Chapter 38 BARGAINS AND BETRAYALS
Chapter thirty-eight
BARGAINS AND BETRAYALS
Amira
We had been walking through the forest for the better part of an hour.
And I was growing more and more nervous every time Ornella demanded to know how much farther.
Trying to explain that we did not think the portal was a stationary thing only made her bare her sharp teeth at me.
And it was unnerving to realize that I did not trust her not to harm me as she grew more impatient.
And then, just before I thought she might lash out at me in absolute fury, the portal finally appeared.
Ornella sucked in a breath behind me when two pillars with immense double doors materialized right in front of us from thin air.
The gleaming white stone shimmered and seemed to cast rainbows in the dimness of the forest. Just as before, it was so bright that I had to shield my eyes for a moment until they had adjusted.
“Well?” Ornella prompted.
I stepped forward the way Riordan had to lightly press one hand against the seam between the doors.
I meant for them to open, of course, but I was still shocked the gate responded to me with that low frequency ring.
Once the doors were fully open and exposing the pearlescent portal rippling serenely within, I turned to the stunned Nell.
I tentatively extended a hand to her, which snapped her out of her awe, and she looked down at it with a frown. After a brief deliberation, she finally snatched the offered handhold and stepped up beside me.
“Keep your eyes closed for a moment. It is bright on the other side,” I warned Ornella, but she did not respond. She merely tugged me with her straight into the portal.
It seemed even colder than I remembered as the silken water enveloped us without dampening our hair or skin. And just like before, my eyelids seemed to glow for a moment before they turned a greyish red.
I blinked my eyes open, squinting until I had adjusted to the brightness, and I recognized the same empty space where we had been brought before.
There were no walls, only a white flagstone floor that was covered in a thin layer of stardust. The spaces above us and at the edges of the visible floor seemed to simply fade away into a softer, wavering grey light.
I had been told what to expect before we came the last time and was still unprepared for this place.
Ornella was given no warning, since she was determined not to speak to me more than absolutely necessary, so she was frozen.
She was so overwhelmed that she had forgotten her hand was still clenching mine, but I did not draw her attention to that fact. I would hold on as long as she let me.
“Stardust,” she murmured and swiped her other hand through the shimmering particles floating in the air.
“The essence of Light is in all that is,” said a familiar voice that was somehow too soft to be male and too deep to be female. It was too unfeeling to be mistaken for the voice of a mortal but also seemed to burst with life.
I turned knowingly toward two featureless figures that had appeared in the room with us. Their gleaming cream veils showed only the vague outline of humanoid faces. And as before, every inch of them was covered by robes that pooled around their feet.
Ornella dropped my hand and stepped forward quickly to face off with them as if they could not blast her into oblivion with a thought. Although, I had to admit that it had not been her who was sent rushing for escape portals the last time she and Rian faced these creatures.
“Where is my mate?” she snarled, and I resisted the urge to sigh at her churlish demand. So much for having a way with words like she had promised Rian.
“The Light Wraith is no longer your concern—”
“Where. Is. He?” she cut in, hissing through her teeth with such a vitriolic wrath that I almost took a step back.
The Sylvan both seemed to pause as if they were also taking note of her volatility. But I was not sure if it was because they were fearful of her or if such emotionless creatures were merely unaccustomed to such passion.
“You were given passage here because, like the male, you contain a power that you should not be able to use. And we intend to strip it out of you as well.”
I almost reached for Ornella, but she made a growl that had the hairs on the back of my neck rising.
“Did you hurt him?” she asked, her voice deadly low with an unspoken threat.
“The pain was inconsequential when the fate of—”
“Did you hurt him?” she repeated herself more loudly. And this time, the light seemed to waver around us, which made the room appear to vibrate. The stardust on the floor began to shift away from Ornella like sand dunes.
“You are an abomination!” accused one elf in disgust at her demonstration.
“I don’t give a fuck what you think of Sage’s power.
He was born with it, it belongs to him, and if you have hurt him for it, I will fracture you.
You think the Mavaari are the worst of your worries?
” she verified, making the elves both flinch at the mere mention of their darker kin.
“Well they aren’t here. I am the one you need to fear. ”
The elves seemed to vibrate in rage, the light wavering around them this time.
“Insolent fool! You might be powerful for a mortal, but you are still a mortal, and with the Scrios vanquished, you have no foundation for such vile claims!”
So they thought Rian was dead. Or did they just mean that his power was different somehow after what they did to him? And clearly they did not know about Nuala.
“Groundless confidence has never stopped me before,” Ornella muttered, although I thought perhaps their point had shaken her conviction a little.
“You are not leaving,” hissed one elf as they took one step forward. “You may fight if you wish, but you cannot withstand the will of the Elisari.”
Ornella seemed to deliberate for a moment, her hands clenching as I began to fear that Ciaran was right about her sharp tongue ruining everything.
“You said that you wanted to remove the Light magic from Sage. Have you done that now?” she asked finally, her voice much more subdued.
“We have accomplished our ends as much as could be done with all his resistance,” they confirmed grudgingly. And I heard Ornella inhale as if in pain.
“Then you have no more need to keep him. You want me to stay? You want someone willing to do whatever the fuck you need me to do? I will stay if you let him go.”
“Ornella!” I objected in horror.
“I will be cooperative!” she insisted over my outburst, stepping toward the elves with her hands held wide open. “Just let Sage go.”
The elves were silent for a moment in contemplation, as if her offer actually intrigued them, and my heart began to hammer painfully.
“We would benefit from cooperation,” noted one of the elves as they turned their covered head toward the other.
Both of their voices were so similar that it was hard to tell which of them was speaking.
I didn’t think they breathed, they didn’t even speak with their mouths since their veils were never disrupted by their words.
“I will do whatever you want, abide any pain willingly, just as long as Sage is free and safe with his family.”
“Nell, that was not the deal!” I hissed, but she gave a sharp wave to silence me.
“We will accept an exchange,” the elves declared with a bow of their shrouded heads.
“I want to see him first. Please let me see him before Amira takes him home,” Ornella pleaded. I wanted to yell at her furiously, but I had never heard her beg like that for anything, and I found my voice was gone.
One elf wordlessly swept their hand over the ground, and just like that, a prone body appeared there.
“Sage!” Ornella sobbed, dropping all pretenses of her composure as she broke into a run. She ignored the elves, but they both stepped away from her when she fell to her knees next to her unconscious mate.
I moved forward, wanting to stay close to Nell, but the sight of her bending over the inert man to press her head against his chest made me feel ill.
There was no blood on him anywhere, and I was relieved to see his chest rising and falling with slow and even breaths.
I was pretty sure that he was still wearing his tunic and pants from when he was taken, and even though it had been weeks since then, he did not look dishevelled.
There were little braids still threaded through the loose waves of his dark hair that showed hints of burgundy in the brightness.
He was just as achingly handsome as Rian, but there was a gentleness in his features, a warmth like he was more prone to smiles and kindness than threats.
He appeared so serene as if he were sleeping with his long dark lashes curling delicately against his high cheekbones.
His olive skin seemed pale, which appeared to be the only physical thing wrong.
And yet…
Even I could sense the vestiges of agony that were still wafting off him. I swore I could almost hear his screams echoing in the muted light around us.
“What is wrong with him? Why will he not wake up?” Ornella demanded as she cupped Sage’s jaw. Her thumb brushed across his cheek with a reverent affection, but she did not attempt to heal her mate. I thought it was strange considering how quick she had always been to heal my smallest scrapes.
“The process was quite taxing for him,” admitted the elf without an ounce of remorse. I saw Nell clenching her free fist at the implication of how they had hurt him.
“Then he will awaken?”
“In time,” the elf answered dismissively. “You will be a compliant subject. And we will allow him to go back,” they reminded her impatiently.
But Ornella did not seem to be listening. I squinted as she carefully drew something from her pocket, which was hidden from the elves behind Sage’s body. I cocked my head in confusion, and it was not until she placed it on the ground next to her that I realized what it was.
A branch from the portal tree. One that seemed to have already sprouted gleaming purple roots that burrowed quickly between the cracks of the white tiled flooring.
“I wanted to say goodbye,” Ornella insisted in a clear effort to distract the elves while I moved closer to her in anticipation of her next move. “This is unfair.”
“We are not interested in fairness,” the elves hissed at her in exasperation. “The fate of the many is at stake here. Now release him and fulfill your bargain, dryad!”
I was close enough now to see Ornella look up at them with unbridled hatred as her lip curled back.
“Fuck you and your bargain,” she growled at them.
And then she unleashed a blast of Light magic at the Sylvan that sent them both stumbling back.
She pulled Sage out of the way to give the sapling room just before it abruptly erupted.
It looked similar to the tree that was undoubtedly its parent back in the Autumn Court, but its whole trunk was pulsing bright with vivid purple veins.
Ornella reached for the trunk, likely to open a portal, but the elves retaliated. Bright blasts of their Light magic shattered around a ward, which I had not seen her erect to keep them away. Cracks spiderwebbed through the bright dome as it blinked into sight all around us.
Ornella snarled with determination, her teeth clenched and body straining with effort. It was clearly all she could do to wield both the Light magic that shielded us from the elves and the portal magic at the same time.
“I can help!” I tried to tell her, holding out my bound hands for her to sever the magic binding me. But she only glared at me and ignored my offer. Not that I could blame her since I had no idea what I could even do.
Just as I thought the elves were about to break through her ward, the trunk of the tree split almost in half from the force of her magic and purple vapours ruptured.
I scrambled to help her grab Sage and get him through to safety, but Ornella was not moving. A glance up at her reassured me that she had not passed out from exertion, but she was just sitting there.
“Ornella, the portal!” I tried to urge her.
But she remained kneeling over Sage and looking up at the elves with a smirk of such utter satisfaction that it made the hairs all over my body rise again.
“I promised to fracture you if you hurt him. And you fucking hurt him,” she reminded the elves venomously.
I had no idea what the fuck she was saying until…
Rian stepped through the portal to stand right next to her in a truly terrifying suit of armour that appeared to be made from thorn and bone.
He was instantly flanked by both of the other two riders in similar armour, and then Nuala joined them.
She still wore a pretty purple gown, but she had donned a breastplate made of bone over it.
The elves hissed in fury at the sight of them.
“Scrios,” they snarled, the light wavering so erratically around us that I worried this place was about to collapse.
Rian did not speak. His beautiful face was painfully severe as he and Nuala both raised their hands.
I expected them to cast those magic-devouring shadows at the elves, but instead, they began syphoning around us.
I could feel it as they began to pull the magic apart from beneath my feet until everything trembled.
The elves screamed in fury as their focus quickly shifted from offense to defense.
Betrayal is the path to right your wrongs, but mind the darkness does not swallow the stars.
Well it seemed that the Wild Hunt had in fact betrayed me when Rian came in spite of my condition that he stay behind for this. And now I feared that the darkness was about to swallow the stars…