Chapter 44 #2
My floor was dimly lit, the house had readied itself for the evening, understanding that the inhabitants within might not want to stare into its fiery veined walls all night.
Reaching for the knob of my door, the shadows that formed the wards unfurled from their pattern. My concentration shattered when I heard screaming from across the hall.
Iona.
I tossed the book inside my room and ran across the hall.
“Iona!” I pounded my fist on the door, ignoring if her wards would harm me.
Her screaming grew louder, and I didn’t pause to consider it any longer. Stepping back, I pulled my arm backwards and thrust it forward into the door, punching it as hard as I could. The door cracked in its center, fragments of it falling like grains of sand in a glass.
“Iona!” I screamed as my fist made continued contact with the door.
The wards had shattered, and a gaping hole now rested in the door. I could see that Iona was not in bed, but rather, was floating above it.
I called her name.
Her hair cascaded downwards, and out to the sides, her face was caught in a perpetual scream.
With a final slam of my fist, the door shattered. I forced my way inside and froze at the sight of her.
Along each of her ankles and wrists, it looked as if invisible rope had burned itself into her flesh, holding her place. She was in nothing but a black shift, blood oozing from the open slashes along each of her arms and legs.
Is she doing this?
“Iona!” I tried to approach her, but a gust of wind forced me back, holding me in place. I tried to fight it, to push myself forward to the point where sparks emerged as my fists hit the wind, but I was getting nowhere.
Gods damnit, Iona. How do I help you!?
The wind pushed me to my knees, and out of sheer frustration, I slammed both of my hands on the floor.
For a moment, there was nothing, but then the floor rumbled. A power stronger than the wind radiated out from me, an invisible barrier, a force, pulsed outwards like a living thing.
Iona fell, hitting the bed on her way down, and I ran to her side. “Iona! Iona, come on, fuck, open your eyes.” I ran my hands along her face, her neck, and placed my head to her chest. Thank fuck, she’s breathing.
My gaze trailed her arms and legs as each of the wounds sealed itself.
Fae healing.
I placed my hand on her forehead. She was both frigid and burning at the same time.
“Please wake up,” I murmured. In the weeks that she and I had been working together, especially in these last few, I had seen a side to Iona I hadn’t known existed. One that was just as scared, aggrieved, and struggling to find her way in this world as I was.
“Kadian?” Her voice was groggy. “My face is up here.”
I couldn’t help stifling a laugh. One out of sheer relief that I didn’t have to lose someone else, the fact that it seemed she was still herself, and the fact that my friend might just be okay.
“Here.” I helped her lean back against some pillows. Unlike my room that had the odd pop of red in it, everything in here was black. The silk sheets on her bed, now partially torn, were blacker than the depths of night, the only color was her hair. Even darker than it had been previously.
“Thank you,” she whispered, leaning back and closing her eyes. Whatever had had a hold of her. I wasn’t sure she remembered, but she looked exhausted from the encounter.
“Don’t mention it.” I looked back at the place where her door had been. “Although… we will have to get that sorted.” I offered a small smile. One that said “what the fuck was happening just now?”
“What happened?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer her. What had happened in here? Had something possessed her? Could that happen?
“I came to look for you. You hadn’t come to the library. I heard you screaming.” I placed my hands in my pockets, my fingers had refused to stop shaking.
“Screaming?” She didn’t seem disoriented, but her memory was missing.
“I didn’t think I would be able to get inside,” I tilted my head towards the door.
“You could have just used the handle,” She said.
“The wards would have kept me out.” I turned to face her.
“I added you to my wards weeks ago.”
I took a moment to stare at her. To really stare at her. Her eyes were softer than I’d ever seen them. Iona raw and exposed. The version of herself she kept the most buried.
“Why don’t you ever let anyone see you like this?”
Iona opened her mouth to answer, and paused. With a flick of her hand, darkness shrouded where the door had once been. “A sound barrier,” she said as she patted on the mattress beside her. Moving over to make space.
“That’s new.”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure how much you’ve been able to piece together after spending time with Edrick and me,” she said, “but my father is not a good man. He is a man of… expectations.”
I nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“Very few things in my life have been what I desired, or what I would have chosen for myself.” She readjusted herself against the black pillows, “I knew from a young age I was expected to join the Court of Shadows and make a good match. Like most children from a Fae and Court selected family, it was my destiny.” She scoffed.
“When my father began his pursuit of my marrying into the royal family, he thought Dainan would be the best match. How wrong he was.”
I remained silent next to her, an ever-listening ear.
“I knew from the moment I met him we were ill-suited. I was loud, brazen, I had to be in order to be heard in my household. Dainan was quiet, contemplative. He loathed me, or the idea of me, I can’t be sure. I was ten years old.”
“Ten?” I said, “That’s disgusting. You were just a child. Barely even a child in the eyes of the Fae.”
Iona snickered. “Welcome to the Vorren family. Where your entire life is structured and planned for you by the time you are five.” She rolled her eyes.
“I wasn’t introduced to Dainan as a formal match, but rather it was told to me, beaten into me…
” Her hands formed into fists, that slit once again appearing in her left eye, shadows making their way in.
“I was expected to make it work. I knew it wouldn’t.
Any time someone new entered the picture, which wasn’t often despite the rumors, I was forced to see their removal. ”
Iona stopped to look at me, heaving a deep sigh as she did.
“I didn’t come from a loving home, Kadian.
I wasn’t given what you and Brida had. While my mother is not as bad as my father, she was mostly concerned with protecting Edrick.
The child from the man she loved. Not protecting the child from the man she abhorred. ”
I reached for her hand. She pulled back at first, staring at it before allowing me to hold it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You deserved better. You deserve better still.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me now, Taldot.” Her cheeks flushed. “Thank you. But please tell me what really happened.”
I proceeded to tell Iona everything.
“Interesting,” she said as she bent down to look at the small crater that now rested in her floor.
“Interesting? I’m not sure that’s how I would describe it.”
Rising, she made her way over to her desk, which was littered with papers.
“Now who is looking disorganized.”
“Funny.” She scoured through the papers before picking one up, holding it to my chest.
“What’s this?” I reached for the paper. It didn’t take me long to recognize Addie’s writing at the top of the page.
“I think I found the decoder.”