Chapter 27
My eyes blur with tears. I cannot wait any longer. For the first time since I’ve been here, the Sunborne are watching me. Looking for me to react, as if they are enjoying the cruelty that has tugged emotion from my body.
Taking my hand, Briony whispers, “Come with me,” and drags me away through the crowd.
At the back of the hall, we take a corridor I haven’t travelled before and keep going until we reach a small wooden door. Briony lifts the latch, pushes it open, and we emerge onto a small cobbled path that leads across a grassy lawn.
When we reach a row of dishevelled hedging, we pass through a gap in its middle, and I inhale sharply at the sight of a small, sparkling lake.
“I had no idea this was here,” I whisper.
Briony puts her hand on my lower back. “Eldrion used to come here a lot,” she says. “Now he spends most of his days locked in his chambers.”
At the thought of Eldrion’s chambers, I shudder.
I’ve been trying not to think about what I witnessed there, and what I did there – what I was doing while Kayan was dying. As the memory takes over, another sob shakes my shoulders, and Briony urges me down the slope towards the water.
When we reach it, out here in the moonlight, away from the castle, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in weeks.
I brace my hands on my hips, bend over, and breathe deeply.
Then I begin to pace up and down, shaking my arms and my wings, trying to relieve the tension that seems to be overwhelming my entire body.
“I can’t close my eyes,” I tell her. “All I can see is Kayan.”
Briony doesn’t reply, just stands there. A stoic presence, watching over me.
“Why would he do that to Finn?” I stop, anger bubbling up hotter than my sadness as thoughts of Kayan and Finn tussle with each other in my head.
“Because that’s what he does,” Briony says. “He humiliates, and he tortures, and he kills, and he is cruel. And that is how he keeps us under his control.” Her jaw twitches. She hesitates, as if she’s about to say something.
“Go on,” I tell her. “You don’t need to hide anything from me, Briony. What were you about to say?”
Wrapping her arms around her waist, she walks to the edge of the lake and looks out over the water. It is small and not as beautiful as the lakes at home, but it is still beautiful compared to the cold stone walls of the castle. So, I stand beside her and wait until she’s ready to speak.
“Kayan challenged Henrik once on why he was helping Eldrion. I think he believed the Shadowkind should rise up and fight back. But it’s not that easy.”
She doesn’t look at me, just keeps staring out, her eyes fixated on a spot on the horizon.
“He and his family have spent centuries perfecting how to keep us under control. What happened with Kayan? That’s nothing compared to what he’s done to others. What he did to Finn, that was a second warning. That was to let us know we are still his.” She shrugs, a small sigh biting her lips. “And we will be his forever.”
I breathe out hard, rubbing my hands, rubbing my palms over my face. My hair is tied back and suddenly it feels too tight, too restrained, so I pull it loose and shake it over my shoulders.
“I saw something in Eldrion’s chambers,” I speak quietly, almost hoping that Briony won’t hear me.
But this time, she turns towards me, and her eyebrows quirk with interest. “What did you see?” she asks.
I shake my head. Shame scratches beneath my skin. “I walked in on him...”
I cast my eyes down towards Briony’s pelvis in the hopes she might understand what I’m trying to say. “Saw him... walked... I walked in on him. He was naked. There was a huge, shimmering image in the middle of the room, an image of me and him together.” I hesitate. “Fucking. And he was...”
Briony’s eyes widen. “What did it look like?”
I blush as the image of me and Eldrion reappears in my mind.
“I mean, was it cast in the air? Was it in a pool of water?”
“It was in the air. It appeared like a window or picture, just shimmering there in front of him.”
“Did he say anything before it appeared?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t even know it was possible to do that, to create visions and...”
Briony bites her lip thoughtfully.
“What is it?”
When she looks back at me, she reaches for my hand and squeezes it tightly. “You mustn’t feel guilty,” she says.
“You don’t know the worst bit.” I lace my fingers together and squeeze tightly, my knuckles whitening with the pressure. “I liked it... No, I didn’t like it, but it made me feel...”
The blush intensifies and my mouth goes dry. I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud, but I need to say it to someone.
“While Kayan was dying, that’s what I was doing.” Finally, the shame gives way to heartbreak, and my voice cracks because I start to cry again.
Briony squeezes my elbow, then walks towards a small bramble of bushes nearby. When she returns, she’s holding a rose. Picking off the thorns, she puts it into my hand and tells me to inhale the scent slowly. I do what she says and immediately begin to feel calmer.
But when I open my eyes and look at the petals, I don’t see pale, delicate pink. I see ice. A memory barrels into me so unexpectedly that I can barely stay standing, but I try to push through it. Try to find the happiness because I know it’s there somewhere.
I feel my lips part into a smile.
“Better?” Briony asks.
I nod and tell her the story of Kayan and me by the lake. The day he showed me how he learned to control his powers and create ice from water.
“It wasn’t long before . . .” I hesitate.
“The accident,” Briony finishes.
I nod, brushing my fingers across the rose petals. “Before that, we used to meet at the lake all the time. It was our place. We would skip stones, and he was always so angry that I was better at it than him. That night, the night with the rose, he cheated. He used his powers to help it skip all the way to the other side. And he thought he was so clever and so funny.” I start to laugh.
Briony smiles too, then she moves away from me slightly, looks down towards her feet, and stoops to pick up two pebbles. “It must be hard not having a body,” she says. “At least I’ve been able to say goodbye to Henrik properly.”
I nod, tears pricking my eyes again.
“So, let’s say something for him now.” She passes me one of the pebbles. “Let’s skip some stones and share some memories of Kayan and say goodbye. And then maybe you’ll feel stronger.”
I rub my thumb over the pebble. Gratitude swells in my chest. “Thank you,” I say.
Turning towards the water, Briony skips her stone first, sharing a memory of Kayan being gentle and kind and always looking after the people in the cells.
I look down at my pebble and try to remember how I used to do this. It has been over one hundred years. Yet, the movement still feels familiar. With a flick of my wrist, I skip the stone across the lake surface. It creates ripples, making the exact pattern I expect it to make. And suddenly, in the centre of the lake, it drops, leaving one large ripple making a strange, undulating pattern across the surface.
As I watch it, a surge of energy courses through my body. It is completely unfamiliar and feels like nothing I can name. It’s like light and energy swelling inside me. And then I remember what Kayan said when he told me that his powers were different from mine. How he could feel them, how he latched onto them without really knowing how.
I try to catch hold of the feeling and focus on it. As I do, the ripples turn into a swirl. They move faster and faster, then begin to skip up into the air, droplets forming delicate, intricate patterns.
I glance at Briony. She is watching me in awe, eyes wide, her hands shaking.
But I’m not shaking. I’ve never felt more alive as a shimmering display of water and light materialises above the lake. “What’s happening?” Briony asks. “You said you didn’t have any magic...”
I don’t even need to think before answering her. The word is on my lips within a heartbeat. “Kayan,” I whisper. “It’s Kayan’s power.”
I glance at her again. “Perhaps I had it all along.”