“Bowen!” I heard Tristan’s cry ring over the cacophony of noises in the room.
Distracted, don’t get distracted, Bowen! Fear gripped me as I discerned just how helpless I was that I couldn’t go tend to him, how I was unable to hold him in my arms.
“It seems one of your friends has suffered a blow,” the prince smiled. “He will most likely die very soon. The other one as well.”
I couldn’t concentrate… couldn’t figure out what I needed to do. I could feel the life being drained out of the earth, its magical flow stopping and reverting into one person.
Me.
I screamed. Not audibly, but loud enough in my own head to make my own ears reverberate.
“Jade.”
A familiar voice overtook everything; the sound ringing clear against the onslaught of noise around me. It was the ghost lady. She was the last person I would have expected to pop into my mind, my mother being the first.
“What are you doing, child?” she asked in her soft voice.
“I can’t stop it. They’re controlling me!” I had no function over my own body, but my mind was still my own.
“Feel the ground beneath you, just as you did in the meadow. What is it saying?”
“I can’t, I need to help Bowen!”
“In doing this, you will. Now concentrate.”
I centered my focus, listening for what the ghost lady wanted me to hear. That was when I felt it: the fear and pain, the happiness and sadness, the life and death of all the things I was destroying in this world. “It’s saying help me.”
“Then that is what you must do.”
“But I can feel it. I’ve already drained most of the magic! I’m sucking it in too quickly! There will be nothing left soon.” I couldn’t believe it. The reason why our modern world had no magic, why the world and its people lived the mundane lives that they do, was all because I had killed the thing that would have made the world even more beautiful.
“It does not matter how much or little magic is left, only that it will still exist.” Her hands shot out to mine, anchoring me to her. “Concentrate. Pull the energy into you and gain control.”
I did as she said, mimicking the way I had when we had first met in The Forest. My breathing slowed as I focused my mind. Sucking in as much magic as I could, I felt it overflow through me.
The Black Prince felt the shift in my aura as well. “What are you doing?” I could hear his harsh tone towards me and a slap across my face, my lip producing blood at its weight. “I command you! Destroy it!”
The tips of my black flames started to regain their color. Straining, I glanced with my periphery, gauged the fight behind me. Îbris had the upper hand. Bowen was on the ground, blood pooled around his pale face while Tristan was on his last strength. He was down on one knee with his right arm sliced up, causing his strength to diminish by half.
The Black Prince yanked my hair. Wide-eyed, he stared me in the face. “You are to finish the job! Now!”
Think and move.
“Fuck. You.” I said through gritted teeth.
All my strength, both magical and unmagical pooled inside me until I could no longer contain its amount. Time froze for a second and with a whoosh, all the energy rushed out of me. The room exploded in a multicolor of rainbow hues as a wave of force flattened everyone. It was brighter than it had ever been, even than the first time I had seen it happen down in the First Room. No one color stuck as all were as blinding as the next.
I felt something change, my body once more my own. Quickly I ran to Bowen.
Tristan was kneeling, picking himself up beside him, thankfully unharmed by my magic. “Jade, are you alright?” He looked me over to make sure that it was really me.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“And are you doing this?” He motioned with his hand referring to the disco display around the room, Îbris and his master lying on the cold, hard ground.
“Yes.” The joy was short-lived when I finally got the chance to check Bowen’s pulse. “His heart is too slow. He’s lost too much blood.” I tore off a piece of my disgusting dress and everything it stood for, and pressed it against the spot where the blood continuously flowed from his stomach. “How did this happen?”
“He moved too soon when he saw the prince touch you.” Tristan’s words stumbled out in a rush.
“Idiot. I can handle myself.”
Tristan looked at me seriously. “Jade, if the positions were reversed, you would have done the same.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“I can’t stop the bleeding.” I tried pressing harder, but to no avail, his blood continuing to seep out.
“Jade.” Tristan tried to take my hands. His voice soft with the acceptance of what was to come.
“No. No, I’m not going to let him die.” Unbidden tears welled up in my eyes and started to fall to the stone floor beneath me.
“It’s too late.”
“No, there must be something I can do! He told me to think and move!” I looked around the room trying to find the supplies I would need to create my next spell. If Bowen wasn’t going to make it on his own, then I would force him to. “I know what I need to do.” My voice held no waver; it was strong and resolved in what I was about to perform.
“I don’t like that tone,” Tristan looked at me with unease. “You are going to do something reckless, aren’t you?”
“It’s not reckless if you know what you’re doing.” I tapped my head, dotting it with Bowen’s blood while my face was still streaked with tears. “It’s all in here.”
This only made Tristan more confused, but I knew what I was talking about. When all that magic had flooded me, it brought with it all the knowledge of the world. Every spell and every ingredient was now stored in my head.
I moved to where Îbris lay unconscious and grabbed his dagger. It caught me off guard when I recognized it as the one from my dream. I shook off the déjà vu and got back to work.
“Right, now, I practically have the entire archives of The Forest inside of me. All I have to do is access the information.” Tristan didn’t look as if he was following, but I couldn’t waste another second explaining. “I need a book, any book. Go look for one!”
He quickly ran out of the room and was back in a flash, a volume in hand. “Will this work? It has blood on it…”
He passed it to me and my hand tingled in recognition.
“It can’t be…” I flipped to the back where the pages were still wet with blood, and inhaled in surprise. It was the Monksblood Bible that Paul had first given me, except this one looked brand new.
All roads lead back home, I thought hopefully. Laying the book on the ground next to Bowen, I took the dagger and slit his palm.
“What are you doing?” Tristan asked in a panic.
“Trust me,” I snapped. Next I placed his hand on the page of the book. It was then my turn. I chose the same place Paul had first cut me when we were in the archives and slit my palm open to place it next to Bowen’s.
Closing my eyes, I heard the spell ring in my head and chanted it out loud, wanting not only Tristan, but the universe, past, present, and future, to understand my vow.
Cadenti porrigo dextram;
A solis ortu usque ad occasum;
Cede nullis et errantem un viam reductio;
Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet;
Et ad astra per ardua, duo, novus homo bona aetas.
I paused and felt the world shift in agreement with my will. There was one last line I would be adding:
Qua vir et uxor nec pluribus impar semper vivit in me vito.
The room thrummed with Bowen’s heartbeat. At first it was soft, but as the spell mended him, it grew stronger.
I opened my eyes.
Hir yw pob ymaros.
All wa
iting is long.
- Welsh proverb
XXXVIII.
The weight of Bowen’s body left me barren as my hands bit into damp earth. A warm breeze passed over me, the sun beating down onto the top of my head. No longer was I in that suffocating room, but atop a barren hill overlooking Lampeter’s town below. I could hear as cars drove over pavement, the sound of a distant airplane flying overhead echoing off the spars countryside. But my tears continued to flow with the realization of what I had done. What I had lost. I was back in the twenty-first century, but at what cost?
My hands shook, their crevices and lines a bloody mess.
I’ve lost him.
“Hey there, stranger.”
I whipped around, my heart beating fast at the sound of his familiar voice. Bowen looked just as young as when I had left him, but instead of his ensemble of leather and weapons and the blood that had been pouring out onto the cold stone, he was wearing a sharp gray business suit and tie. His insides still intact.
“It… it worked!” I said jubilantly, my arms rising triumphantly above my head.
He smiled and my heart melted at the sight. “Yes, it did.”
My joy was short-lived as the comprehension of what that really meant passed over me, my voice disgusted with the situation. “It’s been almost seven hundred years!”
“Six hundred and ninety-two to be exact.” Bowen finally came closer, his body just as fluid and muscular as I had just seen in 1351. “And yes. I have been waiting a long time to meet you, Lady Jade.” He took my hand in his and pulled me from the ground, bringing it to his lips. I could feel the soft huff of his breath as he took me in, his thick beard brushing lightly against my still bloodied hands. I laid my head upon his chest and we stood there, atop that hill, as one.
“I didn’t know when you’d be coming back,” he mumbled into my hair, wanting to take in every part of me. “Back then you were gone, just disappeared. You have no idea how long Tristan and I had searched for you.”
“Shhh, no more,” I whispered.
He brought my face close to his and kissed me. It was passionate. The kind that you always see in airports when a loved one has arrived back from a long journey. The longingness of it left me breathless. It took all my strength to part and not tackle him to the grass right then and there.
“How did you know to be here?”
“I knew you’d be coming back some time in May, but I didn’t know when. My record keeping back then wasn’t exactly prime. You didn’t even know when you’d be back.”
“But surely Master Lewis would have documented…”
A cloud passed over Bowen’s face. “The master died the next day. He was still recovering from the battle and then with all the magic gone…”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I knew what he was saying. I had killed him, and many other people.
“Oh God…” I doubled over into the tall grass, Bowen still at my side as I tried to empty the contents of my stomach with no use.
“You didn’t know it would turn out like this, Jade.”
But I did. I had used the world’s magic so selfishly to keep Bowen alive.
“Jade, come, we should get you changed.”
I looked down and saw that I was still in the Brotherhood’s dress, my belt still strapped around me. Not letting go of Bowen’s hand, we hiked our way through the fields. I had to keep reminding myself that there were no Brotherhood spies lurking in the trees or on the roads, but everywhere I turned I could still feel their presence.
We made it to the main road, passing by the town’s rugby pitches and back onto campus. It all felt like a dream. People kept staring as we walked passed but no one came up to question me or take pictures. This was Lampeter after all, it was normal to see people dressed in period clothing.
“You look beautiful, don’t worry.” Bowen was trying to keep my spirits up, but that was not what I wanted to hear at that moment. The dress held to it too much pain and too much suffering. I wanted it off.
When we walked into Old Building we passed one of the notification boards, and I was shocked when I saw my own face staring back at me. It was a missing person’s poster. How innocent I looked… how naive.
Bowen followed my line of sight and slightly blushed. “Ah, yes. That was the university’s doing,” he informed me. “Many people noticed your disappearance, mainly Jackie who has been posting them nonstop looking for you.”
I ripped down the poster and continued my way to my room.
“Did you give them an excuse for my absence?” I asked heatedly. Surely he would have at least thought of an alibi?
“Of course. I said you ran off to look for your biological parents,” he smirked.
I viciously turned on him. “You what?” My stride never broke as I collected my skirts, making my way through the automatic door and into the quad. I couldn’t even deal with this right now. I needed to get out of these clothes.
“Look, Jade, it was the only thing I could come up with without the police going on a nationwide manhunt. Your parents agreed to it.”
“My parents are here?” I asked incredibly.
“They’re at my place.”
I swung open the door to my dorm, its old hinges squeaking in protest, and ran up the stairs.
“Emma, is that you?”
I stopped short in my path. It had been so long since I last heard that voice, but I would know it anywhere.
“Did you bring the–” Jackie stopped where she was, her feet frozen to the spot just an arm’s length away.
“Hey, Jackie.”
She didn’t say anything, just slammed into me, giving me a choking hug. “WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN?” She almost deafened me, yelling so close into my ear. She pulled away to see me as I answered.
“That’s kind of a long story.”
She looked behind me, noticing that I was not alone and gave a skeptical look at the person I was with. “Bowen,” she sneered.
“Jackie, good to see you.” He made a little bow.
“You know each other?” In all honesty I couldn’t grasp that concept at the present moment.
“This asshole keeps taking down my posters,” she accused defensively.
“As I told you before,” he smiled his I’m-trying-not-to-be-an-ass smile, the ends of his lips barely lifting, “there was no need of them, since she is fine.”
“And how did you know that?” Jackie looked like she was about to soc him right in the face.
“Alright you two, enough.” I walked past her and stood in front of my door.
Jackie held Bowen’s gaze for one more second and then followed me. “Since you won’t tell me right now where you’ve been—but trust me you will—I’ll move on to more confusing matters. One: what’s wrong with your accent? And two: why are you dressed like that?”
“What about my accent?” I caught Bowen’s eye, trying to figure out what Jackie was talking about.
“You haven’t noticed it but we’ve been speaking Latin the whole time. Even back then. It was bound to have some influence on your speech.”
My eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“Jade, for those six months you conversed in Greek, Latin, even a bit of Welsh.” He leaned against the frame of my room, his feet crossed against each other while the rest of his body was lackadaisical.
“Then why the hell did I have to learn Latin?” I banged on my door, willing it to open without my key.
“Speaking is not the same as reading.” I could almost hear Master Lewis’s tone. “Remember the first spell Master Lewis cast on you?”
The reminder that my teacher was no longer with us hit me again. I tried to think back. It was all jumbled up now with everything I had done after the fact.
“I know,” I huffed in frustration.
Bowen just smiled while Jac
kie looked at us like we had just hit the grand prize on the loony bin. I couldn’t explain to her why I sounded funny without it getting complicated, so I settled for a half-truth. “I spent most of my time out of the country.”
“Great, that narrows it down,” she said sarcastically. “Here.” She had run back to her room and was now holding the key to my door. “They locked it once the police finished their investigation, but I snatched the key away before they could take it for good.”
“Thank you.” I grabbed it from her, jammed it into the hole, and turned.
“Yea... We are going to have an extremely long talk, missy.”
I held up my hand, falling back into our old routine. “Scout’s honor.”
“Oh no,” she gasped. “I need to call your mom and dad!”
“Mom and Dad?” It had been so long since I had last said those word, my eyes watering in anticipation of them.
“They’re in Lampeter. They haven’t left since you did, hoping you’d come back safe.” Jackie pulled out her cell phone and was about to dial.
“Wait. Could you not call them yet? I don’t want them to see me like this.” I gestured to my costume, the arm of it still ripped, my hair slightly disheveled, and the blood… I must have looked like a gothic vampire come back from dinner.
“Alright, twenty minutes. Shower. Get dressed. Then I’m calling them no matter what.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” My small room was tidy as I entered, not as how I had last left it. Bowen shoved himself into the tiny space, trying unsuccessfully not to step on my skirts.
“Bowen. Really? I can get changed by myself.”
“Oh… I know, it’s just…” He didn’t want to take his eyes off me. Fine.
I slipped off the dress, my shift still underneath, or what consisted of one. The material was absolutely translucent, leaving nothing to the imagination. Collecting my things I was adamant about him waiting in my room as I had a shower. He settled for standing just outside the door.
I turned on the hot water and let it soak into my skin. It was weird not having Haf fuss over my wardrobe or Elian sitting behind the tub braiding my wet hair. I stood alone in the shower, washing off the dirt that had accumulated all over my body.
To Those Who Never Knew (A Monksblood Bible Novel Book 1) Page 27
