Will (Book 2)

by S. F. Burgess

  “I take it Eleanor told Amelia about Shyla!”

  Conlan looked at him for a long time, his eyes cold. When he spoke his voice was brittle.

  “Eleanor’s barely said a word since you came back. She tended your injuries, but she was terrified the pain would kill you before you had a chance to heal. So she entered your mind and took the pain away—protected you from it. You stopped whimpering, but it’s taking all of her strength to do it. It’s been weeks, and she’s hardly eaten or slept. Shyla actually told us about herself. Eleanor hasn’t breathed a word of what you’re thinking, despite Amelia’s constant, angry badgering. Eleanor has actually stood in defence of what’s in your head, insisting that you would not want anybody else in there, doing what she’s doing, which means she’s not been able to share the burden. So be careful how you treat your ‘little pixie’; right now she’s all that stands between you and agony.”

  Will heard the reprimand in Conlan’s voice, along with the misery he felt at Eleanor’s suffering, and dropped his gaze to her still face. She looked haggard, her skin grey and dull, her eyes sunken into their sockets, dark bags underneath. Her clothes hung off her tiny body, he could see every bone in the hand that lay limply across her chest, and her breathing was shallow and strained. His left hand was stroking her head before he realised he was able to move his arm. Her hair was fine, silky and fragile beneath his fingers. It had grown longer since he had left, and the beautiful, rich, dark brown colour had returned.

  “It was her love I felt, despite what she must have seen in my head…” Will whispered, running his hand tenderly down Eleanor’s face and resting it on her shoulder. As Will gazed at the insensible girl in front of him, the rest of Conlan’s words slowly registered with his numb brain. “Shyla is here?” he asked, dread washing over him.

  Conlan nodded. “It’s not just Eleanor to whom you owe your life. Pandral, Shyla and a man called Rudd rescued you from the dungeon, got you to the tower battlements and into the balloon.”

  “Rudd?” Will asked. He had no coherent memory of what had happened. It was all just a soft, fuzzy nothing when he tried to remember.

  “You were spotted escaping. Several arrows struck Rudd. Pandral said he fought bravely till the end. He died giving the rest of you the time to get away, which you very nearly didn’t, by the way; the extra burden of Shyla on your balloon was almost enough to bring it down. Freddie said it was a good job you’d lost so much weight.”

  Grief stinging his eyes, Will winced as guilt ripped at him. “Rudd deserved better.”

  “He was a friend?”

  Will nodded, blinking furiously.

  “Tell me about Pandral,” Conlan said, abruptly changing the subject.

  “He’s a friend, too,” Will said. “A good friend. As I’ve told you before, his heart is in the right place. Give him a chance: you’ll like him.”

  Conlan smiled. “I already like him. I’m just not sure what to do with him.”

  “Convince him to join us?” Will suggested.

  “And do what?” Conlan asked. “He’s a Lord of Mydren. He has made it quite clear he has no wish to take orders, from me or anyone else. He helped an Avatar to escape, so I can’t send him back, but I don’t think he wants to be here.”

  “Send him to talk to me,” Will said with a yawn. “Maybe I can talk some sense into him.”

  There was a pause, an uncomfortable silence. Clearing his throat, Conlan’s voice was flat and emotionless when he spoke again.

  “What about Shyla?”

  Will sighed. “I… She…” He stopped. What did he want to say? Did he want to explain? No, I don’t! “I was weak,” he said, starting again. “I made some bad choices. But that isn’t her fault. Shyla is a lovely girl, intelligent, strong. I think she’d be a benefit to our cause.”

  Conlan’s expression was empty. There was no judgement in his eyes, but Will imagined he felt it anyway. Will turned his head, his voice raw when he spoke. “I really screwed up… didn’t I?”

  Conlan ran a gentle hand over Will’s head. Surprised, not used to comforting physical contact from his friend, Will turned back. Conlan’s green eyes held a rare look, such deep affection… love, maybe.

  “You got out alive. Everything else you can repair,” he said quietly.

  Will sighed. “Even Amelia’s heart?”

  “Even Amelia’s heart,” Conlan insisted. “Although Shyla describing you as ‘her favourite customer’ probably made things a little difficult for you.”

  Will groaned. “Amelia is never going to trust me again.”

  “Amelia loves you; she’ll come round. She changed while you were away. She’s become stronger, bolder. Don’t try to protect her from this—she’ll just get irritated,” Conlan said.

  Will smiled. “You’re giving me relationship advice?”

  Conlan shrugged. “From where I’m standing, it looks like you need it.”

  Will nodded. Exhaustion was making everything distant. He closed his eyes, searching for Eleanor, relaxing as her love for him filled his mind, the glowing radiance flowing around him. Everything is going to be okay, her love told him, and as the darkness removed the reality he had ruined, he wanted desperately to believe she was right.

  When he awoke again, Amelia was sitting on the bed. She was absently stroking Eleanor’s head, staring into the middle distance.

  “Amelia?” he whispered.

  She blinked rapidly, her eyes moving to his. So many emotions warred within their slate grey depths that the tangled mess was impossible to interpret.

  “She’s putting herself at huge risk to help you,” Amelia said, glancing at Eleanor’s inert body curled on her side. Will nodded. Unable to express his gratitude in words, he reached his hand for Eleanor’s head. His fingers brushed against Amelia’s, and she flinched back as if fire had burnt her.

  “Don’t touch me!” she hissed, glaring at him. The rejection felt like iron nails being driven into his heart. Stunned, Will stared at her, seeing only betrayal and disgust in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry… ” he started, but something in her look made him stop. He had gone beyond where ‘sorry’, however sincere, had the ability to make things better.

  “Why, Will? I don’t understand. You couldn’t hold me in your heart. Why was I so easy to forget?”

  The pain in her voice tore more strips from his damaged soul. How could he explain? How could he tell her that it was his inability to get her out of his head that had driven him to Shyla? It had been the pain of missing her, the fear, the constant state of elevated tension, which had pushed him into the arms of another.

  “I never forgot you, not for one single second,” he said. “You were with me every minute of every day. Missing you was an agony I couldn’t hide from, but Shyla… Shyla insulated me from it,” he said, searching Amelia’s face for understanding. All he found was incredulous anger.

  “Would you have accepted the same argument from me if you had come back to discover I’d been having sex with Freddie?” Amelia snapped.

  Will winced. He was not expressing it properly, but he could not bring himself to tell her about the terror, the unending fear that had sat in the bottom of his stomach, poisoning him. Angry at himself, wanting her to understand but not knowing how to explain, he found himself trying to justify his actions.

  “We only had sex once,” he muttered, not able to look Amelia in the eyes.

  Silence. Will shuddered as Amelia’s hurt poured over him. He knew how powerful her emotions had to be before he felt them.

  “The frequency is hardly the issue here.” Her voice was cold steel.

  “Years, Amelia,” he said quietly. “Years of loving you, supporting you, protecting you. I make one mistake and you can’t forgive me?”

  He was still unable to look at her, knowing he was just providing her with more ammunition if she wanted to use it. Amelia would see through his attempts at emotional blackmail; she always did.

  “Will, I can’t forgi
ve you until I understand what I’m meant to be forgiving.”

  Will forced his eyes back to hers; she stared calmly at him. “I don’t understand,” he admitted.

  “I asked you why, Will. You didn’t answer my question,” Amelia said patiently.

  “Yes I did.”

  Amelia shook her head. “No, you beat around the bush and muttered some crap about missing me. If that’s the whole story, then you’re utterly pathetic and we’re done. I’m giving you one last chance, I’m asking you one more time… Why?”

  Shocked at Amelia’s insistence, her strong, unflinching glare, her ultimatum, Will nodded. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see Amelia’s disgust anymore.

  “I was frightened…” he whispered, ashamed. “No… more than that… I was terrified. They could catch me at any moment… I was afraid to look anyone in the eye in case they saw my terror. I was afraid to breathe, afraid of my own shadow… I missed you so much it was like having my heart ripped out; I was afraid they would see that too. I missed my family, I hated being alone. We’re all a part of each other, and I don’t know how to live without that anymore. It was an agony I couldn’t control or escape, except when I was with Shyla.”

  “You said you only had sex with her once,” Amelia said, the catch in her voice that usually meant she was on the verge of tears.

  Still not able to look at her, Will sighed.

  “We had sex once, but I spent a lot of nights sleeping in her arms.” He heard Amelia’s gasp at this further betrayal, felt another wave of her hurt and forced himself to keep talking, wanting to make an attempt at explaining before she recovered her senses enough to dump him. “She was just a warm body, a heartbeat. I could close my eyes and pretend she was you. Nothing happened, we were fully dressed. I just wanted to feel safe. I like her, she’s sweet, but mostly she was an unknowing barrier against the terrifying, violent, bloody world I couldn’t escape. She took away some of the loneliness. I know I should have been strong, that you expected me to be strong, but it turns out that I’m weak, pathetic and a total coward. I’m sorry, Amelia… so very sorry.”

  He was crying now, tears running down his cheeks. He felt a hand cup his face and slowly opened his eyes. Amelia leaned towards him, kissing his forehead. Heedless of the fragile state of his body, Will pulled himself up, wrapping his arms round Amelia’s waist, clinging to her, burying his head in her stomach. The wonderful smell of incense and lavender filled his nose. Her smell. Home. He felt her wrap her arms around his head and shoulders, holding him, and he dissolved, allowing all of his pain and fear to surge through his body as he sobbed his terror. For the first time he let go and let Amelia be his support.

  “I’m sorry… ” he moaned into her stomach.

  “I love you,” Amelia whispered, kissing the top of his head.

  He had no idea how long he cried or at what point he had dropped into oblivion again, but the next time he surfaced, Amelia was gone. Shyla sat in her place.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling.

  “Hello, Shyla. I am sorry I dragged you into this. Thank you. Thank you for helping to rescue me,” Will said, smiling at her even as a tight knot of fear squeezed his stomach. Where’s Amelia? Is she going to come back? Is finding Shyla here going to cause problems? Will reminded himself that Amelia’s anger was not Shyla’s fault, that Shyla was an innocent party in all of this.

  “I am sorry for the trouble I have caused you,” she said as if he had not spoken, looking genuinely unhappy.

  “You did not know. This is my fault,” Will said.

  The cart rocked slightly, the door opened, and Amelia entered. Distress filled Shyla’s face.

  “I told you to stay away from him,” Amelia spat, the Dwarfish carrying a vicious threat.

  Shyla blushed, her body starting to tremble. “I just wanted to make sure he was well. I wanted to apologise.”

  “You have nothing to apologise for,” Will said firmly. “Amelia’s anger is not your fault or your responsibility.”

  Shyla was not listening. She was staring at Amelia, fear in her eyes.

  “Get out!” Amelia hissed.

  Shyla nodded, got to her feet and ran from the cart.

  Silence.

  “Amelia?” Will asked cautiously. She walked over to the bed, sitting down on the edge, her face tight. “It’s not Shyla’s fault, Amelia. Please, hate me if that’s what you need, scream at me, strike out at me; but don’t hurt someone who tried to help me,” he said gently.

  More silence. Amelia’s stared at him, stony-eyed.

  “Do you love her?” she asked abruptly.

  Will thought about his answer, not wanting to lie.

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “I love her, as a friend.”

  “She’s in love with you,” Amelia said, scrutinising his face for his response. “That doesn’t surprise you—does it?” she added on reflection.

  “She has a crush, Amelia, nothing more. She’s not had the easiest life. I think I’m the first man she’s ever met who’s treated her with a little thoughtfulness. She just responded to that.”

  “And you don’t think that’s a problem?” Amelia snapped.

  Will shook his head, confused. “You’ve obviously made it abundantly clear to Shyla that I’m yours. You terrify her. There are plenty of other decent men here. She’ll find someone else to form an attachment with.”

  “And in the meantime?” Amelia seethed.

  “In the meantime, she’s still my friend, and as such I will defend her, even from you.”

  Amelia stared at him. Shock and anger seemed to have set up permanent camp upon her face. “I can’t believe you’re being so calm about this. When Conlan took Gregor to hide with friends, he came back with jewellery for Eleanor. But you came back with a prostitute in tow—one that’s madly in love with you! I could throttle you right now!” Amelia yelled.

  Will was shocked. Amelia rarely yelled, and she had hardly ever yelled at him. In fact, they rarely argued. I’ve given her more than enough reason to yell. This was true, but her stubborn refusal to see sense was beginning to irritate him.

  “The only reason I’m here at all is because of Shyla, Pandral and Rudd. You owe her your thanks, not your condemnation,” Will snapped.

  “You owe your life to Eleanor,” Amelia shot back, then took a breath, her tone more reasonable when she spoke. “But you’re right: she would not have been able to help you had the others not stepped in first.”

  Will sighed. “You love me, Amelia, I know you do. Please, I’m begging you, I’ll take all the punishment you want to give, just—don’t take your jealousy out on Shyla.”

  Fury exploded through Amelia’s eyes, diamond bright against the grey.

  “I’m the wronged party here, and you’re telling me off like I’m a three-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. Where the hell do you get off thinking you’re everybody’s moral superior?” Amelia was past yelling now. She was screaming, her voice cracking with her anger and distress. Will saw in her eyes the carnage of his betrayal. She stared at him for a moment, taking deep, gulping breaths, then burst into tears. Horrified, Will reached a hand out towards her, but she pulled herself away and fled.

  Silence.

  That went well, a voice commented dryly in his head, making Will jump.

  Eleanor?

  Hi, Will! It’s great to have you back. I’ve missed you. I’m glad you’re still alive.

  Will smiled. Thank you, I really needed to hear that.

  Eleanor giggled. Yes, I know.

  That was a sobering thought. She could see everything, every hope, every fear, every desire, all the evil in which he had partaken. Dark bitterness swirled through him once again, trying to tug his soul free.

  Eleanor, can you see it all?

  Yes.

  Will felt her pain.

  Why didn’t you tell us? she asked. He knew what she was asking, but he was nowhere near ready to discuss it. Okay, we don’t have to talk about it now, Eleanor agreed.
But you can’t avoid it much longer—the others need to know. There was a pause. So, Shyla…

  Embarrassment and shame surged through him, and Eleanor’s love flowed up to meet it, flattening it, offering him only acceptance.

  Aren’t you disgusted with me? he asked, fearing the response.

  Will, I love you, just as Amelia does, even when she’s screaming at you. Conlan and Freddie love you too. You have no idea what they’ve gone through thinking you might die.

  Will smiled. Thank you for your efforts.

  Eleanor gave him a mental shrug. You taught me. The effort was yours.

  Just accept the compliment, Eleanor. I’m grateful, and I love you too. But don’t tell Amelia I said so—it might tip her over the edge.

  You shouldn’t make fun of her, Eleanor snapped. She has a right to be upset. I know why you had sex with Shyla. I know the black, terrifying place you were in at the time. And even I’m a little disappointed in you. Under the circumstances, Amelia is being incredibly understanding.

  She is? Will asked, knowing Eleanor could feel his irritation.

  Shyla is still alive and Amelia has not once demanded Conlan send her away, so I’d say so, yes. Want some advice?

  Will groaned. You’re going to give it even if I say no, so okay, what’s your advice?

  He heard Eleanor take a deep frustrated breath. Drop the attitude, Will. It’s not helping your cause, and stop lecturing Amelia on how she should be dealing with this. She’s right: you have no moral superiority here.

  Will sighed. I’ve admitted I was wrong, I said I was sorry. I can’t change the past. What more does she want from me?

  There’s a big difference between admitting you’re wrong and actually believing it.

  Eleanor’s words hit him like a slap in the face. Did he believe he was wrong? Yes, he did, but there was something else with the guilt: a quiet little voice that told him there had been exceptional circumstances, that there had been reason to falter. His reverie was interrupted by Eleanor’s tight, angry voice echoing through his head.