Chapter 29
Pressure … heavy on my lips … and then? Vomit.
That’s what brought me back to the woken world. I thrust my head to the side and water poured from my mouth. Where-where am I? Again, I heaved, this time taking notice of the arms braced against the ground on either side of my head. Cillian.
Brows creased; his stare bore into me. “Fey, I need you to relax, all right? Don’t move. Not a muscle.”
The view surrounding us sharpened: the river below my feet, but the gray hovering above his head … What was that? My gut clenched. Oh shit. A boulder big enough to smash a car hovered in the air above, and I gasped.
“Damn it,” Cillian cursed.
In quick succession, he wrapped me in a tight hold and rolled us out from under the boulder’s now crashing path. A split second longer and we’d have been a flattened mess. I heaved in panicked breaths, not daring a move until Cillian’s chest rattled beneath me.
“If you wanted to jump my bones, little shadow, all you had to do was ask.” He smirked up at me.
Heat swept through my cheeks and down my neck as my stare drifted ever downward … to my knee between his legs, my chest pressed tight to his, and my hand—not an inch from his pant line, nails buried in his hip. I jumped to my feet, raising my hands. “Shit, sorry!”
“No need to apologize,” he chuckled. “I’m always down for a good time. But next time, feel free to skip the whole trying to get us killed part first, huh?”
I ignored him in fear I might die of embarrassment, turning my attention back to the giant rock that’d almost smashed us into tiny bits. You know, simpler things. “I … what … what was that?”
“That,” he said, star-fished on the sand, “was your Elemental magic in self-defense mode.”
My eyes drifted from him to the boulder and back again.
Self-defense? Defense from what—my stomach dropped.
I tore at my sleeve to find the burnt eye glaring back at me …
No! How could this happen? How had I been stupid enough to go after the Lores’ queen?
I should have known better, stayed out of her path, hid, anything but piss her off more.
Like I could have taken her in a fight to begin with!
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Dread rose like a flood, and my lungs shrank, the trees blurring around me.
Cillian made his way to me, hands gentle on my shoulders. “Hey, hey. It’s going to be okay. It’s just a brand, nothing we can’t—”
“No! It’s not okay! I killed another Lore! I made an enemy of her, of Bethesda, and I … There’s no coming back from this, Cillian. I’m a dead woman walking! There’s no hope for me!”
He laughed. He freaking laughed!
Flames caught beneath my skin. “What about this is so funny?”
“You, obviously,” he said and leaned against the nearest tree, like I hadn’t just confessed how utterly terrified I was.
“You’re an asshole, you know that?” I sneered. “Here I am on the verge of a panic attack, scared out of my mind, and you laugh at me? How can you—”
He cleared his throat, brows raised, and pointed at my hands, now encased in rapidly cooling molten rock … like armor. I bent my fingers, feeling the weight as I recoiled them time and again, but the stone remained firm and intact.
Cillian pushed from his spot against the tree, cocky grin at his cheeks. He came to pause before me again, eyes an intense shade of green as he said, “I would never laugh at you. I laugh because Bethesda has no clue about the threat she faces.”
My face flushed, warmth building in my cheeks.
Anxiety attacks were hardly a beautiful event—what with the strained breaths and racing heartbeat—and it was so easy to assume others were casting judgment when I was in the thralls of one.
But that hadn’t been it at all. He … believed in me.
Staring down at the obsidian hardened around my fingers, I realized then I kind of believed in myself too. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
We stood in the silence for a few fleeting moments until, much like last time, the tear of flesh began across my chest. I crumbled to the ground—back flat against the sand—stone armor shattering like glass as my nails tore at my shirt.
Famine’s essence stone—it was coming. Cillian didn’t run or jump to help me as he’d done last time, but his strong presence lingered at my side, calm and even.
“You can fight this,” he said, looking down over me.
My lungs strained for a deep-enough breath.
“Think about the river. Envision its cool water rushing over the pain. Chilling it, numbing it.”
I did as he said, but another torturous roll crashed down around me, and my back arched.
“You can do this,” he whispered. “Focus.”
I tried again, taking firm hold of my talisman and calling to the elements inside me, begging them to help. Water? I heard it ask in the recesses of my mind. An internal scream was my only response. Not two seconds later, I felt the tide nip at my toes; the river rose to meet me.
“Keep pushing,” Cillian prompted.
The waves sang to me then, to the shimmer of light inside me.
Wind became water, water became earth, and in a rush I’d not soon forget, the waves lapped up over my chest. I shook at the tide’s touch, but the pain …
it was manageable. I lifted my head as the tide waded around my jaw, and I savored the peace.
I could stay there, submerged in those icy waves forever, so long as they continued to numb the sear.
Based on the crooked grin on Cillian’s face as he sat in the risen tide, I suspected he might feel the same.
“God, you are a force to behold, Fey. A natural, I’d say.”
His praise hit home in my center, followed by another stab in my chest.
Then, a release.
The tides reacted in time with the stone’s completion, leaving me exposed to the cool fall air.
Teeth chattering, I pushed to sit, and Famine’s essence fell into my lap.
I fought back the urge to vomit as I turned it over in my hand.
Different from Chaos’s, this one had life to it.
Inside the blue stone, a wisp—similar to the one which had saved me countless times—twisted about, only darker.
Demented. It snapped against the inside of the crystal, thrashing to escape. “It’s so …”
“Hostile,” Cillian finished. “That’s Baneful magic for you. Drives whatever it touches to madness.”
His face cringed on the last word.
Madness—precisely what Bethesda had promised if I refused to return the bloodstone to her.
I’d tasted madness, dipped my soul into that deep pool a time or two when I’d struggled to understand what my nightmares meant.
I couldn’t—no, wouldn’t go back to that place.
Not again. But to turn over the stone seemed unwise.
Whatever she planned to use it for, it wouldn’t be anything good.
Our queen, Famine had boasted. Anything with the ability to rule over creatures as sinister and demented as the ones I’d come to know and kill was sure to be deadlier still.
My gaze fell to the glossy brand burned into my skin, and I heaved a tight breath.
I had two choices: madness or destruction.
Sure, I’d managed to defend myself in the Shroud, but barely.
I’d learned to wield my Tinctured magic a bit more, grown to understand how to summon the light within, and the tides had minded me.
But that wasn’t enough. I knew it, could sense it in my bones.
Queen. Bethesda. Ancient Lores. My head began to spin again.
Cillian’s tap on my arm startled me back to reality. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but we can fix this.”
“How?” My lip quivered.
With a strained smile he stood, offering me his hand. “Celine will know what to do.”
I looked over his palm and caught a glimpse of the tremor in his fingers before he willed it away.
Wait … had he been scared too? With such an I don’t give a shit attitude, the realization shook me.
But it also comforted me in a strange way, to know I wasn’t the only one worried about the things to come.
Before I could stop myself, the question slipped out. “You’re the one who saved me, aren’t you? You’re the white wisp …”
The edge of his lips quirked up. “That I am.”
“Why? Why did you save me all those times?”
“Come on, little shadow. You know why.”
Fiorenza’s journal, how she’d described Cillian and our connection then—I swallowed hard. He’d loved me. Maybe not this me, but a version of me nonetheless. “So … you didn’t create the bloodstone?”
“What?” His brow pinched, his extended hand wilting slightly. “Of course I didn’t. Why would you ask me that?”
Deception … the damn monster! Instead of opening another can of worms I wasn’t prepared to unpack, I clapped my hand into his and hoisted myself up.
My knees buckled below me, nearly sending me crashing back into the mud, but I held firm.
While the lies planted in my head had fallen away, the veil lifted from my eyes, I didn’t recall Cillian and Celine the same way I had my twins, regardless of realizing they weren’t my enemies. “The stone, we can’t let her—”
Cillian shushed me gently and pointed to the brand buzzing on my skin. A tap against his ear and I understood: We weren’t alone. He started back toward the trail, hair disheveled in the wind’s gust.
“Hey,” I called after him. “Thanks.”
He smirked. “Oh, you mean for saving your life? Again? Eh, no big deal. You’ve saved my ass more times than you know. I owe you.”
Butterflies burst to life in my stomach, the same as they had in the library that first night.
My cheeks flushed, and I turned my attention to collecting my things.
Luckily, the waves knew better than to touch the grimoire, the old book sitting in the middle of a dry patch of dirt.
I grabbed it when my knees buckled again, this time winning, and I narrowly caught the book before it hit the ground, a piece of worn parchment falling out of the backmost pages.
Cillian caught me before I could hit the dirt. “Whoa, there. That spell took a lot out of you. Better let me help.”
“No, no. I’m all right. I got this.” I tried again, legs wobbly as I picked up the loose page.
I looked over the paper folded into a perfect triangle; a single note scrawled across the front: Fhírinne.
Truth. While I considered opening it right then and there, I thought about the brand.
Who knew if it granted sight along with it.
So despite my nagging curiosity, I tucked the mysterious little note back in my grimoire.
“Come,” Cillian urged. “Let’s get you to Celine.”
The ominous trailhead proved steeper than I remembered. Great. Cillian hopped up with no problem and reached for my hand again, hoisting me up easy-peasy. My foot caught a root, sending me crashing into his chest.
“Hey, take a guy to dinner first before you go getting all handsy, will you?” He laughed down at me.
Oh God. My ears grew hot as I recoiled. When I turned to head up the grade, my feet tangled in one another and I tumbled into the nearest thistle bush.
In typical Fey fashion, I overcorrected and made an already embarrassing situation, well …
mortifying. Pricked and poked, I managed to pull myself back out with catlike reflexes. “I’m okay!”
“You sure?” Cillian asked. His cheeks inflated with a pent-up laugh as he pulled a leaf from my mess of curls.
“Fine, I’m fine.” I pushed past him.
“Uh, wait …” He caught up to me, offering his sweatshirt. “You should, uh … you should take this.”
I pushed it away. “Thanks, but I’m all right.”
“No, really. Take it.”
He bit his lip, fighting another laugh as he gestured to my bottom half.
I whipped my head around and about passed out.
There, visible for all to see, was my bare ass hanging in the wind, the thorns having worked their destructive magic.
Oh, dear God. Without a word, I snagged his sweatshirt, tied it around my waist, and continued up the path.
“For what it’s worth, I liked what I saw,” he teased.
“Cillian, if you don’t shut your mouth right this instant, I swear …”
He chuckled as we rounded up into the garden, and my weak knees—combined with my mortification—won out, the grass breaking my fall. My pride still ached. Cillian knelt and opened his inked arms, offering me help once again. “No, really, I’m fine! I can handle it—”
“So, you can walk then?” He looked me over.
I pushed to stand but caved again.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You know, a little help never hurt anyone, but stubbornness hurts only yourself.”
“Smartass.” I sighed and relinquished to his offer, raising my hands over my head. “Just … don’t drop me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He grinned.
One heave and I was in his arms. I rolled my eyes, avoiding his gaze, but the flutter in my stomach grew with every step.
His chest was softer than I’d imagined. Warmer.
And his scent—like fresh rain on stone. Earthy, much like the magic I could sense pumping through him.
I scanned the garden, becoming suddenly aware I was being carried princess-style for all to see.
We passed through the back entrance, and my hands clenched.
“Can you put me down? I don’t want to attract attention.” I could already hear the lecture I’d get from Roxie if she caught me waltzing through the halls in Cillian’s arms. A conversation I wasn’t ready to have at the moment.
“You’re really earning that nickname.” His laugh rattled his frame. “Don’t worry, nobody will see us.”
I buried my face in his chest as we stepped out into the bustling halls.
Footsteps echoed all around us, and I waited for the whispers and off-color comments, but they never came.
I poked my head out from its tucked position to find those we passed completely unaware, as if we didn’t exist. Invisible to everyone but each other.
I looked up at him. “How?”
“Concealing spell.”
A soft and rather satisfied grin crossed his face, but he never looked back down at me as he aimed us toward the hall beneath the main staircase. Fhírinne.
“That’s … amazing,” I finally said.
“Smitten by my magic, are we? Don’t tell me I’m breaking you down with my charm this quickly.”
“Not a chance!” My sweaty palms begged to differ.
We curved around and down the ancient hall to find the doors wide open, Celine perched with a book in hand on the fountain’s edge. Her attention snapped up, eyes drifting between us as Cillian set me down at her side.
“What happened? Are you all right?” She prodded my cheeks the same way she had after my fire mishap in class.
Cillian set a hand on my shoulder in silent encouragement. At his touch, the rattle in my chest silenced. I needed help. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. With a weighty sigh, I pulled my arm from behind my back and extended it to Celine.
Her face flushed. “How in Goddess’s name did you get that?”