by JA Andrews
“I don’t think it worked,” Douglon said.
Alaric ignored him and closed his eyes again. It had worked. He could feel it. He could feel the energy stopping the spread of the poison, blocking it at the edges. He felt the smallest bit of poison slip through his net and knew that Brandson’s time was still limited. But now, he might have the time he needed.
Then Alaric reached up and held his hand toward Brandson’s face. “Dormio,” he told the blacksmith, and Brandson’s head slowly slumped down on his chest, his brow relaxing and his breath calming.
Milly, eyes wide in alarm, rushed up to him.
“He’s fine,” Alaric assured her.
“He’s not fine,” Ayda pointed out.
Alaric glared at her again. “He can’t feel the poison. And I slowed the spread of it, too. We should have several days before…”
Milly nodded tersely.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Douglon demanded.
The group headed out of the valley with Milly riding behind Brandson, helping to keep him seated. Douglon rode alongside, ready to help if needed.
Alaric led them south, back out of the valley and along the same trail they had taken to get there. That night, when they set up camp, the exhaustion of the last few days settled heavily on him. He could sense Kollman Pass getting closer. For Brandson’s sake, he wanted to rush, but his own desire to get back there was steeped in reluctance.
The ruby hung around his neck again, its weight familiar but no longer comforting against his chest. He now had the antidote for the rock snake venom, but it didn’t matter. If the energy in her ruby wasn’t enough to bring her back, what good was an antidote? The swirls of red light felt fragile and delicate.
He was never going to be with her. This would be the end. He would heal Brandson and send them all on their way. And then? Then the only question was whether he would wake her to say goodbye or just let her slip painlessly away.
Chapter 53
They rose early the next morning, trying to reach the castle by evening. As they saddled the horses, Alaric looked at Ayda. “You never told us how Gustav managed to trap you as a tree.”
“I was stupid,” she answered. She glanced at Douglon with a rueful smile. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“That’s surprising,” the dwarf answered.
“I had reached the courtyard and could see that the wizard was planning something, because there were some runes scratched into the ground, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. It was still dark and as I wondered what to do, four creatures came slinking toward me from all directions.”
“And let me guess,” Douglon said, “you didn’t want to kill them, so you turned yourself into a tree.”
Ayda looked guiltily at him for a moment, then giggled. “That’s exactly what happened.” Her face sobered. “They were so sad. They were so lonely and twisted, and they were only attacking because they were commanded to. I didn’t know where the wizard was, but they hated him. They hated the keep, and they hated themselves. The only thing they didn’t hate was me.” She paused. “But they couldn’t stop.”
She took a deep breath. “So I couldn’t kill them. And I couldn’t free them fast enough. I would have needed to touch each one, and I didn’t have that much time. But they all were supposed to attack an elf. So I figured that if I were a tree, maybe they would be able to give up. And they did.” She shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea until the wizard stepped out of the shadows.”
“She just loses the big picture,” Douglon explained to the rest of them. “It’s not that she makes bad decisions, she’s just never paying attention to the big picture.”
“And how were you expecting to get back to your own shape?” Alaric asked her.
“I didn’t see another choice,” she answered. “But I did know you all were close by. You wouldn’t have left me as a tree, Alaric.”
They pressed on, hoping to reach Kollman Pass in the early afternoon. Alaric spent the day focused on Brandson, contemplating which herbs he would use to fight the poison. He concentrated on the fact that he would need to notify the queen of what had happened. And that he’d need to send Douglon to the dwarves as soon as he would consent to leave, which wouldn’t happen until Brandson was healed. Which led him back to his consideration of the antidotes.
What his mind refused to land on was her. The image of Evangeline lying in the crystal filled his mind, but he refused to look at it. Every other time he had envisioned her, he had been driven by hope, driven by ideas of how to heal her. But now…
The sun was lowering toward the horizon when they finally reached the road that led to his castle. They turned a corner in the broken old path and there it sat.
It was small and grey. It had three turrets that rose to different heights and was surrounded by a storybook wall. There was even a drawbridge and a moat. Milly gasped and Ayda clapped in delight at the old castle glowing in the afternoon light.
When they entered, Alaric led them to the tower that held the bedrooms. He told them to choose whichever they liked. They lay Brandson on a luxurious bed in one of the higher rooms.
Alaric saw Brandson safely to the bed and renewed his spell to help him sleep. Then he asked Milly to get some water from the kitchen and headed toward his workroom.
He walked up the stairs, his steps getting heavier as he approached the carved door on his left. He paused beside it for a moment, raising his hand to touch it. But instead, he let his hand drop and continued up the stairs at a brisker pace.
He pushed open the next door on the right and entered his workroom. When the smell hit him, he took a deep breath. It smelled like herbs and dust and medicine. And even though everything in there was meant to stop poison, to restore life, he couldn’t hold back the thought that the room smelled like death.
It was lined with tables and bookshelves. He lit a lantern that hung from the center of the ceiling and banished the dark thoughts from his mind. Moving from shelf to table to shelf, he collected things quickly, setting them onto a small tray. When he slipped one round nut into his pocket to keep it from rolling around the tray, it dropped to the floor. Alaric looked down at his robe. It was torn and filthy, the pocket ripped straight across the bottom. He shrugged out of it and tossed it into a corner. The cold of the castle stones seeped into him.
Next to the door hung a black Keeper’s robe. It was clean and it was warm. Alaric reached out tentatively and lifted it off the hook. He slid his arms in, and the robe draped over his shoulders like a blanket, wrapping around him and welcoming him home.
He picked up the nut, put it in one of the many pockets of this robe and headed back to Brandson’s room, closing the door of the workroom firmly behind him. He passed the carved door again without pausing.
In Brandson’s room, Alaric sat quietly at a table, measuring and mixing while the others stood awkwardly around Brandson’s bed, sometimes looking at their sick friend, sometimes letting their eyes roam around the room.
There wasn’t much in it, but the furniture that was there was carved of rich wood. The bed was covered in thick blankets and fluffy pillows. There were dark red drapes that hung at the balcony. Someone had started a fire in the fireplace and set a kettle above it.
Ayda walked over to the balcony and looked out.
“This place is beautiful,” she said.
Alaric grunted, measuring out exactly fourteen simbo seeds.
She opened her mouth as though to say something else, but after glancing at Alaric, fell silent.
When he was finished mixing, Alaric used Milly’s water to make a thick paste, then brought it over to Brandson. Gently, he cleaned the wound out again. He smoothed the paste over the wound and bound it with a fresh bandage. Then he gave Milly some leaves and asked her to brew Brandson some strong tea from them.
With all those tasks done, Alaric sank back onto the chair at the table and watched Milly coax the tea down Brandson’s throat.
“That’s all I can do,”
he said quietly. “I think the antidote will help, but we won’t know until at least tomorrow morning. Every four hours, he should drink another cup of tea.
“How do you know what antidote to use?” Milly asked from her seat next to Brandson, holding his hand again. “Don’t you need to know what he was poisoned with?”
“Sometimes, that matters,” Alaric said, “but there are combinations of herbs that are good at fighting a broad range of poisons. I gave him the strongest blend I know of for animal poison.” Alaric sighed and looked down at his hands as he cleaned the paste off of them. “I spent many months researching antidotes for animal poisons, specifically against the rock snake. So I am now quite familiar with the antidotes to most them. There are very few that don’t have a known antidote, and most of those are reptiles.”
Ayda turned and looked directly at Alaric.
“May I see her?” she asked.
Alaric’s heart clenched. When he didn’t answer, Ayda took a step toward him, her eyes kind.
“She is your wife, Alaric. May we meet her?”
At the word wife, Alaric flinched. He looked around the room at the others. They stood looking hopeful and uncomfortable. Their faces were so familiar that suddenly, he wanted them to meet her.
He stood slowly and walked out into the hallway, turning up the stairs. He heard the others following after him. This time, when he reached the carved door he raised his hand and pushed.
A wave of fresh air hit him. The doors to the balcony were open and the room was flooded with evening light. There were pots of flowers in the corner with blooms growing cheerfully, Alaric’s painstakingly created spells keeping them in a state of perpetual summer. Two small trees grew in blue pots on the balcony, just outside the doors. The drapes on the balcony rustled free of dust. The floor was smooth, clean stone.
And in the middle of the room, up on an intricately carved table, lay Evangeline, encased in a thin layer of crystal. Alaric walked up to her, his gaze still heavily on the floor. He walked up to her side, only able to focus on her hand.
It looked smooth and soft as it lay perfectly still. He set his hand against the crystal and his heart almost stopped.
By contrast to his own, her fingertips, halfway up each finger, were blue.
The group behind him filed in. Douglon held back by the wall while Ayda and Milly approached the crystal.
“She’s beautiful,” Milly said.
Alaric stared at her fingertips.
Ayda set a hand on the top of the crystal, above Evangeline’s face. She closed her eyes and stood perfectly still.
“Nice to meet you, Evangeline,” she said softly.
Alaric lifted his eyes to Evangeline’s face, serene, free of worry.
“Is the crystal what’s keeping her alive?” Milly asked quietly.
Alaric nodded. “Partially. The crystal is keeping her body from aging, or at least making it age very slowly.” His gaze dropped to thin, small runes that were marked with ink on her neck. “And there are spells that are protecting her body, giving it strength.”
The room fell silent. Alaric sank into a chair next to Evangeline and dropped his head into his hands. With quiet rustling, he heard the others leave.
The room was silent for a long time. There was a noise by the door, and Alaric looked up to see Douglon still standing in the back of the room. He had lowered his axe to the ground before him and bowed his head in the dwarfs’ posture of mourning.
At Alaric’s movement, Douglon looked up. Then he nodded to Alaric, picked up his axe, and left the Keeper in peace.
Alaric was a little surprised to realize that he was glad they were all here. They brought a warmth and life to the castle that had been missing for too long. Alaric sighed and leaned his forehead on the crystal.
His eyes caught on her blue fingers again and his heart lurched. He pulled a small pouch out of one of his pockets. Acadanthus leaves. He’d had them in his workroom all along. Acadanthus vines grew on holly trees, wound so tightly into the tree that it was all but impossible to pick holly leaves or berries without also getting acadanthus leaves. So he had sorted them into their own bag and tossed them on a shelf. He’d never heard of them having any sort of medicinal use. He took out some leaves and dropped them into a kettle hung over the fire.
It doesn’t matter, his brain told him. Providing the antidote to the poison does nothing but heal this husk of a body. You still won’t be able to get her back.
He pulled the boiling kettle off the fire to let the leaves sit until he could smell the acadanthus tea. He stood before his wife, running his hand over the thin layer of clear crystal that encased her.
It won’t work, his mind whispered. But he had to know. Somehow, he had to know if it could have worked. All of the other poisons were taken care of. It was just the venom left.
Was it wrong to keep trying things when nothing would truly heal her?
The smell of the acadanthus leaves filled the room.
He had to know.
Alaric took a deep, shuddering breath. He closed his eyes and laid his hands on the crystal right above her heart. He reached out to feel the energy there, the ponderous essence of the crystal that he had placed around her, through her.
Alaric focused on the structure of the crystal where it touched her body. “Amoveo.”
The crystal vanished.
Chapter 54
Evangeline lay still, but her chest began to rise with shallow breaths and a weak, slow pulse was visible in her neck.
Alaric poured the acadanthus tea into a cup. Using a small medicine dropper, he dripped the tea into her mouth, watching her neck for signs that she was swallowing. After he’d fed her half the cup, he dredged the leaves from the kettle and mashed them into a paste. He lifted her dress up to just above her knee where the swollen, black wound gaped. Purplish red streaks wound up her leg. He began to gently clean and drain the wound, focusing his mind completely on the task, working at it until it was as clean as he could get it. He packed the wound with the paste of acadanthus leaves and wrapped her leg with clean bandages. Then he resumed his seat next to her and filled the dropper again with tea.
The next morning, Alaric awoke stiff. He had fallen asleep in a cot near Evangeline. It was his bed whenever he was at the castle. The morning sunlight was behind the mountains, and Evangeline’s room was still dim. He lit a candle and brought it close to her.
She still slept. He set his hand on her forehead and drew in a sharp breath. It was cooler. Not completely back to normal, but her fever was definitely lower. He set the candle down and unwrapped her leg. Underneath, the lines reaching up her leg had faded to a dull red and the swelling was almost gone.
It was working.
He put some more acadanthus leaves in the kettle, his stomach in knots. It was working.
He pulled the ruby out of the pouch at his neck and laid it on the pillow near her head. The Reservoir Stone did not hold enough life to wake her up. Seeing her here, seeing how little of her was left, he knew Gustav had been right.
He dropped his forehead down on the edge of Evangeline’s pillow. Healing her would take the sacri
Chapter 55
Alaric’s blood froze. Evangeline wasn’t asleep?
Ayda continued softly. “I can feel her mind. She’s not really awake, and she can’t move, but she’s not sleeping, either. She knows she’s been alone and she knows that now you are back.”
Alaric shrank back in his chair. He looked at Evangeline’s face, smooth and peaceful. She knew she’d been alone? His hands begin to shake. He had left her alone for so very, very long. “Is she in pain?” he whispered.
Ayda was silent for a long moment. “Not in terrible pain.”
The breath rushed out of Alaric as guilt clenched inside of him. He had left her here alone and in pain.
“She’s happy you are here and she wants to see you,” Ayda said. “And then she wants to rest.”
Alaric slipped forward out of the chair an
d reached for her with trembling hands. “I’m so sorry.” He leaned his head against her forehead and felt the decision click into place. He couldn’t sacrifice himself for her. She would still die. He couldn’t sacrifice others for her. No matter what Kordan or Gustav thought, that wasn’t something you could calculate, the worth of one person versus another.
The Keepers had been right. This power to pull the life out of someone was not used for a reason. Not because of some antiquated rule, just because the shifting about of people’s lives couldn’t be done with a clear conscience. It couldn’t be done well.
Alaric was tired of not doing things well.
He was tired of feeling angry toward the world, toward the Keepers. Tired of distancing himself from a way of life that he had loved and respected. Tired of living in a desperate world of questionable actions. Tired of fighting against the truth that there were some sicknesses that couldn’t be healed.
He wanted the truth back.
And the truth was she was awake and she was dying.
This had gone on far too long.
He nodded at Ayda. “How long can you keep her from feeling the pain?”
Ayda looked at him for a long moment. “For as long as she needs it.”
Alaric felt tears start to fill his eyes and he nodded. “Thank you.” His gaze dropped back down to Evangeline’s fingertips. “It won’t be long.”
Ayda nodded and picked up Evangeline’s hand.
Alaric looked at the ruby. The red light swirled slowly through the stone and it pulsed, slightly warm in his hand. Every breath or two, a swirl of darkness touched one of the irregular surfaces.
He leaned and focused on the thin lines that he could just see on her neck. He began to read them quietly. The runes at her neck glowed a dim blue.
The first words were rough, but as he continued, focusing all of his attention on the thin runes, his voice strengthened and the glow on the tiny lines began to fade.
He narrowed his focus, just concentrating on each line in her skin. He spoke until it faded, releasing the power held there, then he moved on to the next. One by one, moving slowly along the faint path, releasing branches that snaked off, releasing the ones that protected her heart, releasing the ones protecting her mind, releasing the lines that protected her life.
