by SM Reine
Lilith could barely believe the sight of the woman staring back at her. She hardly recognized herself. Her cheeks no longer looked so full, or her hips so broad. Though she still had her curves, they were more womanly and toned.
Even the blues of her eyes seemed more mature. She touched her cheek, smearing the dust upon it.
“You look lovely,” he said.
Smiling, she looked at her dark demone warrior and gripped his hand. It was hard to tell just by looking at Giles how badly the cold was affecting him because his skin tone was still the deepest depth of darkest shadow, but she felt it in the jerking spasms of his twitching muscles.
His teeth clacked together almost angrily, and she brushed her knuckles against his smooth cheek.
“Don’t touch the walls, Giles, hang on to me. I’ll keep you warm.”
“Lilith, I—”
“No.” She placed a hand over his lips. “Don’t. Let’s not say words that would only cause us more pain in the end. What is done is done, and it cannot be undone. So let us smile and be glad for the time spent together. And let us hope by the great wolf that there are no ice dwarves in this place.”
She tried to add some sort of levity to their situation, but inside her heart was shattered. She loved him. Absolutely and completely. And though she knew he’d take her as his if she asked, she could never do it to him. To force him to never have children, it would be a decision he might one day come to regret and resent her for. There were many things she could deal with in life, but having Giles ever hate her wasn’t one of them.
They began the slow walk down the slippery smoothness of the ice. More than once she and Giles had stumbled, causing him to reach out his hand to steady himself against the ice wall.
He’d hiss and she could literally see the steam rising off his palm from the touch. His steps were sluggish and he was stumbling more than normal.
“Giles, can’t you shift?”
“No.” He coughed, gasping and breathing heavy. They’d barely walked half a mile at this point.
But the air was definitely thinner, even though they were going down and not up. And though any cave system she’d ever explored in her life was always at a constant temperature, that was just not so with this one. Each step seemed to feel colder and colder.
Even she—that ran warmer than a normal human—was suffering from muscle spasms. Each breath was punishing, filling her lungs with frost and making it feel as though something were chiseling away at her insides with an icepick.
It would be better for her to shift, but then she’d not be able to hang on to Giles, and as poorly as she was doing, he was definitely doing worse.
The normal reds of his eyes were now barely a light pink tint.
“Shifting requires too much energy at this point and it would not protect me from this level of cold. We must press on,” he managed to whisper.
“I wish I could just take you back to the glen, Giles.” She rubbed his arms vigorously, attempting to warm him up as best she could. “You can see there is nothing in this cave with us. In fact, it’s dead. I hear no footsteps or breaths other than ours.”
He didn’t say anything and she wished he would. It was sweet how thoughtful he was of her safety, but not at the expense of his own.
But in so many ways Giles reminded her of her father. The big bad wolf had done much in his search to find her mother and his reason had always been simple: love.
And though Giles hadn’t spoken the words to her, she knew that what they shared was that and were it she struggling as he was, she would fight tooth and nail to remain by his side, too.
“Okay,” she finally relented, “I won’t make you. But I am going to shift. I’m too clumsy with only two feet. Grip firmly on to my pelt. You shouldn’t slip anymore once I shift.”
Nodding, he finally released her hand and she called her light. Unlike Giles her heat was not tied to the elements, and when her amber warmth curled around her for a brief moment she saw him smile as it stroked his skin.
The ice tunnel hissed as wherever her light touched it melted, dripping cold little puddles at their feet.
But all too soon the brightness died out and he was once again shivering violently. Covered in thick fur now, she felt instantly better and sidled up to him so that he could grab hold of her pelt.
His blunt fingers dug into her fur and once again they walked.
The trail seemed never ending, twisting and turning back in on itself over and over again. Sometimes the tunnel would grow so narrow that even with her belly-crawling through it to give Giles enough space he still scraped along the sides.
The steam rising off his skin was growing less and less and he’d stopped shivering, which she knew to be a very bad sign. Going hypothermic was bad enough for anyone, but for someone who derived his vitality from heat she knew it would be catastrophic.
They encountered no enemies along the way. Nothing to have to battle, but that would have been preferable to the unrelenting and brutal cold and just when she thought that maybe they were drawing closer because they’d step through into a massive antechamber, her heart would plummet to her stomach when she realized the trail continued on.
Glancing over her shoulder at Giles, who was panting heavily now, she shifted. Wishing she could force the light to last longer than the brief second it took for her to change.
The moment she did she wanted to screech as the cold bit through her skin. She wrapped her arms around Giles’s waist. “We can’t do this, Giles. We have to go back.”
“No,” he said it adamantly. “I will not…let that…boy die…because of this. We’re so…so close.”
It was painful just to hear him speak. Lilith felt so helpless. She wanted to force him back outside, but they’d come so far and at this point there was no telling if he’d even make the walk back.
His eyes were no longer pink; they were white and glassy with just a sliver of color at the very center of his irises. Fear pounding through her veins for him she knew if they didn’t get to the chalice soon he wouldn’t make it.
She grabbed her pendant.
“Lil…lith, no.”
He didn’t say more, but she knew what he was telling her. “But Giles, you’re going to die. I can’t let that happen.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, he jerked his head from side to side. “My life…nothing—”
“Stop it. Your life means everything,” she snapped, the anger helping her to keep warm as she too felt the overwhelming effects of the sub-zero temperatures. Her toes were completely numb, and she could hardly feel her fingers. She’d need to shift soon or risk being in the same shape as Giles.
But it was breaking her heart in half to know that she could warm up, but he couldn’t.
“Oh Gods,” she mumbled, “please let it be close. Please.”
She wasn’t sure whether she was praying, or just on the verge of delirium, but she knew that without a doubt this was the toughest challenge she and Giles had had to face yet.
“Giles, look at me.”
Opening his eyes, body twitching spasmodically, he didn’t speak, and she could read the anguish inside them.
“I’m going to get you out of this. You hang on tight and you don’t let go of me. I’m going to be running as fast as I think you’re able to keep up with me. I think we’re close”—she really didn’t, but if it would help him to hang on she’d say whatever she needed to say to make him think so—“so you just hang in there, got it?”
His nostrils flared and he nodded sharply once.
Calling her shift, she kept herself pressed as tight to him as she possibly could. Even though the light lasted hardly any time, she hoped it would be enough to warm him up for one final push.
The second his fingers curled into her fur, she took off. He slipped and slid along behind her, once nearly buckling to his knees and taking her with him. But she was able to regain her footing and press on.
She was not going to let him die. The stupid man refu
sed to go back to the surface where at least he could draw from a little heat, but she loved her stupid man and even while she cursed his need to always feel the protector, she would do anything in her power to be his this time around.
She wasn’t sure how long she ran, it could have been miles or it could have been yards, but finally she saw something that made her heart leap with joy.
Enshrined within a tube of crystal-clear ice floated a golden chalice.
Howling with relief, she called her light and though she immediately felt the blow of the cold slam against her, her relief was so great that she ignored it.
“Hang in there, Giles. Hang in there, knight. We’re here. It’s right here.”
He didn’t even mumble a word, his eyes were closed and his fingers were barely grasping onto her shoulder. But as long as there was life, there was hope.
Mostly dragging him along at this point, she walked up to the column of ice, wondering the whole time that apart from the fact it’d been horrifically cold, it’d been relatively easy.
Such treasures of Kingdom she would have imagined should have been guarded better than this. If she’d been alone as a wolf she would have been fine. Only her constant worry for Giles had forced her to shapeshift so often.
The chalice wasn’t much to look at it. It was gold and looked like it had been pounded by hand. It was not ornate, and, unless one knew what they were looking at, it would probably not entice the most depraved of thieves to endure what they had to get here.
Maybe that was its safeguard, its utter dullness. But that would be a first.
Unable to feel her feet, knowing she’d suffered severe frost burn, she had no choice but to hope and pray that they’d not been led astray and that this was indeed the chalice of hope and not some fraud.
A horrible sinking feeling that maybe they’d been duped after all writhed through her stomach. It wasn’t even so much that it appeared completely unassuming, sometimes the objects of most power did, but it’d been much too easy.
She glanced at Giles. His head was resting heavily on her shoulders and he was only taking a breath now and again. If she mentioned her misgivings she suspected he’d demand they continue searching.
“Giles, I’m sorry.” She brushed her fingers against his cheek, shocked that she couldn’t even feel him anymore because of the numbness of her hand.
Just as she went to reach inside the opening and yank the cup out, glowing letters chiseled their way onto the ice surrounding it, forming a sentence that she read aloud.
“A price must be paid,” she mumbled and then grinned because all her fears were gone. This was the true chalice and whatever the price would be, it could be nothing to the anguish she was destined to suffer anyway. If she had to remain locked in a cave of ice for all eternity, then she’d pay it, just so long as she could get him out of there.
“This is it, knight. We are saved.”
With one hand she gripped her pendant and with the other she yanked the chalice out.
The moment she touched the gold, her heart stopped and she collapsed to the tunnel floor.
Chapter Twenty-One
Fire.
It was everywhere.
Burning through him, filling him with energy. Bathing the world around them in steam.
Giles snapped out of the lethargy that’d gripped him and stared in shock at the world around him. The water on the walls and the floors, it was gone, melted away, and in its place glowed a heated, burning magma that oozed closer toward them.
It felt wonderful, amazing to feel so wholly alive again, until he glanced down at his feet.
Lilith was completely blue. Her hair, her lips, her skin, even her clothes. As though she’d sucked all the ice into herself. Clutched in her hand was the chalice of hope.
“Lilith!” He dropped to his knees and grabbed her, but hissed the moment he touched her body.
Just the brush of her skin against his own leeched the vitality out of him. Realizing just how much danger she was in as the heated magma drew closer and closer to her, he ground his molars and snatched the pendant off. Grunting as her ice seeped through his flesh, making him feel as though he’d never know warmth again.
Shivering violently, but now holding on to their only source of salvation, he roared to the heavens. “Danika! Come now!”
The mountain quaked and rumbled as rocks slid and rolled, being consumed by the heated core of Kingdom itself.
A bright flash of brilliant pink light burst through the emanating wall of heat surrounding them. Giles threw himself around Lilith’s body, not quite touching her, but trying his best to shield her from the lava coming much too close.
“Bloody hell,” Danika chirped. “Tell me what you wish, Giles, quickly, I cannot take this heat!” She rolled her wrist, gazing around in wide-eyed horror as her wings buzzed violently behind her back.
“Transport us to the castle of air.”
Danika’s bolt of power lifted them high into the air just as the magma was set to touch Lilith.
Wishing he could hold her hand as they traveled through a tunnel of stars, Giles contented himself with gazing at her and praying that somehow, someway they could lift whatever curse had befallen her.
In an instant they tumbled into a familiar castle chamber.
It was the great hall and already seated before him were Rumpelstiltskin and Shayera. Erualis lay in her lap, his eyes closed and his breathing weak.
Rumpel jumped to his feet. “She holds the chalice.” A grim smile cut through his dark features.
Shayera held out her hand. “Careful, Rumpel.”
He did not look back at her, but he nodded once as he came around to Giles’s side.
Giles was still on his knees, barely even comprehending what was going on around them. He could hear the buzzing of Danika’s wings and Shayera’s soothing murmurings, but it was as though he heard them from underwater.
“The final sand would have fallen today. Thank you, brother.” Rumpel gripped him by the shoulder roughly and Giles could barely even manage a nod of recognition.
Careful to grip the chalice only, Rumpel snatched it from her hand and the slim hope Giles had held that being released of the cup’s grip might wake her up vanished when her eyes failed to open.
Rumpel gritted his teeth. “Bloody hell, the cold in this is awful. Carrot, prick your finger.”
A better friend would have looked up, a better friend would have ensured that the chalice would indeed save the life of Rumpel’s one and only progeny, but his eyes were only for Lilith.
Her skin had lightened, and her cheeks looked flushed with the beginning of color again. Nibbling the corner of his lip, he haltingly lifted a hand to touch her.
Danika, still fairy-sized, landed on his shoulder. Her wings had finally gone silent.
“Will she live?” he asked her.
Her rosebud lips were thinned. Not wanting to hear her say no, he turned his face away.
A sigh of relief escaped him when the first touch of her felt normal. He traced the column of her throat, the breadth of her forehead, and the sloping line of her nose. She was as petal-soft as he remembered.
But she did not stir at his touch, though she looked healthy and normal again, as though merely a woman in slumber, her eyes did not open and smile up at him.
“My boy,” Rumpel’s broken voice broke through Giles’s reverie and finally he glanced up.
Shayera had a fist covering her mouth as Erualis and Rumpel hugged fiercely for the first time in a millennia. The chalice sat on the table ignored.
All that work, all that effort and there it sat.
And Giles couldn’t help but feel that Lilith had traded her life for Erualis.
The princess was the first to look back at him. “Giles, we thank you for giving us such a gift.”
Bowing his head, he accepted her gratitude with a heavy heart. Though manners demanded he should get up and give his royals their due, the thought of leaving Lilith alone on the ca
stle floor like she was nothing more than rubbish, a simple casualty of this war, made him want to rage.
But he held it in. Not for Rumpel, or Shayera, but for the boy who was laughing with tears falling from his eyes and telling his papa just how much he loved him.
Shayera came over to him and gazed down at Lilith with a slight frown marring her lips.
“Giles, I’m so sorry.”
He swallowed the hard ball in his throat and clung to Lilith’s hand. Running his thumb along her knuckle over and over, needing to feel the comfort of her touch even if she couldn’t give it back.
“Danika, will she wake?” Shayera turned to her godmother.
Lifting off of Giles’s shoulders, the wee fairy came around and dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a section of her baby’s breath gown.
As though finally aware of the commotion Rumpel and Erualis finally came to join them.
His prince gazed at Lilith solemnly.
“Can you do nothing?” Giles swallowed many lifetimes’ worth of indoctrination to never rock the boat, to never make requests of his prince, but he would do anything for her.
“I’m sorry, Giles.” Rumpel grabbed a section of his wife’s gown and rubbed it as though silently seeking her strength.
The anger that he’d swallowed down now came bubbling to the surface. “Do you need me to pledge my soul? My life? I would.” He ground his molars and curled his hands into fists. “I would even trade my life for hers. Anything.”
“No, my friend, it cannot be.”
“Why?” he thundered, jumping to his feet. “In all my years I’ve asked you for nothing. Give me this.”
Shayera bit her bottom lip, casting worried glances between the two of them.
Rumpel refused to look at him.
“Answer me!” he finally snapped and slammed his palm against Rumpel’s left shoulder, causing him to stumble back. Practically begging for his prince to trade blows with him, needing to feel something other than the smothering desolation crowding his bones.
Shayera stepped in front of them and yanked Erualis into her arms. “Remember yourself, Giles. There is a child present.”
