Chapter 16 #4
His criticism was an unwelcome guest even when he wasn’t there.
You don’t know where the fuck you’re going, do you?
They had been in Rivenholde for—well, how long had it been?
Cirque Calliope was purportedly only one night, but it had been the longest night she’d ever endured.
In that time, she hadn’t seen where Taven and Sesto were staying, but it couldn’t have been far, and she had nowhere else to go.
She couldn’t stay in that smothering space with Jesstin a moment longer.
Ghoulish lumens lit the row of crofts, all the way down to the village.
She hadn’t had a chance to consider the fundamental structure of the place, the ins and outs of how people lived, worked, or played.
The four of them had been fed, rested, and thrown into a tornado of activities designed to distract. But from what?
She found Taven sitting in a rocking chair on a porch a hundred yards downhill. He perked with surprise to see her, but she lifted a hand.
“Goodness, Ellie. I haven’t seen you since I watched you.
..” His hair was mussed, and he had a strong-scented drink in hand, some sort of spirit.
He wasn’t drunk, but from the flush in his cheeks, he was on the way.
“I tried to come to your croft, but one of those esguards stopped me. I don’t even know where he came from, he just appeared from. .. Wait, are you all right?”
Elloven nodded, though she was not all right, not at all. But he was asking about her fall, and that pain had nearly subsided.
“Come in, I’ll heal you.”
“Did you hear what happened... to the others...”
“Everyone survived,” Taven said. He gestured toward the chair, but she stayed put. “What is it? Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”
“I came to say good-bye,” Elloven said quietly.
A strange sadness stole over her. She would miss Taven, in a way, but it needed to happen.
Jesstin’s “gift” to her was more blessing than not, but doing it without asking if she even wanted it was no different from how everyone else in her life had always decided what was best for her.
“I don’t know what time they’ll... They said supper, but I can’t even tell time in this place.
” She looked to the sky with a helpless shrug.
“It won’t happen, my love.” Taven set his drink on the porch and headed her way, his face moving in and out of the lumens’ illumination. Light. Dark. “I assure you, the pretor put him off until supper to appease him, but he has no intentions of banishing me.”
“How can you know?”
“Acheron told me.” Taven smiled. “They want us together, Ellie. Plans have been in place for years for us, long before we arrived.”
They’ll never let you leave. Jesstin had been right about most everything else. “But he won the challenge, Tav. Their own rules state they can’t deny him anything.”
“They cannot deny a living man anything. A dead man is owed nothing.”
Elloven took a step back. “Are you saying they’re going to kill him?”
Taven tented his fingers under his chin. “Ellie, he’s not one of us. They wanted you here, and they wanted me here. Jesstin was a complication. He was marked the moment he passed into Rivenholde.” He sighed. “He’ll be dead long before mealtime.”
She stumbled sideways, headed back toward the path. It made sense now, why Taven hadn’t been banging down her door. An esguard wouldn’t have been enough to send him away unless he was confident he’d see her later. “I need to get back to him, to warn him.”
“Ellie. Listen to me.” Taven grabbed her. “We can still stop it. You and me.”
“I can stop it by telling him he needs to leave now!” She twisted away, but his grip was iron.
“As long as he’s bonded to you, he’s a problem for them.
Here. Out there. It’s all the same because the bond is the same wherever you go.
” Taven nodded behind her. “There’s nowhere Jesstin Skylark is safe, love, not until your bond is broken.
I’ve been... thinking. Tonight. Been thinking about us, but also about him. ”
“Taven—”
“Even I can admit,” he said, pushing on, “he’s been looking out for you, in his own way. I may wish he’d never stepped in your path, and I know damn well he doesn’t deserve you, but he also doesn’t deserve to die. I see that now.”
Elloven laughed bitterly. “You see it now, do you?”
“Will you listen?”
“You’re distracting me so he’ll be alone when they come, aren’t you?”
“Ellie.” He buried his face in his hands. “It’s enough for me to have him out of your life. I don’t need him to die. It would break your heart, which would break mine. But they don’t care about any of it. Killing him is a much more efficient means to an end.”
“Then I need to go to him!”
“Elloven.” Taven squared up. “We can fix this. Now.”
“If you were so concerned, you’d have found a way to warn us. You wouldn’t be sitting here so casually.”
“You’re deluding yourself if you think Jesstin would listen to me.”
“Then what? You want me to bond with you?”
Taven flinched as though slapped. He rubbed his cheeks with a pointed glance away. “I talked to Lexsea. She’ll help.”
“When? When did you talk to Lexsea? What does she mean, help?”
“This all transpired while Jesstin was challenging the maze. She’ll remove the bond. Then we can go home. The two of us.”
Elloven laughed. “If Jesstin helps Ryquin.”
Surprise clouded his expression. “No... No, that’s done and over.”
It didn’t add up. “Then why didn’t she send for Jesstin and me herself? Why am I only finding this out because I decided to come see you? What would have happened if I hadn’t?”
“Should we continue conversing about it or fix it?” His blinks were slow and restrained, like she was the unreasonable one.
It took her back years, to when she was hardly fifteen and he was talking about children, marriage.
Telling her what her future would be, making plans without even considering her feelings.
Jesstin throwing her inaction back in her face was one of the hardest things anyone had ever said to her, but he was right.
She may have had no control over the behavior of others, but she had natural weapons, and it was her choice to use them or not.
Instead, she’d withdrawn and let bad things happen while she’d gone somewhere else in her mind.
She’d been free of Fabrien hardly more than a week, and already her chaos had stirred up a half-dozen times, but Taven had rightly nailed the reason. Jesstin.
Taven thought she was too oblivious to see how contrived his concern was, which was her fault too, because she’d acted insensible for years, anxious to maintain some sort of evenness to an unsteady life.
As long as no one was yelling or seething or pouting, she could breathe.
Her world could be spinning wildly off its axis, but she could breathe.
“What does Lexsea want for this favor?”
“She didn’t name one.”
“That doesn’t concern you?”
“Does it matter? Is there a price too high?”
There was not, but something was off. Estelar had never mentioned his daughter could help, that there was a way that didn’t involve death or another bond. And Lexsea was a snake; the question was, what kind?
“She likes him,” Taven said swiftly. “Jesstin. She fancies him. It’s why she’s willing to do it. She bargained with her father, and he agreed.”
“You just told me Estelar was going to have Jesstin killed.”
Taven held his hands out with an exasperated groan. “He will if we waste more time debating it. His goodwill won’t last. Shall we make use of it, or regret later that we failed to?”
“What about Jesstin? Doesn’t he need to be present for this to work?”
“Only to create one, but not to break one.”
Could anyone there be trusted?
Taven was hiding something, but it was Estelar who had ordered Jesstin’s death. She already knew Jesstin wouldn’t run. He’d do something reckless instead. But if she could talk to Estelar, she could negotiate a way to end this. If he really needed her, he had no choice.
With doubt and defeat in her heart, she trudged toward the sept with Taven. He occasionally glanced down at her, like a father ensuring his child was keeping up. It felt like a dream, the jarring lumens and the foggy dusk leaving a thin sheen of condensation on the backs of her hands.
The farther they walked, the more she felt the aches and tingles of separation from Jesstin, but she could endure pain. Her limits had been tested many times; this was nothing in comparison. He’d feel it too, if he weren’t sleeping. It might get bad enough to wake him.
The sept was quiet, only a few workers moving from task to task in the courtyard. Taven said something to an esguard, who nodded for them to go in. Another rushed past them.
Inside was just as empty, giving the deep halls an eerie, cavernous air.
“Estelar is in his study, Ellie. They’re letting him know we’re here.”
Her boots echoed on the wrought-iron grates, the sound bouncing along the walls before returning to her.
She timed her steps with her heart, boom, boom, boom, counting the same on the fingers of her right hand, hidden from Taven.
It was a small deception but one that came so naturally.
She’d done this with everyone, always, compartmentalizing herself and revealing only those fragments they wouldn’t fuss over or be irritated with or, worse, hurt her for.
Elloven had many personas, one for every person she knew or had known.
Except Jesstin.
The first person she’d shown her true self to couldn’t stand what he’d seen unless they were protected by a dream world.
The sentry outside Estelar’s office held the door wide. The other waited for them to enter before bowing and leaving.
“My Aelloven! And... Taven.” Estelar’s broad grin greeted them, his arms following with an enveloping hug that only hours ago would have stirred within her the desire for paternal warmth. “You’re not resting before evening meal?”