Chapter 19 #2
I slip into the other room. In the gloom, it looks identical to the first. A large bed is tucked into the far corner from the single barred window, and a threadbare rug covers most of the floor. Weariness rolls through me. I drop my pack, kick off my boots, and crawl beneath the covers.
Still, my heart pounds in my ears and my veins thrum like they’re full of lightning. Wide-eyed, I pull the blanket to my chin and stare into the dark. Sleep feels like a distant dream. How can I possibly close my eyes after everything that’s happened? Everything I’ve learned?
I’ve ‘joined’ the rebels—at least for now.
Do they know how many others I’ve helped Osian capture or kill?
How many are still chained in the dungeons?
They mustn’t. If they did, they would have greeted me with swords rather than an offer of alliance.
I would make a good hostage. The Order would be more than willing to trade a few rebels to get their necromancer back.
I hiss between my teeth. Stars, I hate that word.
Frowning into the dark, I count the minutes, hoping it will lull me to sleep. It doesn’t.
I’ve reached two hundred and nine minutes when a soft knock sounds at the open door and a darker shadow hovers just outside. The scent of rowan blossom drifts toward me.
“You should be in bed,” I say.
“You should be asleep.” The shadow shifts as he steps inside. “Are the dead keeping you awake?”
“Quite the opposite. I can’t stop thinking about the living.” I toss the blanket aside and stand, stretching my tired bones. “It’s not dawn yet, is it?”
“A few more hours yet.” A long pause. “But after I woke from my rest, I couldn’t settle again. I wanted to talk to you about what happens next.”
I frown. “You going to chain me up again if I disagree with you?”
“No, Swynwraig, I’m not.”
A candle suddenly sparks to life, casting a soft light across the room. Taliesin places it on the bedside table, then glances around, notices there are no chairs, and sits on the edge of the bed like it might bite him if he gets too comfortable.
“Where’s Bryn?” I ask.
“I told her to wait outside the camp. She’ll be fine.”
“And you? Are you fine?”
“I will be. But these people,” he says, “I don’t know how much we can trust them.”
“Do you think they’re telling the truth?”
“About the Order?” he asks. When I nod, he continues, “Almost certainly. But their own intentions…I can’t be sure. I’ve heard of them, and this place, but most of the rebels I’ve met have been wilder. They want to fight, but there’s no strategy to it. Just an instinctual need to survive.”
“I noticed something similar,” I admit. “These are nothing like the rebels the Order normally sends me and Osian after.”
He looks at me for a long moment, thoughtful. An unexpected heat curls through me.
“I didn’t expect you to join them. Or even believe them,” he says.
“It’d be foolish to ignore the proof,” I say, frowning. “But I haven’t joined them. I just want to stop something terrible from happening, and if their way works, then that works for me.”
He shifts sideways to face me. “Interesting choice of words. I’m assuming the terrible thing you speak of isn’t the magic hoarding.”
“No.” I frown, looking down at my hands.
“I don’t know what it is, I just have this gut feeling our world will suffer in ways we don’t expect.
The first time, hundreds died because of what the Order did.
We can’t let them do it again. That doesn’t mean I’m just going to hand this harp over to the rebels. ”
“All right.” He extends his hand. “So we stay and we fight, but we don’t declare our loyalty to a group we don’t know or understand.”
I swallow and meet his steady gaze. The exhaustion is gone from him now, and the blue-streaked veins have faded back into his skin. A coil of tension unexpectedly loosens inside me, like part of me was worried he wouldn’t recover.
Then I force myself back to words, to his offered hand, and I hesitate.
“They want me, not you,” I find myself saying. “If you told them you wanted to return to the tower, I think they’d remove the iron bands. We could go our separate ways, try to save ourselves.”
He offers a tense smile. “I meant what I said earlier. The wheel is already turning, and no matter what we do, we can’t undo us meeting. Our fate will come for us now.”
“Maybe I don’t believe in fate,” I murmur.
“Even so, you must admit we’re wound too tightly in something we don’t yet understand—you and me. I think we should find out what it is.”
He’s right. None of this feels accidental. Us meeting, the firebird leading us to the cave, the rebels bringing us here. What it all means, I have no idea, but it does feel as if a force beyond ourselves is dragging us toward…this.
My heart pounds. “Fine. But this doesn’t mean I forgive the chains. Or your cruel remarks.”
He cocks his head. “You’re still upset about the necromancer comment.”
“You called me spineless.”
“You’ve insinuated far worse about me.”
I open my mouth to argue but then stop. He’s not wrong.
“Truce?” he asks, brow rising.
For a heartbeat, I hesitate before slipping my hand into his.
His palm is warm against mine—unexpected given how cold he was only hours ago.
We shake, our eyes locked, and the thrumming in my veins spikes.
The moment lengthens, like we’ve been caught in it outside of time, shaking hands through an entire day and night before it starts again.
And still, I can’t seem to let go. My hand moves with his as if it already knows the rhythm.
Eventually, we break apart. I don’t know who lets go first, or if it’s mutual, but one moment we’re touching, and the next we’re not, and I’m suddenly too aware of my sleeve, smoothing it down just to have something to do. I avoid looking at his face.
Then, more boldly than I feel, I ask, “Did she visit you?”
“Hmm?”
“The person who comes to your dreams.” I flick my eyes up to his. “Did she visit you just now, while you were resting?”
He looks at me oddly. “You said you couldn’t sleep.”
“Yes, but she isn’t—”
He leans closer, pressing a finger against my lips. Everything in me stills. Not just because of the gesture, but because for a brief, disorienting second, it feels like I’ve been here before.
“No,” he says quietly. “She didn’t. And I don’t think she will unless you sleep.” His hand drops as he rises, like a pendulum, and the absence of his touch hits me harder than it should.
“Or the iron is repelling her?” I counter. “It sounds like it was before, kind of like the opposite of how talismans work between a Swynwraig and her Rhyfelwr.”
He lifts his fingers to the band, a distant look in his eye, like he’s only just remembered it’s there. “Hmm. Never trust anyone who erases what you are.”