intricate, filtered aqueduct system.
I was looking forward to a bath later, too.
After about an hour, Elias managed to get Shera into the Caves without being seen.
When they entered, I rushed forward, fell to my knees and caught her mid-leap, the force of her growing body nearly knocking me over. She licked my cheek with her sandpaper tongue, pulling a relieved but sad laugh from my throat.
“ You’re all right. ” She rested her soft, silver forehead against mine.
I nodded and sniffed back tears, unwilling to cry in front of Eli, and answered, “ And you’re all right. ”
I looked past her and winced at the sight of claw marks in the front of Elias’s shirt. He wasn’t bleeding, but his skin was pale—like he had just seen a ghost—and he had some leaves stuck in his hair.