Chapter 38 #2
I remembered my promise to Dricus. But I also knew that if all three of us rode south, we would never find the fourth. And if the witch had spoken true, then I had to find her. For now, I had to surrender and remain in Durminas, but I knew time was running short. Aidenar would leave tomorrow.
The final dinner passed in a funereal hush. No one knew what awaited Aidenar in the south or what would become of the Dominium if Emberhold fell. Words died in throats, spoons clinked dully against plates. The guests dispersed quickly. I remained at the table, heavy as stone, unable to rise.
My thoughts circled around the dark visions of the enemy army. How many forces did they gather? Would Dricus and Aidenar be able to stand against Malric and Rava? What their magic was exactly?
Aidenar took my hand and pulled me out of the storm of my thoughts. We went to his chambers.
We spent the night together, knowing it was the last time.
I woke at dawn. It was a bleak and rainy morning, as though Durminas wept for its heir.
Mist drifted over the mountains and valleys.
Aidenar slept curled around me. I turned to watch his face.
The way his fair hair lay upon the pillow, the way his full lips seemed to wait for my kiss, the way the line of his jaw invited my touch.
I didn’t understand what he saw in me. He was too perfect to be real. I feared that what we had was too beautiful to endure.
“Will you keep staring at me, or will you finally kiss me,” he murmured with closed eyes, pretending to sleep.
I leaned in and kissed him softly. I could not speak. The words lodged in my throat.
We had to prepare. We ate a quick meal. He sat in the chair and watched me dress. My movements felt foreign, my thoughts scattered.
“You know, when you are truly troubled, you fall silent,” he said gently. “Usually you are like a ball of wild energy, but when the weight grows too heavy, you close your doors.”
I looked at his silver eyes.
“Another moment and you will burst that jug,” he observed, pointing at the water pitcher.
I exhaled and rolled my eyes. He was right. He stood up, came to me, took my hands, and placed them upon his bare chest while he circled my waist with his arms.
“There. Let it out.”
I was selfish. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want to hand him over to the war. I had just found him in my life.
I drew a breath and let my power flow. It poured into him like a cold current. He shuddered, and his eyes glowed brighter. Unnaturally.
He held me close.
“I will write. Don’t even think about not writing me back. If necessary, I’ll send my mother here.”
“We are saying goodbye, and you threaten me with Cassandra,” I scoffed.
“See. You are speaking again.” He gave a crooked smile. “Truly though. I want your letters. Preferably sinful ones. Something to warm my thoughts at night.”
I rolled my eyes, but a laugh escaped me.
At dawn the courtyard filled with people. The rain softened to a mist that clung to hair and cloaks. In silence the knights, townsfolk, and servants gathered. I didn’t cry, though the tears lay heavy inside me like stones.
Aidenar wore his leather war attire. He was riding to war with his two swords at his back.
His fair hair blew in the wind, his silver eyes gleamed faintly in the pale light.
He looked no longer like a boy, but like a man.
My man. After saying farewell to everyone, he approached me.
I didn’t know whether he would want to show me any affection in front of everyone.
What I was to him in the eyes of the world.
He stopped before me. I gazed at him through half-lidded eyes.
He stepped closer and grabbed me fiercely by the waist, pulling me close.
“I am yours, and you are mine.”
With those words he kissed me. His mouth touched mine and we cared nothing for the eyes upon us. Reluctantly he drew back, mounted his horse and rode out with the rest.
I stood there and felt only the whisper of his wind upon my cheeks.
The nights after Aidenar left were ragged. The nightmares returned, though Malric didn’t appear. Mina said my defenses had strengthened and soon she would teach me to slip into the minds of others.
Nevertheless the dreams shifted into something else. They no longer felt like mine. I saw fragments of a different world: people in clothes I didn’t know, speaking languages I had never heard, carrying banners unfamiliar to me.
I dreamed of burning villages.
I dreamed of battlefields where storms shattered cavalry.
I dreamed of an earthquake tearing apart the greatest fortress I had ever seen, a stronghold that had never existed in the Dominium.
At last I stood atop a lighthouse and watched a fleet of hundreds of ships ready to storm a city, bearing sigils and crests I didn’t know. I felt the power of the element in my veins. I knew that the thousands before me were about to die.
Because I would kill them.
Was it me? Were those my hands?
I woke up. So much destruction, so many deaths. No mortal army could stand against an unleashed element.
So much senseless loss. I still felt the lust for power from my dream.
But I felt something else. A gentle pull. Like that time at the waterfall.
I threw on my cloak and stepped out into the night. Only the moon and the lamps parted the shadows. I descended lower and lower, deeper into the castle, all the way to the old temple. We had inspected it earlier. Only four vases. No trace of the Plague. But something called to me.
I approached the bowl of earth element and touched the edge of the stone.
Nothing happened. But I could feel it was calling me.
Blood thicker than water. I looked for a knife but found none.
My gaze fell upon a stone column, its edges sharp and unpolished.
I dragged my hand along its side with all my strength until red stained my palm.
With my bloodied hand, I grasped the bowl.
The vision came.
I saw blood-soaked hands plunged into an open chest, fingers closing around a heart. It lay still in their grasp, heavy and lifeless. The heart did not move. It was dead.
Then I felt it.
A spark.
Power coursed from those hands into the heart, it struck like lightning. The heart convulsed, then shuddered again, and suddenly it beat. Blood surged, warm and urgent, spilling anew through veins.
The bloodied hands laid the heart back into the chest and began to close the body whole.
It was a miracle. A gift from the gods. Slowly I watched as hands joined tissue after tissue—bones, tendons, muscles, skin.
When it was done, only a thin white line remained. The vision pulled back and I saw her.
Selene. A medic girl from White City. The one that left. She left.
She stood in a small white chamber, stark and clean, like a city infirmary. Her hands were stained to the elbows with blood. When she closed the body, she went to wash them in a basin.
Her eyes glowed faintly.
It was her. Now I could see it. She was the fourth heir.
Together they rose, four forces divine,
In balance and bond, the world aligned.
Could we stop the Plague together? Could we hold back whatever was being forged in the desert?
I had to find her.