Chapter 29
Snow
It was a dream, right?
It felt like a dream.
Elil was looking at me. His eyes were kind, and he had a small smile on his lips. I loved the way they curved, creating deep creases like brackets around his mouth. And his eyes. His eyes mesmerised me. I couldn’t look away.
Had he kissed me? Was that why my lips felt warm? Was that why my body tingled like all my nerves had fallen asleep, only to be suddenly wakened? That pins and needles feeling, I’d had it in my foot before when I’d been sitting reading with my leg tucked up under me. I’d felt it in my hand in the middle of the night sometimes, but now my entire body felt like that.
I blinked slowly. I didn’t want the dream to end. I wanted to stay in this place that was soft and muted. I could hear sounds, but they were far away, behind a wall or a door. Muted light shone down on Elil making his hair sparkle and his skin glow. A halo of shimmering gold surrounded him.
I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t care. That was the way of dreams, wasn’t it? Especially dreams that were as nice as this. Especially when it felt like all my wishes were standing in front of me, smiling at me, looking at me as if I was the answer to his prayers.
‘Snow.’
I frowned. Elil’s lips hadn’t moved. He hadn’t spoken. Another voice. A voice that was familiar and yet vague. A forgotten memory.
‘Snow.’
This time it was Elil speaking. I loved the way he said my name. The single syllable fell from his lips as soft as the falling snow I had been named for. I closed my eyes and sighed, letting the sound wrap around me like a caress.
The dream faded away, and I was again floating in nothingness. I slept.
Pain arced through me. A thousand needles pierced every part of my body all at once. I cried out, my throat raw as if I had been screaming for hours.
‘Shh,’ someone soothed, a cool towel mopping my brow. ‘It will be over soon.’
I didn’t understand. I didn’t care. The pain was all I could think about. The pain that lanced through every nerve ending inside me. Once burning and then cold as ice. Stabbing, tearing, grinding, throbbing.
I tried to move, tried to ease the pain, tried to escape it, but my body was weak, my limbs leaden and too heavy to move. Lightning ripped through me, arching my back, and I screamed even as I knew doing so would only cause more pain.
‘She needs more.’
‘She’s already had too much.’
‘She will die at this rate.’
A rough sigh and a mumble of indecision, and then something was pressed to my lips. Cool, bitter liquid coated my tongue and ran down my throat. I coughed, choking even as I tried to swallow.
Slowly, oblivion came. It crept over me from my toes, numbing them, and then my calves and knees. Slowly, slowly numbness crawled over me like a shadow.
‘He used too much elixir in the apple.’
‘He wanted to make sure it worked this time.’
I sighed as the shadow finally took me. I ran into the darkness seeking solace from the pain.
‘Is she still not awake?’
A male voice. Angry. Different to the two female voices that had been with me through the waking hours of torture and who had helped me slip back into nothingness.
‘It is taking longer to rid her of the elixir.’
‘There was too much—’
A loud crack stopped the words. I could almost see the words fly across the inside of my eyelids as they were slapped from the mouth that spoke them.
‘Wake her up,’ the angry voice growled. ‘Now.’
I am awake. I thought I said the words, but no one heard me. I tried again, but only a croak came out. My throat felt abused, stripped raw. I swallowed, but it felt like a hundred swords stabbing through my neck.
‘Snow.’ The angry voice but no longer angry. ‘Are you awake?’
A large warm hand enveloped mine. I tried to open my eyes, but my lashes felt like weights attached to my eyelids. I groaned, trying to say something, trying to let him know I was awake.
‘Water,’ he demanded.
Someone lifted my head and pressed a cool object to my lips. Tepid water dribbled into my mouth, and I let it run down my throat, trying not to choke, but also trying not to swallow. Both hurt. But I had to swallow, and I cried out even as I did, even as the water soothed the ache. It was sweet. The taste of honey coated my tongue. I tried to take more, and swallowing was easier, although not easy. It still hurt, but the honey coated the rawness and gave me some relief.
I sighed as my head was once again lowered to the soft pillow. I tried again to open my eyes, succeeding, if only a bit. Elil looked down at me, worry etched in his features, his eyebrows pulled tight together and his mouth turned down. Not the smile I had dreamed about. A frown.
‘Praise Irys,’ Elil said on a rough exhale, his hand tightening around mine. ‘You’re awake.’
I opened my mouth to speak, but he squeezed my hand and shook his head. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘You’ve been sick. Don’t try to talk. Rest. You need to rest.’
Rest sounded good but…but why had he woken me only to tell me to go back to sleep? My brain was too fuzzy to work it out. I tried to smile at him so he knew I appreciated him being there…wherever there was.
He smiled in return, and my pain lessened. How was it whenever I looked into his eyes, I felt so much better? From the very first moment I’d met him, he’d been able to do that to me. I felt wrapped in a cocoon whenever I was with him, and everything else just faded away. It was like that now.
‘Take your time,’ he said as my lids fluttered shut. ‘I will be here when you wake.’
That sounded nice. I still didn’t know where here was, but that didn’t matter as long as Elil was here with me, I would be fine. He would look after me. He would take care of me and protect me. I knew it was true as I slipped back into sleep.