A smile...a small one, ghosted over his too pale face as he took a steadier breath and held it, before allowing it to shudder past his lips. He looked around the room, eyes narrowing at the flowers standing proudly in their cracked vases, shining with a life that had no place within the castle walls.
“What…what did you do?” Laphaniel asked, his words quiet and shaky. His hand moved to his chest, touching the wound that only moments before had left him dead.
I blinked. “I didn't do anything.”
“Something isn't right here...” he said, pushing himself up so he stood over me. I rose beside him, watching him warily. “You must have done something...”
“I watched you die, Laphaniel...hey...whoa! Sit back down please.” I caught his arm as he swayed, forcing him to stay down when he tried to stand back up again. “Lie down, you've lost too much blood to go waltzing around the room, wait a minute.”
“What happened?”
I closed my eyes at the thought of him lying dead in my arms. “You don't remember?”
“Has Niven gone?”
“Yes,” I replied, reaching for his hand again, but he shook me off. “Not before she stabbed you in the chest.”
“I died.”
I nodded.
“Are you sure?”
I stared at him, words failing me and I wondered if he was going into shock. “Yes, I am sure,” I bit out. “Your heart stopped, I heard your last breath. I felt your hand go cold in mine Laphaniel.”
“The flowers and spiders were dead too,” he said, almost to himself, his words distant. “I think the castle is coming back to life, bringing everything else with it.”
“Why?” I grabbed at him, forcing him to look at me. He blinked, as if only just remembering I was there. He narrowed his eyes at me, leaning closer to run his fingers through my hair.
“I love you,” he stated, turning away and looking at the roses blooming in the windows.
“You're frightening me.”
“No, don't you see what's happening here?” he asked, his gaze darting around the room, sensing something in the darkness that I could not.
“What's going on?”
“We need to leave,” he said, his voice urgent. “Now.”
“I can't leave, Laphaniel. You know that.”
“You have to help me up,” he said, ignoring me. “We have to get away from here.”
“What about the curse holding me here, or have you forgotten about that?”
“It's broken.”
“How?” I mouthed the words, my hands tight on his.
“Because I love you.”
Images of sleeping princesses, poisoned apples and stolen maidens swam through my mind, each one ending with a happily ever after. Stories where the wicked queens were vanquished, evil banished, curses broken, and true love endured against impossible odds.
I looked at the velvet soft petals of the flowers, thriving after death and watched the scuttling of the spiders overhead, no longer broken husks. I looked at Laphaniel, alive and breathing and mine again, hardly daring to believe that after everything, amongst all the darkness and fear, after so much pain, that love could simply conquer all.
“You gave your life for me,” I said, not daring to believe he was right and that I wasn't bound to the damned castle. “Can love really break a curse? Doesn't that sound just a bit too Disney to you?”
Laphaniel pushed himself to his knees, ignoring my request for him to stay still. “All curses can be broken, Teya, every single one of them. For years, we have left young girls up here to suffer alone, no one spoke to them, no one befriended them...”
“No one loved them,” I finished, my heart breaking at the thought of all those forgotten girls.
“Sorcha knew the coldness of her fey when she made her curse. She knew we would abandon the castle and not look back. It would have been never-ending.”
“But then I came along.”
“And then you came along.” He smiled faintly, his hand coming up to cradle my face. I leaned into him, his touch warm against my skin. “Luthien will know the curse has been broken. It's not safe to linger here, Teya.”
He rose to his feet, his eyes darting to the pool of blood on the floor. I stood up beside him, forcing him to look away and at me instead.
“But she can be queen again,” I said, hope a beacon in my chest as I dreamed of life with Laphaniel outside of the castle walls, away from darkness and death.
“You are still the Seelie Queen, Teya. You took it from Niven, the mortal bloodline ends with you.”
“Then I'll give it to her...”
“It ends with your life!” he snapped, his voice terrifying in the darkness. “Luthien will take the throne, the moment she takes your life.”
“She will never stop chasing me, chasing us,” I said, exhausted. I glanced around at the room that should have been my prison, not feeling the relief I should have, knowing I was free to leave. I was free to go...but not free to live. “What do we do now?”
“Get away from the castle,” Laphaniel said, searching the dusty cupboards for anything useful. He pulled a motheaten cloak from a rotten drawer, shaking it off in a cloud of dust. “Get as far away from here as we can.”
“And then?” I asked, taking the lump of fabric from him and shrugging it on, thankful for the warmth.
“I don't know.”
I took a breath and searched the room with him, busying my hands so my mind didn't focus too much on the future. There was nothing else to take, nothing that would aid us as we ran for our lives, again. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I really didn't know what I was expecting. Warm clothes beside the mangy fur cloak? Hiking boots? A canteen of food and water? A weapon?
“Come on,” Laphaniel outstretched his hand to me, leading me down the corridor, down the stairs and out of the castle.
It let me leave without a whisper, only the uncurling blooms moved as we walked past them, creeping up the cracks in the walls as if claiming the castle for their own. We moved through the gardens; with Laphaniel unable to scale the gates, it was our only way out.
Frost had begun to settle over the grass, lush and sparkling beneath the moonlight. Flowers and buds crept up, ignoring the signs of winter, to bloom from frigid earth. The trees themselves shook their branches awake, igniting long dead wood into blossom that rained down upon our heads, showering us in a hope that didn't belong to us.
The garden rejoiced in its awakening, stirring not just the flowers, but decaying birds that lay shattered against the paths. Feathers bloomed where rot had set in, growing smooth and strong and bright, until the songs of the wind touched them, and they took flight.
We left the garden behind as we stepped back into woodland; winter once more nipping through the tattered remains of our clothing. Laphaniel leant against me, his steps staggering and clumsy, his breaths uneven. I knew we would only get so far before we had to stop and rest, and that it wouldn't nearly be far enough.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked as he forced us on. “Is it healing?”
I made him stop, lifting up his shirt to look at the wound on his chest. Beneath the blood there was already a scar, raised and shining white. It looked miraculously healed, except for the blackish veins that snaked outwards from it. I moved my hand to trace them, but Laphaniel caught it, pulling me away.
“It doesn't hurt, it just feels cold.”
I closed my fingers over Laphaniel's. “I thought I had lost you.”
“So did I,” he answered, his body tensing at the thought.
“What was it like?”
“Dying?”
I winced. “Sorry, you don't need to talk about it, if you don't want to.”
He closed his eyes, taking a breath. “I don't remember dying, Teya, just being dragged back, and that it hurt more than the knife to my chest, and...”
He stopped; voice catching as he opened his eyes and focused on something far away, something that didn't belong to me.
“And what?”
He shook his head, shrugging me off. “Nothing.”
“And what?” I pushed, remembering the sense of anger and discontentment that had come from the shadows. The reluctant ghostly fingers, the reluctant surrender of a possession that was rightfully won. I squeezed my eyes shut at the realisation. “You didn't want to come back.”
Laphaniel sat down awkwardly, his head bowed. “I don't know.”
I sat beside him, drawing him close, my arms around him as he rested his head against my chest. I wanted to cry, his words breaking yet another part of me so that I feared there soon would be nothing left. I didn’t cry.
I didn't want him to comfort me, I wanted and needed to be there for him, to be his rock after he had been mine so many times before.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“It dragged you back from somewhere, where did you go?”
Laphaniel buried his head in his hands, his fingers gripping his hair as he shook his head again. “Don't.”
“Okay,” I soothed, hating how broken he seemed. “That's okay. Just understand that I'll listen if you ever need to talk to me. Please don't shut me out.”
He kept his head in his hands, his body rigid as I longed to comfort him. I placed a hand on his shoulder and he flinched.
“We should keep moving,” he said, still sounding a little bit lost.
“I think we should camp here for the night,” I replied. “Beneath those rocks, it’s sheltered back there, we'll be fairly well hidden.”
“It's too close.”
“We need to rest...”
“Teya...”
“You need to rest,” I snapped, frayed nerves causing me to lash out. “You can't keep limping through the forest until you pass out.”
“I don’t know what to do,” he said quietly, “I don’t know what to do next.”
I could see how much it was troubling him not to be in control, to not be able to fix the mess we had found ourselves in. He looked as frightened as I felt.
“Shh, get some sleep,” I whispered, pulling him close. “We’ll stay here tonight; a few damned miles are not going to make much of a difference, are they?”
“No,” he said finally, giving up. “I suppose not.”
We hid amongst the rocks, shivering in the cold, not daring to light a fire. I sat with my back against the stone and watched the black forest, stroking the dark hair off Laphaniel's face as he slept fitfully with his head in my lap.
I didn't dare fall asleep, but allowed my mind to wander instead, taking me to a place where I had been completely safe and loved. I wanted to forget, for just a moment what dangers lay ahead of us, and what it would have been like if I had said yes...if I had stayed with Laphaniel in the first place.
Away from the cold and the fear and the unknown, I daydreamed, imagining myself as once I had been, held tight in Laphaniel's arms, dancing beneath the cherry blossom with every whispered promise of forever.
Acknowledgments
Where on earth do I start with these?
I guess, first of all, I must thank my mum and dad for raising me in a haunted cottage surrounded by dark and wonderful woodland…which was full of faeries of course.
Thank you to my beautiful, unwavering best friend forever, Cheryl Solman, for not only standing by me while I dream up worlds, but for also braving the woods with me…maybe one day we’ll explore them again?
To my so very patient editor, Lynne Raddall, who has transformed this world of mine into something I am immensely proud of. You are so very awesome!
To Jorge Wiles for the tremendous cover, it is everything I could have wanted. Thank you for your enthusiasm and your humour.
Thank you Suzie Kellaway for all your wonderful advice and all the wine…oh, especially the wine!
To my Beta readers, who tore the early drafts to well-deserved shreds. Thank you.
To one certain Beta…keep that stick sharpened.
This book could not have been written without the hauntingly beautiful music by Evanescence…Amy Lee, you are a true Faerie Queen.
To my readers, obviously! All of you who took a chance on an indie author and helped her dreams come true…I love you all.
To my husband, Matters. For all the support…the coffee…the hours spent ignoring you so I could just finish one more chapter! Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And lastly to my little changelings…my imps…my girls. This book is, and always will be, for you.
Author’s note: As in all things magical, Niven’s name has its own faerie pronunciation: Nieven. Thank you.
Darling, There Are Wolves in the Woods Page 25