Chapter 39 LIGHT AND SHADOW
Chapter thirty-nine
LIGHT AND SHADOW
Ornella
He was in my arms. Sage was in my arms.
I had barely been holding on through the horrible pain that felt like I had been cleaved in half. Like I had been holding a noxious breath that was slowly poisoning me. And now that he was back in my arms, I would happily see Rian darken the world rather than let him go again.
“Ready to be initiated, little doe?” Ciaran asked me, drawing my attention from staring at Sage when the other rider knelt next to me. He put one hand on Sage’s chest, and his fingers clenched so hard in his brother’s tunic that his knuckles turned white.
I looked down when his other hand extended a familiar helmet to me over Sage’s chest.
It felt wrong that the first order of business once Sage was finally with me again was my official initiation into the Wild Hunt.
Especially when all I wanted to do was take him through the portal somewhere safe and secret to protect him until he woke.
I knew I had to share him with his loved ones, but there was no use arguing that logic with the demands of primal instincts.
But we had spent hours hammering out every detail of this battle.
I had argued tirelessly with Rian over whether to include Nuala, how best to try and fight the Sylvan, and how to handle Amira.
We both knew there was only so much that we could do to actually hurt these creatures.
Fighting them was a very delicate balance of cunning and undeniable force.
My power in combination with that of both Rian and Sage seemed to be the only way we could try to make them pay for what they had done.
But no one aside from me could use all three magics at once without my initiation, and I could not be initiated without Sage.
Luckily, it was not necessary for us to go to the stone altar where Aodhan was untethered.
All that was needed for my initiation was for all of the riders to be together.
So in spite of my instincts that screamed for me to take Sage and hide him, keep him all to myself, I remained.
“Ready,” I told Ciaran, ignoring Amira as she crawled over to crouch against my back. She was horrified as she watched Nuala using Rian’s power to devastating effect.
I dropped my cloak, revealing my mate’s Wild Hunt armour which was still sized to fit me.
I took Sage’s helm, which Ciaran had brought, while focusing on summoning and directing my own armour onto Sage.
I had practiced with Rian and Ciaran before leaving with Amira to make sure I would be able to protect Sage.
But my armour was much easier to command now that I understood it was attached to my shifting abilities rather than my magic.
I pulled Sage’s helmet on at the same time as the other riders all donned theirs.
Then Nuala took over entirely from Rian so he could turn his attention to the rest of us.
She was able to use the power they seemed to share just as effortlessly as he had to keep the elves destabilized.
She could not actually fight the Sylvan, but she was able to keep them distracted.
She pulled magic out of the earth beneath us so that the Sylvan were forced to pour power into it in order to keep this strange place from collapsing.
We had been betting on them not wanting to leave before reclaiming me and Sage, and it seemed we were right.
I had not seen Rian in his full armour since I killed Aodhan and became an unwilling rider in the Wild Hunt.
And the sight of that gold-streaked mask kneeling across from me gave me a brief pause as it struck me just how far we had come since that fateful day.
Had I really gone from the captive he loathed to… dare I say a friend?
Shaking myself free of the preoccupation, I watched as he removed a gauntlet and drew a knife to cut his palm.
The other riders all did the same with their own weapon, but I opted for the use of my claws.
My jaw clenched in restraint when Ciaran took the blade from my hip to slice Sage’s palm, but my mate didn’t even flinch.
And I was unsure whether to be relieved or alarmed by how unresponsive he was to the pain.
“Use that adrenaline magic you used on the warriors in the battle at Aes Suri,” Ciaran urged me while the world continued to heave around us.
The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Sage anymore, and I was anxious about jolting him out of a deep sleep. But we needed his active participation. I knew Nuala did not have Rian’s magical stamina, and she would not be able to keep up her strength for much longer.
“Can you hear me, Sage?” I breathed as I threaded my fingers through his and allowed a trickle of magic to flow into him. The only reason I had not yet pumped healing power into his body was because I needed to conserve my strength for what came next.
I clasped our bleeding palms together more firmly with both of my hands and then leaned over him.
You need to wake up now, my love, I whispered down the bond that felt uncomfortably lonely as if he was no longer on the other side. He still did not stir, so I relented in my panic and pushed a sudden jolt of power into him that pulsed through all of his limbs.
I could no longer see his face behind the bone mask. And yet I still felt it when his eyes flew open and snapped onto me as his body very nearly bolted straight upright. Our bond flared to life and brought tears to my eyes.
“Summer,” he rasped, recognizing me even behind his skull mask that covered my face. His voice was so rough, and I just knew that it was from fucking screaming.
“I am here! We are all here. I am so sorry for how long it has taken me to come—”
“We need to initiate her right now,” Ciaran broke in, grabbing Sage’s arm to garner his attention.
Sage’s chest heaved as he eased down onto the floor, his limbs heavy with exhaustion as he turned his covered face toward the commotion.
He seemed to tilt his head in confusion at the sight of Nuala wielding Rian’s power, but then he turned his face back toward me.
I heard him groan in bone-deep pain as he lifted his other arm to reach for me so we were both clasping our bleeding palms.
“I give you my blood, my magic,” he began speaking the rite that Rian had taught me in Sìth Gaeilge. His voice trembled with so much exhaustion that it made me irate. “And I take yours in return so that our essences may be bound to one another now until death,” he finished.
I winced in sympathy when he uttered a growl of pain.
It seemed to take an immense effort for him to push just a small drop of his essence into me through the blood that was mingling between our palms. And I understood why once it fused with me, and I felt the rawness of where some integral pieces of him were stripped away.
My teeth clenched so hard they creaked as I struggled to contain the rage.
With his magic in me and heightening our connection even more, I suddenly understood exactly why the Sylvan had agreed to my deal.
Because although his essence was bruised and battered from the efforts to pull his Light magic from him like a weed, the elves had not been able to fully remove it.
Not when it was still rooted in me too. So when they spoke about Sage resisting all their efforts, what they meant was that he had managed to shield our bond from them.
If not for his unwavering determination to protect me from them, I might also have been subjected to the torture of having his Light carved out.
I could see it now as an echo of memory in his blood.
Which only fuelled my determination to find a way to make them pay for this.
Ciaran had told me that blood bonds could be painful, but binding my magic, my very essence, to my mate was anything but uncomfortable.
I supposed that was because we were anam, and we were already naturally entwined.
The heat of his Autumn fire magic seemed to grow roots in me that spread through my veins until they had fully fused with every ounce of my Summer power.
And it was all I could do to keep my lips pressed closed against a gasp of ecstasy.
The intensity of his magic fusing with mine burst through my pores in spurts of flames.
It was so overwhelming that I barely remembered to speak the words back to him and push some of my own essence into him as well.
And I watched in awe when his head tilted back in the same ecstasy I’d just felt.
The flames around our hands went white and began to bloom like flowers up both of our arms.
I had not realized that I was crying until I felt the tear trickle over my lower lashes and roll down my cheek under my mask.
And then Ciaran unceremoniously wrenched our hands apart, making me snarl at him for the interruption before he replaced Sage’s hand with his own. He quickly recited the rite to me, reminding me that we were short on time, so I obliged him by repeating it back to him.
His magic was foreign, as if it did not belong with me, so this bond was painful to form.
It felt like some strange combination of fire crackling sharp and hot in my veins while shadows entwined with it like threads of cool silk.
Our magic fused despite the discomfort, but instead of the fiery flowers I produced with Sage, the bond with Ciaran manifested in shadowy vines that curled up our arms.
“Hurry!” Nuala cried as Darragh took Ciaran’s place right next to me. I was glad of the break while I tried to breathe through the aching pulse of so much new and raw magic in my body.
Rian and Ciaran turned from us for a moment to help Nuala push the elves back again, and it was shocking to see Ciaran using my power. I could feel him using it as intuitively as I had when he strengthened my Light shield.
The Sylvan screamed out their fury at him for using what they perceived to be theirs alone.