Chapter 7 #3
In her desperation, she tried to call upon a nightmare, but she couldn’t find a path into their thoughts.
There wasn’t time to keep trying or figure out why.
Their best chance was to reason with the men, offer them more gold than Lord Quinlanden had.
Where she’d get it was a problem for another day.
“Tie her up and throw her in the wagon. I’ll finish this one.”
“You even fucking touch her—” Jesstin’s words were cut off. His body hit the ground.
I smell rich, earthy pine. I hear a vulture in the distance. The wind is blowing southeast. Pine. Vulture. Southeast wind.
Elloven screamed when the man knotted her hair in his hand and yanked upward.
She was transported to those long nights in the cabin with Fabrien and his friends, how they’d only stopped when she developed bald spots, which he’d then have to explain.
She could hear him, in crystal clarity, whispering through his hot, drunken breath, I would kill myself if I ever lost as much power as you have.
Vivid light eclipsed the world. The comforting scent of pine was gone, replaced by Fabrien’s foul stench.
The vultures had transformed into his friends, cackling as they joked about something one of their wives had done.
The wind no longer blew southeast. It whipped in all directions at once and it was icy cold, the coldest she’d ever felt, and it wasn’t only happening around her but within her.
Elloven crashed to the ground and lost her sight, except instead of darkness, there was more light—dazzling, terrifying light. Jesstin’s garbled grunts joined a piercing, ringing sound between her ears, but she couldn’t see anything.
Jesstin’s voice rose above the others. “What have you... What is... How did you... El, Elloven? Can you hear me? Elloven!”
She flopped onto her back, praying to see sky, but its absence sent her into a spasmic fit. Firm hands encircled her upper arms, pinning her, but she couldn’t stop shaking, and the sky wouldn’t come back.
“I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.” A shaky breath. “Please.”
A filmy haze spread across her small world.
Within it, a glowing orb appeared. Soon she made out Jesstin’s crystalline eyes.
.. his beautiful mouth, never short of something clever to say.
More color came to life in his cheeks, and blood, so much blood, smeared his face, trickling down his temple. She knew at least some of it was his.
“Elloven?”
“I can’t breathe.” She swatted him and dragged herself across the needles and leaves. “I need air.”
He shot to his feet. “We need to get you into the carriage, now.”
“I can’t... breathe.” She panted. Inky spots dotted the forest, and Jesstin.
She pleaded with the pine to return, bracing for the wind so she could count it on the list of things that were real, but the world had become a storm of ice.
She wheezed, her head turning, and she saw something she could not possibly, rationally explain.
The man who had wounded Jesstin was encased in ice, head to toe. His expression had frozen in horror, both of his hands out in front of him.
Everything vanished.
When she came to, her head was in Jesstin’s lap.
“Forget them. Look at me.” He shifted her face to look up at him. “We have to get out of here. Can you stand?”
Elloven nodded, though she had no confidence at all in her stability. Jesstin got up first, lifting her like she were nothing. He was all hard muscle, every carved inch of him, and she wondered how he’d earned it running a tavern.
Her stare hung on the frozen man as Jesstin carried her away. She knew she was responsible, just not how. There’d been no dark command inside of her, no nightmares of ice.
If fear had caused it, why had it never happened before? Why had it not happened even once in all the time she’d been with Castien, Fabrien?
Jesstin nudged her into the carriage, where she collapsed onto the bench.
“Our driver is dead. The stable hand is fuck knows where. Will you be all right back here by yourself?”
No. “Yes. Go. Go.”
Jesstin didn’t look convinced. She wasn’t a good liar in the best of circumstances.
“I’ll be fine...” Elloven realized he intended to leave without Taven, but if they did, then she’d never find her way to Rivenholde.
“I’ll stop as soon as it’s...” Jesstin’s eyes rolled. His plummet was fast. She saw herself diving for him before it happened, but she only cushioned his fall. He landed half on the bench, half on the ground, leaving her pinned between his back and the door.
The side of his head had been half caved in, leaving a gaping section where flesh had been torn away. Skin around his temple was already bruising. She didn’t know as much as her mother about nursing, but she knew enough to understand how serious it was.
“There you are!” Taven cried, flinging the door wide. “Did you see those men? Those blocks of ice? Was that you? Oh, thank goodness you’re safe, Ellie. If you’d...”
“Where were you?” she demanded, squirming but failing to free herself. “Come help me!”
“Was that you? Are they dead? If they’re not, I imagine they soon will be.”
“Help me! And be careful with him. He’s hurt badly.”
“It’s his own fault for trying to be a hero.” Taven climbed in, ducking low. He looped his arms under Jesstin’s shoulders and dragged him away, giving Elloven a chance to move.
“Don’t you dare drop him,” she said, her jaw as tight as a screw as she took a fresh breath through her nose. “Put him on the bench. Carefully.”
What would people think when riding past the frozen men outside? How long would they remain in ice? Would they thaw when the weather warmed or forever be... I did that. I did that. Bloody hell, I did that.
Taven hoisted Jesstin up, torso first. His muddy boots slapped the carriage wall as Taven fumbled with his legs, which wedged the sword into the floor.
Taven ripped hard to dislodge it, and Jesstin fell to the side.
A stream of blood trailed down the side of his face, landing in fat, viscous droplets on the carriage floor.
“Taven,” she croaked, then said his name again, but louder. “I need you...” She swallowed. “Need you to heal him.”
Taven suppressed a grin. “Why would I, Ellie?”
“He saved my life. How can you ask me that?” She’d remember the look he was wearing. She’d store it for later, if her weakness around him ever returned.
“Seems to me you saved your own. He’s the one bleeding to death in the carriage.”
There wasn’t time for an argument. Imagining Jesstin could, would, die if she failed to convince Taven was the only truth that mattered. “Please, Taven.”
He shook his head with a snort. “You’re something else.”
“What will it take?”
“Listen—”
“What will it take, Taven? You want me to accept your betrothal?”
His brows connected in the center, then his face slowly softened. “Ellie.”
“Taven, please. He’s dying!” Elloven crashed to her knees, gripping his as she implored him. “Whatever you want from me, you can have it.”
Dizziness sent her tilting sideways. She had to rest her head on Taven’s leg to even breathe.
“El?”
“I feel... I feel...”
“It’s the fucking bond. It’s killing you too,” he said, gritting. “Get up.” He turned his head away.
Her vision wavered. “Please—”
“I said get up, go!” he roared, and she fell back. “I’ll do it. Just... go sit. Sit and rest.”
Elloven’s gratitude skated just under her shaky breath.
“You know,” Taven muttered, his eyes closed as he passed his hands just above Jesstin’s head wound, “if you cared that much whether he lived or died, you’d have healed him yourself.”
The palpitations in her temple subsided. She pulled herself upright. “You know I can’t heal.”
“An hour ago, I didn’t know you could turn a man into ice. Did you?”
“I don’t... don’t know what that was. Nothing like that has ever happened before.”
“I know what it was.” He roughly nudged Jesstin’s head farther to the left. “Your magic is chaos. You are chaos.”
“Then why didn’t it happen at the Reliquary? In Whitechurch?”
“Were you ever afraid for anyone but yourself?”
Elloven hesitated. “No.”
“There’s your answer.” He closed his eyes and focused on Jesstin alone for a moment. “You’ve always been thoughtless with your own well-being, but you were afraid for him.”
The truth hit her like lightning. Her self-preservation involved retreat and disassociation, but she’d been terrified for Jesstin, and in her terror, she’d never been more present.
She remembered feeling the same nagging buzz in Mythgarde, after they’d arrested him, but he’d asked her to get his family, and that had taken precedence.
“I accept your acceptance of my betrothal,” Taven said peaceably. He somehow managed not to look as smug as he sounded. “And I have no doubt in my mind you could heal this boy if you wanted to.” He half smiled. “It does warm my heart that this means you couldn’t possibly love him.”
Elloven was still several moments behind in the conversation. “Love him? I hardly know him.”
“Yet you’ve offered your life for his. Twice.” Taven finished and perched at the edge of the bench near Jesstin’s bent knees. Elloven relaxed as she watched Jesstin’s wound slowly close in, the flesh returning. “How’s your head?”
She rubbed near her ear. “Better.”
“There are things you don’t know about him, Elloven, and I can’t decide if telling you would be a mercy or a punishment.”
Taven’s sudden earnestness put her off-kilter again. “You lied about him once already to get him killed. Why would I believe anything you say about him?”
A light knock on the door made them both jump. Taven cursed when his head smacked into the ceiling. Elloven, without thinking, tugged at Jesstin’s broadsword, still lying across the seat.
“Be quiet,” Taven whispered. He was as still as a statue.
The steel scraped when it came loose, then thumped when it smacked the ground. The cursed thing was twice as heavy as it looked, and she wasn’t sure she could hoist it, let alone swing it, but she was fully prepared to use it to the end of her limitations.
Are you mad? Taven mouthed. He motioned at her to sit.
Elloven reached for the door and shoved it open. A familiar, friendly face stared back at her with a broad grin.
She released her breath. If she weren’t so damned tired, she would laugh too.
“I came to offer my services, such as they are,” Sesto said. With a glance over his shoulder, he added, “though it appears I may have arrived a smidge late.”