Chapter 28
Truth Be Told
The room Alissa had been sleeping in at Breno’s place was bigger than her entire home. His residence was simple by the standards of the capital, but by Bryniard’s standards, it would be considered a palace. She paced the room impatiently. She hadn’t expected to stay in the capital for so long.
Alissa had set very unrealistic expectations in her mind, expectations that led her to think she would reach the capital and that the answers she needed would miraculously fall into her lap.
Her own delusion was why she struggled not to be overcome by negativity, as every day they seemed to take a step back rather than a step forward.
Even the book on the fundamentals of magic and the deep dive on the royal family’s lineage had proved useless to their purpose.
“Okay, what do we have so far?” she asked.
“We know the girl from your dream also supposedly died of Senectus Subita,” Freyah said.
“But that is not a fact—it was something I dreamed about. Did you find anything else on her?”
Alissa only received shaken heads in response.
“We know there are no monsters in Bryniard, so at least part of the history of Heldraine’s foundation is inaccurate,” Eldric indicated.
“Do we already know if any of it has a relation to magic?”
Two shrugs followed.
Alissa could not help but let out a frustrated exhale, her hands covering her face as desperation started to crawl its way back to her mind.
“Be positive, Lissa! We’ll find the answer,” Freyah said.
“We have thousands of books to look at and so little time, Freyah! We can’t keep reading books that will take us nowhere when my daughter is dying across the country,” Alissa snapped.
It was unfair to scream at her dearest friend that way, but holding everything back seemed impossible sometimes.
“I don’t know what else to look for anymore. ”
“Did you find anything on the glowing threads, Lissa?”
“I did not.”
“What glowing threads?” Eldric asked, standing from the stool where he had been sharpening the blade of his sword.
“Alissa can see glowing threads around those dying from Senectus Subita.”
After Eldric’s jaw dropped with the news, Alissa added, “I also saw the man selling flowers and the librarian lady glow.”
A flicker of hurt flashed behind his eyes before he could hide it, and Alissa felt a pang of guilt at the thought that he might believe she was keeping things from him again. "I’m sorry, I thought I had told you."
He gave a slight nod. “Now that you mention it, I remember that one of my school textbooks had a chapter dedicated to the glow of magic. I have always thought it to be a metaphor, but maybe it wasn’t…”
“Do you still have that book?”
“No. I bet my schoolteacher could answer our questions about that. Let’s stop by her place tomorrow.” Eldric didn’t even know if his teacher was still alive, but he could not ruin the spark of hope that made Alissa’s face light up once again.
A while later, Freyah had already retired to her room, succumbing to exhaustion. But seeing Alissa lie in her bed staring at the ceiling for so long and sensing her restlessness, Eldric stayed, at least until she could fall asleep.
“How are you?” he asked, sitting on the corner of her bed.
“Scared.” As soon as she spoke, the words came out broken.
“I feel this constant knot in my chest, this anguish that never diminishes. What if we don’t find out anything here?
What do we do then?” she asked, her nails digging into her skin.
“Sometimes I think she’s going to die no matter our efforts.
” Alissa glanced down, trying to keep the tears from spilling.
“I will not let that happen, Alissa.”
He moved to lie beside her, gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the motion tender and filled with care.
His hand guided her head to his chest, cradling her as she dissolved into tears.
Eldric had seen Alissa cry countless times, and though he thought he would have grown used to it by then, her pain only seemed to weigh heavier on him with each passing day.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” she asked, tears dampening her cheeks.
“I will always be with you.”
Eldric hadn’t realized he had been lying to himself until his answer came out so effortlessly.
He had lied every time he watched with a silly smile as Alissa let out soft whistles in her sleep during their travels. He loved seeing the way peace settled over her in dreams, so different from the constant worries that left a crease in her brow when she was awake.
He lied again when he caught himself biting his lower lip to fight back a smile when she laughed hysterically at something Freyah had said.
All he could think about was how that smile, those lips, would feel against his.
Eldric told himself he shouldn’t worry about the fact that he struggled not to look at her all the damn time.
If it were up to him, he could look at her twenty-four hours a day, and it wouldn’t be enough.
He convinced himself that the butterflies in his stomach and racing heartbeat whenever he heard her lovely accent were nothing. That the shivers he felt from her touch and the urge to know every little detail about her—to etch each one into his memory—were no big deal.
Eldric pretended not to acknowledge the way he sighed when her irises seemed to change color under the daylight or how soft her hair felt.
He wished he could slide his fingers through those strands every night until she fell asleep in his arms. Eldric acted as if he wasn’t constantly finding excuses to get closer to her, just to breathe in the faint scent of cherry blossoms that lingered around her.
The man wouldn’t admit that he longed to hold her tight until her pain vanished, that her smiles could light up his entire world, or that her tears had the power to wound him like nothing else ever could.
He had lied. Again and again.
But deep down, he knew it. From the moment he saw that man pinning her down in the wheat field, holding her wrists against the earth with his vile face inches from hers, Eldric felt an overwhelming urge to tear the world apart.
The wrath that consumed him in that instant was more intense than anything he had ever experienced.
He had never found joy in killing, but at that moment, he craved ending the life of that man.
He wanted to wipe out his pitiful existence from this world.
But she killed him first, and oh… how he loved her for that.
He knew it for the way he so easily forgave her lies, acknowledging he wouldn’t have acted the same way if it had been anyone else.
He knew it then and denied what he felt, even when he held her unconscious, feverish body in his arms and carried her all the way to Nyfrel, his heart thundering against his chest, the fear of losing her leaving him numb and weak.
I should have found her sooner. I should have protected her, he still told himself, the guilt lodging in his throat every time he saw the scar on her leg.
Eldric had learned that the price of caring so deeply for someone else was to have their pain become his own.
It had been almost unbearable for him to watch Alissa suffer every single day, powerless to ease the aching in her soul.
Now, as they lay so close, he took in every little detail of her.
The freckles on her cheekbones, the tiny mole on her earlobe, the small scar on her chin; it was all perfect.
Without realizing how deeply he had let his mind wander into his feelings for her, he voiced his thoughts aloud.
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he breathed, his thumb brushing her cheeks, then her lip so lightly that she wondered if it had been an illusion.
Alissa’s eyebrows shot up, her mouth agape at his admission, speechless.
She had no idea when or how things had changed between them, nor did she realize that, in this exact moment, Eldric had decided to stop pretending.
He was too tired of hiding the true nature of his feelings for her.
Now, he was ready. Ready to fight for a life by her side, to give his life to protect hers and those she loved.
His fingers traced her arms with a reverence she had never known, each touch leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. But what truly made her breath hitch and her stomach flutter was the intensity of his scrutiny.
The way he looked at her was unlike anything she had ever experienced.
He regarded her as if she were the most precious thing in the world, and that alone shattered any defenses she had built over the years against falling in love.
With him, she felt at home even so far away from the only place she had ever known.
And now she wondered how she had ever lived a life he was not a part of.
Alissa leaned closer, their faces so near that his warm breath brushed against her skin.
He didn’t need to tell her how desperately he wanted to kiss her; his gaze spoke for him.
Their lips collided with a longing they hadn’t realized until that moment.
The kiss was passionate and deep, overflowing with every emotion—the good and the bad—that had shaped them into who they were.
Their bodies pressed tightly against each other, as if any distance between them would be unbearable.
The last time Alissa kissed a man—the father of her daughter—it had been all about passion and recklessness.
A relationship built on immaturity, bad decisions, and the rush of growing up too fast. She had thought she was in love back then, but only now, in truly falling in love, did she realize how different this was.
She knew it because this kiss surpassed anything she had ever felt before.