Dearly,
Abriel Emélle Desi
The letter felt heavy in my hands. I wanted to say something, but I just didn’t know what. Questions ran through my mind as I tried to make sense of it all. Why was she saying all of this now, when it was too late? What things did she see and didn’t the King see that Echo looked nothing like him? What shocked me the most, though, was the fact that Echo’s mother had signed with a different surname. Desi was Hunter cultivated for sure, but I had no clue whose name it was.
“What does it say, dear?” Mother asked. I had momentarily forgotten her in the room until she spoke.
“It, uh, doesn’t say much. Just that they found it in her old home and wanted to return it to its rightful owner.”
“It even has my name on it?” Echo whispered in disbelief, more to herself than to me or Mother.
“It even has her name on it, look at that.” Mother arched a brow, but I decided to ignore it. I took Echo’s hand underneath the table and she smiled slightly for my mother.
“Thank you for this,” she said. “We can go now, Ayden.”
“Be careful out there,” Mother called. She went back to the stove and began preparing what looked like supper. “And Ayden, you buy her something to wear other than my old clothes.”
I kissed Mother’s forehead and Echo and I escaped into the waning daylight.
“HOW is it that such a happy moment can become a bad memory in a second?” Echo asked as she ate her ice cream. She’d put her hair in pigtails, so I couldn’t help smiling when I looked at her. “I mean, the gods must hate me. All I’ve had is bad luck. I don’t even know what to make of that letter, Ayden. My mother has got some nerve.”
“Do you have a clue who your father is?” I asked. I glanced around the small market that was just the ways from home and was glad that no one watched Echo peculiarly. I refused to bring her to the larger market in fear someone would notice her. She was mine, and no one was taking her from me.
We’d done a little shopping with what money I had left. Echo didn’t seem bothered by the fact that it was her mother’s money, but it troubled me to no end. Since I was forbidden from New Haven territory, it meant I no longer had a job. Not that I wanted it in the first place, but it was money I didn’t have. I managed to get a new job at a factory here in Shadow Hills and it was paying fine, I couldn’t complain.
“No, I-I don’t. But I’m done listening to my mother, she had her chance and she chose to lie. I didn’t even understand half of the things she mentioned, but I’m not leaving your side.” She spooned ice cream into her mouth and smiled at me.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, absolutely.” She leaned forward, and with a cheeky grin, she kissed my lips. “I can kiss you all day.”
“I like the sound of that.”
Echo smiled and ran her hands through my hair. “Me too. So, let’s not worry about the letter, okay? Let’s just enjoy our moments together. You’re probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
I kissed her again and asked, “How much do you know about swords?”
Her eyebrows arched, but she didn’t look so surprised. “Swords? Why?”
“I’ve always wanted to learn. I can only fight with my hands, but in this world that will get me nowhere. I want to be prepared, is all. I want to be able to protect you, the right way. Will you teach me something?”
A small smile danced across Echo’s lips and she nodded cheerfully. “You know I will.”
“Good, because nothing will keep me away from you.”
“Nothing?” She fed me a spoon of her ice cream and I took it with delight. “Not even a border?”
I frowned at her words. Five weeks ago I feared that border, I envied it. Now, I sat next to my reason to be fearless, my reason to love. The border seemed but a forgotten shadow of the past and I cared little about revenge. Echo did this for me, and I was forever thankful.
“Nothing.”
▪Echo▪
That night I didn’t sleep.
One minute I was curled up in Ayden’s arms and singing him to sleep, and then the next I was being catapulted into a nightmare I couldn’t begin to fathom. Darkness clouded my vision and I felt myself stumbling through the abyss with nowhere to go and nothing on my mind. I tried to remember why I was out or where I was, but nothing came to me. I was lost and I knew it.
I glanced down at my body and took note of the fact I was in the dress Mother had made for the wedding. The train tailed behind me, covered in dirt and torn at the edges. It looked black in the darkness. It stunned me that I even had it on, but I was more surprised by my hands and the way dirt clung to me as if I’d been hiding out in the forest for years. I tried to brush some of the dirt from my bodice as I walked and tried to remember my reason for being out alone at night.
My hand felt something cold around my neck and I reached up to touch it. A necklace, I thought, shaped like a heart.
Ayden.
My heart beat quickened in my chest and my feet moved faster as if they, too, longed for the comfort only Ayden could bring. Grabbing my dress at the hem, I ran forward through the dark screaming for Ayden. I noticed then that my muscles ached and how quickly I began to lose my breath. My voice grew hoarse, but I screamed anyway. I was answered each time with silence, though, and I lost my fight little by little.
I stumbled over something hard and fell to my knees. Tears rolled down my face and they tasted bitter on my tongue.
Ayden. Where are you?
A hand touched my shoulder gently and I turned expecting Ayden. Though it was dark, his violet irises shone bright. “Ayden? Oh gods, Ayden! I thought I lost you.” I climbed to my feet and jumped into his arms, wrapping my arms around his neck. I cried into his shoulder and refused, even for a second, to let him go.
When he pulled me away, I expected him to say something. Preferably something that would explain why we were here. Wherever ‘here’ was. Instead, he mumbled something incoherent and pointed behind me. I began to ask him what he was talking about when I heard the coughing.
I peered over my shoulder and saw a tall mountain I hadn’t seen before. Alwaenia was naturally a flat country, so for a mountain to be in the middle of the way was ridiculous. I moved closer and a rancid smell overtook me. It smelled like rotten flesh and burnt hair. A sudden burst of light flashed and I saw the mountain clearer. When the smell and the coughing finally made sense, I immediately wanted to turn back. But when I glanced behind me, Ayden was long gone.
“Echo!” a voice called out. I searched the darkness for the familiar voice, but found no one. “Echo!”
The same burst of light went off again and I wandered towards it. The voice called out for me insistently and I followed. I barely made it to the mountain before I felt a tug on my dress. “Help me,” the same voice screamed. This time I knew who it belonged to.
“Issy? Issy, where are you?” I thought I’d been dreaming, but in this moment as I looked for Issy in the starkness, I’d never felt so wide awake.
I found Issy on the ground just below the mountain and nearly dived for her. She was curled up into the fetal position with her hands around her calves. I knelt down and immediately took her face in my hands. I cringed at the sight of blood.
She coughed and said, “Echo, I’m so sorry. I tried to stop them.”
“Stop who, Issy?” I wiped the blood from her nose and the tears from her eyes.
“I tried, but I failed, Echo. I am so sorry,” she mumbled.
“Isobeli, you aren’t making any sense! I’m getting you out of here.” I wrapped her arm around my shoulder and tried to pull her up. She screamed in pain and pushed me away.
“No! You can’t save me now, it’s too late.”
“Are you mad?” I about shouted to the heavens. Isobeli was the only reason I’d survived life in New Haven all those years. I couldn’t go without her. “Come on, I’m taking you to Ayden.”
“It’s too late!” Issy screamed. Her eyes
found mine and she smiled through the blood and tears. “To the moon and back, Echo. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. You just need to kill them. Kill them all.”
“Who are you talking about, Issy?”
“The people trying to hurt you. You need to get out, Echo. Get out. Get out now! Leave!” Issy screamed the words over and over again until it was all I could hear. She scared the hell out of me, but it was Isobeli and I wasn’t leaving her side.
“I’m not going anywhere, Issy. I can’t leave you here, you’re bleeding! Please, let me help you.”
Isobeli stopped screeching long enough to turn her head to me and say, “You need to help yourself before it’s too late, Aleksandria.” Her voice was blood-chilling and oddly calm. Before I had time to make sense of it, she began screaming again and it pierced my eardrums to the point where they began to bleed. Reality shattered like glass and I was thrown back into the wide abyss of nothing…
I awoke with a start and a hoarse scream erupted from my throat. My body was covered in sweat and my nightgown stuck to my body. I was, once again, greeted with darkness and I could have sworn I was still in the dream.
“Echo? Are you okay?” Warm lips pressed against my temple and an arm wrapped around my shoulders. Without thinking, I leaned in closer and sighed, thoughts of the nightmare still plaguing me.
“Yes, I think so.” My head lay against his chest and I clung to him as if he’d disappear if I dared let him go. After the dream I had, it wasn’t an impossibility.
“What happened?” Ayden asked.
“I had a bad dream. Gods, it was awful.” New tears welled in my eyes and he held me closer. “Issy was dying and you-you…I don’t know. You were there, but then you were gone. There was a mountain and a light. I was so confused.”
Ayden shushed me and lay me back on my pillow. I was no longer tired, but lying in bed with him seemed perfectly ideal. A storm raged outside the window like a bad omen. “It was just a dream,” he crooned. He kissed my shoulder and for a while we said nothing. I could have lost myself in his embrace if only Issy’s face hadn’t been on my mind—her screams, the blood, the tears. Her words.
You need to get out, Echo. Get out. Get out now! Leave!
“What is this? Her!”
The voice was so foreign I had assumed it was all in my head, but when Ayden turned and jumped from the bed, I knew it wasn’t. A tall girl with dark eyes, black hair, and a deep complexion stood in the doorway dripping with water. Her clothes stuck to her body and the bag around her shoulder looked heavy. Her tattoos told me she was a Hunter.
“Feven?” Ayden said.
Feven?
“Yeah, it’s me,” the girl said, eyes shooting to me. “Who’s she? I leave to come back and you’ve already got me replaced?” Her eyes hardened with tears.
“You left!” Ayden screamed. He paced the room and ran his fingers through his hair. “You left, Feven. And I didn’t replace you.”
“No, I guess not. I was going to ask you if I could stay the night, but I see you’ve got other things to do. I was never good enough for you anyway.”
When the girl named Feven stormed out from the room, Ayden followed her out. I remained in bed and listened to their conversation in the kitchen.
“Where’d you find her, Ayden?” Feven asked. “Is she your new girlfriend now? I saw the way you held her. Like you cared!”
“Are you saying I don’t care about you? Feven, you left! Twice, if I can remember. What happened to this person you were staying with?”
“He’s married!” Feven’s voice cracked and I sunk lower into the blankets.
“You’re kidding. You were messing around with a married man, and then you expect me to just take you in again? Don’t you think I’ve given you enough chances to prove yourself, Feve?”
“You’re all I have, Ayden! I-I thought he loved me, but his wife miscarried and he said he couldn’t do it with me anymore. I just want to matter for a moment. Not her, not him, but me.”
I heard Ayden sigh, and then say, “Did I not make you feel like you mattered? I invited you into my home, you met my family, and that still is not enough for you?”
There was a brief pause just before Feven belted out, “I loved you, I still do! But you wouldn’t give me the time, you saw right through me, Ayden. But you notice her, that girl in your bed? You’ve known her probably weeks and yet she gets all the attention I’ve worked years to get from you.”
“It’s not the same,” Ayden whispered. “Feven, I love you, you know that. I don’t know what I did to lead you on, but my love for her is different from my love for you.”
“You love her,” Feven said with finality. Footsteps sounded and she said, “Have a nice life with her, Grey.”
A door slammed, and then I heard Ayden groan. I didn’t know what to think of what had just happened. I was speechless, that much was true, but I couldn’t help thinking: Feven’s real?
Ayden walked slowly back into the room and I sat up in the bed. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
I went to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “It’s okay. Who was she?”
“An old friend. She’s going through some things right now.”
I nodded and hugged him tighter. “She loves you.” I wasn’t mad, surprisingly. I couldn’t blame her. There was a lot to love about Ayden. But the way she spoke to him bothered me, the way she seemed to share a lot of history with him. I couldn’t speak of Ayden that way, and I envied her for it. But now that I had him, I would make sure that sometime soon I could speak of him in such a way.
Ayden pulled my chin up to him and he softly kissed my lips. “I know she does, but I’ve already placed my love elsewhere and I’m really glad with the decision I made.
“I am, too.” I stepped up on his feet to kiss his lips and he laughed. He was at least a foot taller than me and I constantly had to tiptoe to kiss him.
The kiss ended too soon for my liking. “I’m really happy you’re here, Echo.”
“I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” I sighed and rested my head on his chest. “Besides, you—”
I loud knock interrupted me and Ayden hesitantly broke away. When neither of us moved, the knock came louder. No voices. “Probably Feven again. Stay here.”
I went along anyway and stood behind him as he pulled the curtain to a window aside and glanced out. I wondered why Feven was back. Maybe she’d come to apologize or scream at me. Either way, she seemed like no threat to me. She looked belligerent and probably used that against people, but I was stubborn and adamant.
Ayden stepped away from the window and I saw his face blanch. “Echo,” he whispered to me. Another loud knock came from the door. “Go back to the room and pack your things in a bag. Hurry.”
I nodded and left for the bedroom with no questions asked. I didn’t have much, only a few dresses from Carys and the gowns Ayden bought for me at the market. I threw it all into a bag and tied it shut, my heart beating frantically in my chest. I stared out the window for a long moment and froze when I heard the knocking stop and then the shattering of glass. Through the window in Ayden’s room I could make out a man in black, a sword just as dark in his hands. I screamed inwardly and willed my feet to move, but they wouldn’t. Things were just happening too fast.
You need to get out, Echo. Get out. Get out now! Leave!
The glass before me shattered into shards and I screamed as they bit into me. I heard shouting and then hands grabbed me.
“Echo! Just keep running, go!” Ayden yelled. He held my hand as he pulled me through the small cabin. I dared a glance behind us and saw the men in black equipped with swords. I noticed the embroidery on the hilts and my feet stumbled to keep up with Ayden.
The King had sent them to kill us. I knew it, but it was just too hard to believe. Was this it, then? Had we walked into our deaths blindly?
“Ayden, there isn’t anywhere to run!” I yelled.
“Listen to the girl, Hunter,” a guard
barked, trudging towards us with great speed.
Ayden groaned and pushed me through the bathroom door. He locked it quickly and then turned to face me. “You’re going out the window. I’ll give you a lift.”
“How did they find us so soon?” I cried. The guards pushed against the small door and I winced.
“Listen to me, we’re not dying. Not here, not right now. Do you hear me?” He held my face in his hands as I cried.
“But Ayden—” He kissed me before I could get another word out.
“Get on my shoulders.” Ayden stepped up on the toilet and leaned forward so that I could climb up on his back. He stood and brought me closer to the window. “Flip the lever to unlock it. The ground isn’t too far down so you should be fine.”
“Okay,” I said with shaking hands.
“Echo, hurry.” As he said it, the door splintered and I heard a hinge give into the guards’ onslaught. I flipped the lever and the window cracked open easily. Cold rain and a harsh wind hit me, but I pushed myself up and out. Just as I had both my legs out the window, the last hinge on the door gave way and Ayden ran to keep them out. I shook my head at him, but he frowned.
“Ayden, let’s go!” I yelled.
“No, go on! I’m coming.” The door continued to open little by little and I panicked.
“I’m not leaving you, Ayden. I refuse to.”
“Do you trust me?” he grunted.
“With my life.”
“Then go!” he yelled. I gasped and the tears came non-stop. Instead of staying to argue with him, I dropped myself from the window and I fell to the ground with a start. I ran without stopping and pressed on when I hit the forest. I thought about turning back, but that would have gotten us nowhere. Ayden would get out and he’d be fine.
Burning Bridges Page 24