Chapter 66
With no way of keeping track of the time, Ordes wasn’t sure how long he’d been in his new world.
The empty white space was strange, but oddly comforting.
He liked the bleakness, the lack of colour.
If he was never returning to the real world, he didn’t want this one to be a replica of it in any way.
He didn’t want to be reminded of what he had lost.
He rubbed his chest. His heart fluttered beneath his fingers – he could no longer feel Jenyfer’s heartbeat, and the absence of it ripped him to pieces. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to it. It was like he was missing a limb. Every part of him hurt.
The heartfire had almost faded as well.
Ordes swallowed. ‘Will it get easier, or will I always feel like I’ve had my guts torn out?’
Merlin’s voice was regretful. ‘I don’t know.’
Maybe it would have been better to die completely, Ordes thought. He couldn’t see how he would spend eternity as a shell and not go mad. How he’d spend eternity without her and not lose all sense of who he once was.
His father was watching him. ‘It was the best I could do.’
‘I know,’ Ordes said. ‘And I am grateful.’
‘I couldn’t bear the thought of you not existing anywhere, Ordes,’ Merlin said. ‘Was that selfish of me?’
‘Ask me in a hundred years,’ Ordes replied.
The air around them shuddered violently, and suddenly, they weren’t alone. A woman, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders, was lying on the ground. She was dripping wet. She gasped, sat up, then retched violently, water erupting in a torrent from her lungs.
‘Lamorna?’ Ordes whispered. ‘How…’
Her head whipped around. Her eyes were wide, skin corpse-pale, her face completely broken, but when she saw him and Merlin standing there, she wiped her face and got to her feet, frowning. ‘Where am I?’ she asked, then, ‘Are we dead?’
‘Not really,’ Merlin answered, frowning at her. ‘You shouldn’t be here. This place is not yours. It was not made for you.’
She took unsteady steps towards them. Water pooled around her feet. ‘Then who was it made for?’
‘Me,’ Ordes mumbled.
‘Why am I here then?’ Lamorna demanded.
‘That’s a good question,’ Merlin said. ‘Where did you want to be?’
‘I wanted to be dead,’ she whispered. ‘Mordred is dead. My dragon is stone. My world has been ripped to pieces. I don’t know who I am anymore.’
‘What about Jenyfer?’ Ordes asked, his heart pinching at the thought of her, at the look on her face before he…
‘I should be asking you the same thing,’ Lamorna replied sharply.
‘It’s different,’ Ordes argued. ‘This was always my fate. It doesn’t have to be yours.’
‘I’ve done terrible things,’ she whispered.
‘We’ve all done terrible things,’ Merlin said.
She eyed him warily. ‘Could you send me back?’
‘Do you want that?’
Lamorna shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I need to think about it. This place might be… well, it can’t be any worse than where I’ve been.’
Jenyfer barely noticed a thing about the Otherworld. She sat in the Bag Noz, Ophine guiding the boat down the Black River, and reminded herself to keep breathing.
Her father was dead.
The world was remade, and Ordes…
‘Where is he?’ Jenyfer asked.
Ophine didn’t turn around. ‘The faery… it’s not for me to say, Jenyfer.’ There was a hint of regret in the wraith’s voice. ‘If I could tell you, I would, but it’s up to my master.’
Jenyfer didn’t have the energy to argue, to press Ophine like she usually would. She could feel the heartfire slowly extinguishing and every nerve she had was beginning to fray.
She was running out of time.
The Bag Noz turned towards a shoreline of black sand. Before it had even come to a stop, Jenyfer was on her feet and climbing out, her boots sloshing in the dark, soupy water. Her blood itched, her scales itched… She rubbed her chest furiously, blinking back tears. Don’t go out, she begged.
‘You don’t know where you’re going,’ Ophine said crossly.
‘I’m going to guess, up there.’ Looming above them was a castle, all black lines and sharp angles. ‘I thought the Otherworld was a mirror of the real world,’ Jenyfer commented as Ophine caught up to her. The wraith dripped with annoyance.
‘This isn’t the Otherworld,’ they said curtly.
‘This is my master’s place. Follow me.’ They led the way through a set of black gates and up a flight of steps that seemed never-ending.
Mist wreathed the castle. The doors flew open as they approached, the two ghostly guards standing idle.
By the time they’d crossed a stone bridge, fear had hold of Jenyfer’s limbs.
What if Ordes wasn’t here? What if Ankou wouldn’t help her?
She followed Ophine, not looking at anything until she found herself in a cavernous room facing a set of enormous scales. The sound of rattling bones filled the air and a dog howled.
‘He isn’t here, Jenyfer,’ Ankou said, materialising beside her.
‘Then where… where is he?’ she managed. She would not fail. ‘Where?’
The God of the Otherworld hesitated before he spoke. ‘He is in a space between the worlds, one made especially for him.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Jenyfer, you need to understand—’
‘No, you need to understand. I did not go through everything my miserable life threw at me only to lose him,’ she said, trying to keep her voice firm. ‘Please. Please tell me what to do.’
Ankou stared at her for a long moment, as if he was weighing her up, judging whether she was worthy of this knowledge.
Eventually, when Jenyfer’s muscles felt like they would explode from the strain of remaining still, the God of the Otherworld nodded.
He turned from her, not seeing the way her shoulders sagged in pure relief or the tears that slipped down her cheeks.
‘Balance is the price, Jenyfer,’ he said, then stepped aside. A door, etched in silver light, had formed in the air before Ankou. Jenyfer swallowed, approaching the door on leaden feet.
‘What do you mean?’ she whispered.
‘To save a life, a life must be given,’ the servant of Death told her.
Throat tight, she nodded.
Ankou’s skeletal face turned to her. ‘There is no going back from the choice you make.’ With a wave of his hand, the door opened a crack. Blinding white light radiated from the space beyond it.
‘He’s behind this door?’ Jenyfer asked. She did not take her eyes from that slice of light.
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. The door swung wide, forcing her to shield her eyes. Blinking, Jenyfer wiped the last tear from her cheek and stepped through the door.
Whatever the price, I’ll pay it.
Jenyfer, hand before her face, walked slowly.
It was strange in the space between the worlds.
She could feel the ground beneath her feet but could see nothing but white.
There was no horizon, no sky – nothing but an empty space.
Was this what Teyath was like before the Old Ones called the land into being?
As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could make out two people sat in armchairs in the distance. One of the figures shot to their feet, and her knees gave out.
Even in this space, even when she could barely see, she knew him.
‘Ordes,’ she managed, before gasping as the heartfire exploded in her chest. Jenyfer couldn’t go any further. She couldn’t help but feel she shouldn’t be here, that this place was not for her. Was she dead? Had she paid whatever price Ankou had demanded for his balance?
Hands closed around her upper arms, lifting her to her feet. She burst into tears as Ordes’ arms closed around her. ‘What are… how…’
‘You told me to bully him,’ Jenyfer whispered.
They weren’t alone. Merlin was staring at her in blank shock.
She didn’t bother asking why he was here.
She kept her fingers woven through Ordes’, not willing to let him go in case this was some trick.
‘You’re surprised?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes at Merlin.
‘Not at all. But it was only a possibility, not a certainty,’ Merlin said.
Jenyfer raised her eyebrows. ‘You doubted I’d try to save him?’
‘Oh, not that. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to. How did you manage it?’ Merlin asked.
Jenyfer told them what had happened with Melodias. ‘The Stone is gone,’ she added, reaching up to touch the place where it used to be.
Ordes squeezed her hand. ‘I’m glad I get to see you one last time, but Jen, you can’t stay here.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re not staying here either. That’s why I’ve come. To bring you back.’
‘Jen—’
‘I will not let you go, you hear me? Ordes, I won’t.’
He kissed her, holding her face gently between those large hands, his lips tender and sweet, then rested his forehead against hers.
Merlin sighed. ‘There might be a problem. There was one thing even I didn’t foresee.’ He stepped aside, and Jenyfer found herself staring at her sister.
‘Lamorna! What… what are you doing here? How are you here?’
‘I asked her to let me die – and I did die, again if that’s possible – but she sent me here,’ Lamorna said. Water flowed from her skin and hair, her clothes, pooling on the ground at her feet.
Merlin sighed again. ‘No matter how much control I think I have, the Old Ones play by their own rules as well.’
‘Ereshki sent Lamorna here?’ Jenyfer guessed. ‘Why?’
‘So you could go back, of course,’ Lamorna said. They all gaped at her. ‘What? Merlin said he made this space for Ordes, but I’ve decided I’m staying here instead.’