Chapter 18
A lora cracked open the tent entrance as the shell of what once was Garrik dressed behind her.
The thunderstorm had calmed, and gentle taps against the canvas were soothing as his silken sheets brushed against her bare legs. Her nightdress soaked, Alora wore a pair of his undershorts and a black shirt like the one he’d worn in Maraz’s inn. Its collar rounded around her neck with shortened sleeves, cotton by its touch.
She crawled across his bed and pulled the blankets aside for him before leaning against the fur pillows. Waiting. Watching him linger at the wooden table, now returned, offering his usual escape of liquors. His movements were slow, caught in a haze. Only, when she expected him to grab a glass and pour his preferred bottle of bourbon, he instead lowered his hand and inched so slowly toward the bed.
His face smiled, but those muddy eyes didn’t.
It was haunting.
Garrik still hadn’t returned to himself as his weight sunk into the mattress. Clothed in soft, loose, black night pants, he left his torso bare. Water droplets still covered him, and she wondered how they didn’t turn to ice.
Body stiff, his abdomen was covered in furious shades of scarlet around the deep wounds, making his face twist in agony and quietly groan as he attempted to fall back.
Alora caught his broad shoulders, helped alleviate the usage of his tortured core, and guided him back to where he lay with an excruciating sigh of relief.
He hadn’t spoken to her since the shower. And behind the snuffed-out gleam of his enchanting eyes, she saw everything.
The pain hidden behind a mask. That brokenness.
His soulless gaze.
She’d offer up her starfire to change that look in his eyes.
Alora shuffled down the bed, but when she moved to place her hand on his chest, panic set in his eyes for a flash, then burned away into the same exhaustion she’d seen for countless days. So many times, so many mornings and nights at the firesite. Outside the training arena. In the war tent.
How many years had he endured this exhaustion? Never allowing anyone to know why those dark circles lay under his eyes. Never knowing exactly what caused them. These terribly horrific things … suffering alone …
And she couldn’t stand it. The thought of seeing him this way come morning. When the sun warmed his face, the bleary muddy-gray would stare back. Just another day for him, but she didn’t want it to be just another day.
Garrik’s lifeless eyes met hers, and she knew what he would say if he could. If he wasn’t too tired to argue or put up a fight.
Sapphires raked over him, resting on the abdominal wounds that lightened their angry tone slightly. Garrik’s hand traced over them, not to hide but to soothe, wincing as they glided over the deep gouges tearing as far as the muscles underneath.
Her palm lightly found his hand, keeping her focus on his face while she spoke. “Let me help.”
There was little hesitation there as he subtly nodded, closing his shame-filled eyes.
Carefully, Alora moved Garrik’s hand and rested it beside him. Her hand brushed his shackle-scared wrist, feeling his heartbeat quicken.
This had to help— it had to .
She couldn’t bear seeing him in such pain. The warm glow of an ember lit in her palm before she gently pressed into his hardened abdomen, pulsing incredible heat into the torn muscles underneath.
Instead of a panicked plea, Garrik groaned in relief.
With each rise in temperature, some part of him unraveled. Loosening the leash he kept on himself, the taut muscles in his legs relaxed, and he sank deeper into the cot; his tense shoulders lowered; that hand mercilessly gripping the sheets slackened.
He groaned, and she tenderly whispered, “Rest, mighty prince. I have you tonight.”
Garrik’s breathing deepened. Then, a soft melody, the same one she’d heard in Maraz’s tavern, hummed like an ethereal lullaby as she threaded her other hand through his hair.
And maybe it was foolish—because it was … foolish and ridiculous and doubtful. But as her High Prince nestled into her hand, as her warmth soothed the horrors left etched into his skin, Alora dared to close her eyes and call to the demons plaguing him.
By whatever magic it was that linked them, allowing her to feel him even when he wasn’t near, Alora searched across the darkened space between. She imagined what it may be like for the Lord of Minds to capture thoughts. What it was like for him when he caressed her mind.
And with that dangerous kernel of hope, a silver thread spun from starlight wove itself through her heart and pulled at her mind. Until she imagined herself standing behind her fiery wall, now lowered. Standing underneath a twinkling night inside her mind, where each star carried a memory.
She stared at the edge of that oblivion. Calling into the darkness. To him.
The polished metal of Garrik’s eyes opened—something … something specked inside.
“Let me in?” she whispered, brushing her hand through his silken hair.
His lips slowly parted as if to speak, studying her face. Instead of that warm voice, he said through that silver tether, It will not work. As if he knew what she was thinking of doing, those tormented eyes turned away, downcast and hopeless. Her magic is … too strong. Even I cannot stop her.
But Alora’s touch brought him back. Sweetly smiling as she asked, “Has anyone ever tried?”
Moonlight cast silhouettes against the canvas. Footsteps ambled by—his sentries, keeping camp safe. It drew her attention, but for only a moment before turning back to his mind.
Then, like calm ripples against a dock, Garrik cautiously shook his head, seemingly unsure.
Half a breath later, that gentle tingle caressed the borders of her mind. Darkness formed a figure like the one inside her tent. Those beautiful shadows offered a hand, and the moment she placed her palm inside, she misted into a veil of night. Carried on an icy wind until her stars faded and she stood at the edge of oblivion.
So so dark. So cold.
She should’ve been afraid. But nothing about Garrik’s darkness scared her.
The air … it was difficult to breathe?—
Someone was screaming —screaming.
Not someone but … hundreds of painful, roaring screams—the same voice. Some close, some distant. Young. Others were recognizable as the warm voice she missed now.
Garrik . Stars, it was all Garrik.
Eyes adjusting, the shadows guided her to a ledge. To a deep pit of inky dark. Fear should’ve gripped her, but it wasn’t an option. Because instead of marble. Instead of a hallway leading to Kaine’s bedchamber and his cruel hands …
This place was Garrik.
And that winding staircase was where the source of the screaming wailed from. From thousands of iron-barred doors lining the walls.
This wasn’t just his mind.
This terrible place … this awful pit … was a prison.
Every door, a piece of him. Shackling him inside agony and pain. Living daily, screaming inside with no way out. Loud and tormented and earth-shattering.
Alora’s nose stung at the realization, warring off the burning tears threatening to fall.
Was this what he lived with? The pressure. The constant rumble like water coming to a boil. The trembling ground, a tinderbox fit to burst at any moment.
Her knees threatened to buckle, but the shadow guided her forward. Onto the staircase.
She would not be afraid. For Garrik, terror didn’t exist. Alora wanted— needed —to take each one of those steps. To find him— save him—from this misery.
Down and down and down into the depths. Deeper and deeper the shadow led. Passed doors chained and shackled and nailed closed. Past others wide open with not an ounce of light.
Doors ahead slammed closed. Another opened. Each with a presence of foreign darkness—a different kind to the hand guiding her.
“Garrik !” That was a voice of death. A female. Viciously shrieking through a door. She sounded like she was falling, her voice drifting away the longer she screamed until there was nothing?—
“Mother! No !”
Alora slammed her eyes shut, denying Garrik’s memories, and focused on the feeling of the shadow. On the feeling of every step.
“He is nothing to me. Do with him what you wish.” Though she had never heard the High King’s voice, never allowed past the throne room doors with Kaine, somehow Alora knew. Three doors down, that was Magnelis.
Down another, a whip cracked, followed by an evil snicker. “No more screams? Come now, boy. Just one more and I will stop.”
She hadn’t realized she had stopped until shadows enveloped her. Exactly like Garrik’s embrace, they held her until her buckling knees could stand.
With every looming step, a slithering presence crawled behind them, making her hair stand on end like Garrik’s shield over camp. Black and evil and wretched. It clawed against her boots, against her neck, ringing warning through her bones as if it owned the space she walked in. As if it guarded its property.
That foreign darkness stung like wasps. Sending pings of pain through her veins. But she didn’t stop. Not even as slithering darkness pumped lightning in her veins.
Venom. Poison.
The serpent’s magic.
Hate flooded through her, so cruel and endless that she didn’t balk as she lifted her free palm. That thing . That vile thing was going to die—she vowed to kill it— her , all of her .
An orb of starfire ignited, radiating vital light through Garrik’s mindspace. Alora turned to see the darkness slithering away into the shadows, cowering at the feathered edge of starlight.
Something sinister twisted Alora’s mouth, sneering at it, “That’s right. Be afraid .” Because she was coming for it next.
At last, the shadow brought her to the last step and offered up a door a few feet from them. Only this wasn’t a door but an iron fortress.
Barbs of sharpened steel and razored edges and mangled metal. Awful and vicious. Thousands of layers of gruesome barriers that not a tickle of breath could penetrate.
And there was magic there. She felt it. An ancient magic—powerful fortification.
The same rippling power that flowed around Garrik was rooted there . Unmoving, unrelenting, all-powerful. The very magic he had spoken of that kept his mind, perhaps his soul, safe all those years while they tortured him. It protected him now as it did then. That stronghold was there .
Garrik’s shadow stepped away. As if it waited to see what she’d do.
But what would she do? It had taken the serpent thirty years to break through. How could she do anything ?
The only power she held was starfire, and what could that do to a fortress such as this? To darkness and despair like this?
Burning its dark gaze into her, the shadow lifted its head as if in answer.
Starfire. Starfire. Starfire.
Light. Perfect, gleaming light.
She would become the light in his darkness. The warmth in his despair.
It wasn’t the door she needed to break ... it was the serpent.
An ember lit in her palm. Alora’s mouth parted, eyes wide as she surveyed her hands, then up the endless pit. Up into the darkness where the serpent’s magic still lingered on every step, waiting to strike. Haunting every door and filling Garrik with screaming nightmares.
Embers ignited into stars and flames.
Slithering darkness flinched.
Doors slammed.
The noise—the screams—quieted.
Warm and life-giving and comforting sparks of starfire raged.
Alora steadied herself, one hand against the door, the other lifted high. White flames exploded. Tearing into every surface in an endless inferno. She brought light to Garrik’s darkened world.
And she watched as the serpent’s magic vanished above the surface, outside of the blistering heat and flames.
Alora turned to the door. Though it hadn’t opened, not a speck of ash laid upon it. Instead, it lay guarded by a wall of star-kissed flames as she stepped away and took the shadows’ hand.
But it was Alora who directed the way this time. Climbing the steps one by one. Watching every door. Listening to Garrik’s screams lessen as she outstretched her hands and burned wall after wall with impenetrable starflames.
Then she stood at the top of the pit and unleashed a fire so bold, so intense, it encircled the entire top in a fortress of flames.
And she decided right there— at the top of those stairs — that even if she had to be pulled into his mind every night to reset the flames, she would. She would . After all he’d done for her, she would return every night for him and climb those stairs.
Shadows coiled around her, turning her as weightless as air.
In a blink, she returned to his tent. To his bed.
Garrik’s eyes were closed. His breathing slow, steady, and even.
“She’s never going to touch you again.” Alora’s promise was a poisonous curse, harsh and damning before the gentle glow of starfire in his hair also pulsed warmth and healing comfort into his abdomen. And it carried him into a peaceful, nightmareless sleep.
Alora closed her eyes and thanked the stars for his every breath. For not ending that beautiful, unusual heartbeat or allowing Death to steal him.
Those pieces of her heart, the ones she had carried into camp bruised and shattered and broken—the ones he helped fill with something new—they would have shattered all over again. Breaking to bloodstained shards and drifting into the unending, eternal darkness with him.
Because stars be damned.
She wouldn’t want to live in a world where he didn’t exist anymore.
That would be worse than death. And she wouldn’t let him go there alone.
He would never do anything alone ever again.