“Tal’kamar,” it whispered. “She is not yours. She is not … true.”
Caeden said nothing for a few long moments; that terrible voice echoed in his mind, crashing around inside his skull, nearly unbearable. He took a few deep breaths; this … being, or whatever it was, did not seem to be threatening him.
“What do you mean?” he gasped. “What are you talking about?”
“She is not true,” repeated the voice, sounding frustrated. “I have … traveled far … risked much to warn you. To help you. The woman in your house … is not the one you knew five years ago.”
Caeden rocked back under the words, though this time it was as much from what was being said as from the intensity of the voice in his head. “Elliavia?” He swallowed, trying to calm himself. To grasp what was happening. “She has changed, I suppose. We both have. But—”
“You understand not,” the thunderous voice interrupted, somehow managing to be both a growl and completely unemotional. “I speak not of change. The woman you knew … died. Another now … inhabits her body. She pretends to be the one you knew, but she … is not.” It emphasized the last two words, as if frustrated that Caeden was not comprehending its meaning.
A sudden flush of anger ran through Caeden and he struggled to his feet defiantly. “Who are you, to make such a claim? What are you?” He shook his head. “It does not matter. I do not believe you.”
“Yes you do.” The light watched him. “You knew it was true … before I ever spoke. You have known it to be true since … the moment you looked into her eyes.” It drifted closer, its heat unbearable, and Caeden imagined that he could feel its breath. “I am not here to … reveal, Tal’kamar. I am here to confirm … what is in front of you. To allow you … no excuse. I am here because without me, you might have been … willing to pretend. And that would mean that you never tried to find … the solution. The way to … make all things right again.”
Caeden squeezed his eyes shut, heart pounding. Could it be true? Ell had changed, but … wouldn’t anyone have changed after five years, after what she’d been through? Of course they would have.
“You are lying. You are lying and even if you weren’t, there is no solution,” he gasped. “You can try to forget, but you can never go back. Never truly fix things.”
“You can, Tal’kamar,” the light assured him. “I swear it by … my name. I swear it by Truth.”
Caeden clenched his fists and faced the radiance, eyes closed, though it took every ounce of willpower he had to do so. The heat tore at his face. “I do not know what or who you are, but you are lying. About Ell. About everything,” he said, voice shaking despite his best efforts. “If you want to harm me, then do your worst. But I have heard enough from you.”
The light sighed, a sound full of regret. “Harm you? Tal’kamar, I am … here to save you,” it whispered. “You will see. If you truly want to know if … your beloved is who she says, tell her … about tonight. Tell her I name her … Nethgalla, the Ath. Tell her I name her a citizen of … Markaathan, the Darklands. And tell her that she is … warned of consequences, should she not tell you the truth.” The warmth began to recede, withdrawing through the trees. “Tell her, Tal’kamar, and then … think on what I have said. There is a way to make … all things right. All things. When you believe that, come … and find me.”
The heat, the searing light, faded. Vanished.
The presence was gone.
Caeden stood there, trembling, for a long time. After a while he heard the cautious clack-clack of the Vaal returning, but tonight he felt nothing at the sounds. Not excitement, not fear. Just the cold decision to leave, now, before their stinging barbs put him to sleep.
A way to make all things right.
An impossibility, something he knew without having to even think about it. There was no way to make right all the things he had done. There was no way to change him back into the person he had been five years ago, revive his friends and family, stop himself from being a murderer and a monster and a broken shell of a human being.
And yet …
There had been something in the creature’s voice. A certainty that Caeden couldn’t shake.
His stomach churned as he made the trip back across the stream and toward town. Ell. How could the creature possibly expect him to believe that she wasn’t “true,” wasn’t who she claimed to be? He shivered. It hadn’t been wrong about everything, he conceded; he had been feeling that something wasn’t quite right. But it was the time they’d spent apart, his change in appearance, everything they had both been through. It was never going to be just as it was.
When he slipped through the front door, he was vaguely surprised to see Ell still awake, reading by the fireplace.
She looked up as he entered, her smile brightening the room. “Changed your mind?” she asked eagerly, putting down her book and standing.
She walked toward him for an embrace, and he hesitated.
“Not exactly,” he said softly.
Ell faltered, a frown clouding her features. “Is something wrong?”
Caeden cleared his throat. “I ran into someone … something … tonight,” he said slowly. He looked up, holding her gaze, heart pounding. “Who is Nethgalla?”
He saw it—small, gone in an instant but unmistakable. A flicker of shocked recognition.
Ell shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said casually. “Why?”
Caeden squeezed his eyes shut, as if that alone could block out the knowledge. He felt a tear trickle down his cheek, then another.
“It said to warn you of consequences if you did not tell me the truth,” he said, voice cracking. He opened his eyes again, Ell’s beautiful face blurring through his tears. “She’s dead, isn’t she.”
Ell’s eyes were wide, and he saw the beginnings of tears filling them, too. “She’s not dead, Tal,” she whispered. “She is standing right in front of you.”
“Tell. Me. The truth.” Caeden whispered the words, pouring every ounce of emotion he had into them. The pain, the horror, the shame, the fear.
Ell held up her hands, the tears falling now, and nodded. “Sit down. Let me explain,” she said unsteadily.
Caeden wanted to refuse, to remain standing, but it felt wrong under the circumstances. Ell seemed upset and scared, not dangerous or angry. Still, he couldn’t help but seat himself well away from her, perching at the edge of his chair and ready to spring up at even the hint of a threat. Whatever else was going on, he’d already been fooled. He had no way of knowing this woman’s true intentions.
Ell took a seat opposite, swallowing, composing herself before she began.
“You are right. My name is Nethgalla,” she said quietly. “I come from a place known here as the Darklands. It is …” She gestured, looking frustrated. “The best way to describe it is that it is another world. A world very much unlike this one.”
“Another world,” repeated Caeden dully.
Ell—Nethgalla—shook her head. “I cannot imagine how hard it must be for you to even conceive of it, Tal. I—”
“Do not call me that,” Caeden growled.
Nethgalla winced, but inclined her head. “As you wish. Trying to explain where I come from is … it’s difficult. The natural laws that govern this world are either different, or do not apply there at all. It is a place of many horrors, Tal’kamar. A place of endless pain.” She shivered, and Caeden somehow knew that it wasn’t an act. “A place it is near impossible to escape.”
She looked over at Caeden, but he didn’t respond. Just watched her coldly.
Nethgalla swallowed. “There are certain people in this world with … with a gift. A power that few others have. One of those people is you, Tal’kamar,” she continued. “The ability to draw power from beyond this world.” She held up her hand as Caeden made to protest. “I know you don’t believe this—not yet. But it is what you used at our wedding. It is how you drew Essence not just from yourself, but from everything around you.” She hesitat
ed. “And it is how you made the gateway for me to enter this world.”
Caeden stared at her for a long time in silence.
“Through Ell,” he whispered eventually, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Ell’s body was the gateway.”
Nethgalla looked at her hands, unable to meet Caeden’s gaze. “Yes,” she whispered. Then she looked up, her expression determined. “But when I entered Elliavia’s body … I gained all of her memories. She became a part of me.” She leaned forward, her tone earnest. “I still have each and every one of those memories, Tal. I feel the same love for you that she felt. I didn’t realize it at first, but when I did—that’s why I came to find you. Because I love you. Because I have always loved you. I love you as fiercely as she ever did.” She stood, taking a hesitant step toward him. “I am Nethgalla, but I am Elliavia. I am your wife, Tal’kamar.”
Caeden stared into those beautiful blue eyes he knew so well, and a wave of nausea drew bile into his throat. It was all he could do not to throw up.
“No,” he said softly, standing and backing away. It was all so clear now. All the small things, all the things he’d been surprised that she had accepted. “My wife is dead. You are … you are an abomination.”
“You don’t mean that, Tal,” said Nethgalla, a tremor in her voice. She looked at him pleadingly, and it broke his heart because her expression was one he had seen Ell wear countless times. “I have her body, her memories, her love for you.”
“You are different.” He was shaking like a leaf, but he still managed to put a few more feet between him and the creature that had stolen his wife’s body. “You are nothing more than an echo of her.”
“How can you tell?” asked Ell pleadingly.
“Because she would not have forgiven me.” Caeden whispered the words. It was true. He’d known it was true from the very beginning. He looked up into those familiar eyes, letting all of his pain, all of his frustration, all of his disbelief congeal into the one undeniable truth.
“Because she could never have loved the man I have become.”
There was a deafening silence at that and it was too much, too much to take. He couldn’t look at her anymore. Couldn’t be in her presence a single second longer.
He left.
He strode from the house in a daze, heedless of Ell’s calls for him to wait, to stop. He walked almost absently through the town, into the forest. He barely noticed as he walked past the Vaal-controlled lands, walked until his feet ached and then blistered.
He walked numbly until his legs gave out from under him and he collapsed into the cold, dewy grass. He couldn’t move now and his feet burned as if he’d been standing on hot coals, but it was still insignificant next to the sadness that felt as though it were ripping his chest apart anew each moment.
He wept, then. Wept until the dawn came.
He didn’t know how long had passed afterward, but eventually he dragged himself to his feet.
A way to make all things right.
Slowly, inch by inch, he started forward again.
He didn’t know where he was going or what he was looking for, but it was all he had left.
Chapter 12
Asha flinched as a distant echo reached her ears.
She held her breath, heart pounding as she strained for another sound, another indication that she was not alone down here. How long had it been since the Echo had vanished? Hours? A day? Every moment stretched in the cold and the close, oppressive dark. Every second left her more nervous that she’d made the wrong decision, more inclined to jump up and start trying to find her own way out.
She exhaled softly as the sound came again. Footsteps. Definitely footsteps. Relief and tension flooded through her at the same instant; she activated the Veil and started silently stretching her stiff muscles, anticipating having to spring into motion at any moment.
A flicker of movement caught her eye, a glow that bobbed and grew in strength as the echoing footfalls came closer. Asha steeled herself, carefully shielding her eyes from the entrance to the room.
Even with the precaution, the light from the lantern was painful at first after so long in the darkness.
Asha squinted, able to make out two forms walking side by side. One seemed to glide rather than walk; even if it had not been cloaked in black, it was hard to mistake the presence of a sha’teth. The other she quickly recognized as Isiliar.
Despite her excitement, she couldn’t help but restrain a shiver as they passed by, not ten feet from where she stood.
“… must tell them, Lady Isiliar,” the sha’teth was saying in its odd, rasping voice, little more than a whisper. “Your suspicions are more than they have.”
“Again, and again, and again you bring this up,” snapped Isiliar as she stopped short, giving the sha’teth a black look. She appeared calmer than she had in the Sanctuary, but even so, when she shook her head the motion was too quick, violent and twitchy. “The point, Vhalire, the point, is that I am the only one left who knows. The only one who remembers. Wereth and Andrael and Tal’kamar and I. The first two are dead. The third left this when he left me.” She tapped the blade at her side, face twisting for a moment. “We both know why. We both. Know. Why. I knew even before Alaris told me.”
Asha focused. There was that name again—Tal’kamar. The one whose location Davian had asked her to relay to the Shadraehin. She hadn’t recognized it at first, but after hours of sitting in the darkness and thinking back over what Isiliar had said, she had made the connection.
There was a long silence. “So you are set on forcing him to come for you,” the sha’teth rasped eventually.
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes, Vhalire.” Isiliar laughed but it came out wrong, high-pitched and close to maniacal, completely lacking in humor. “You do understand! How delightful. How wonderful.”
Isiliar abruptly started forward again, forcing Vhalire to trail after her. Asha carefully followed, staying as far back as she could. Though the unsettling pair sent ice through her veins, she was still glad that they were both present; any small noises that she made had a much better chance of being masked if there was conversation.
“You are so certain he will come, but what of the Ath?” Vhalire’s tone continued to be flat, but there was a hint of insistence to it now. “You say she took this device, and there is more than enough evidence that she knows how to use it.”
“Took the device and left me there.” Isiliar’s voice was vague, but it suddenly had an edge to it, too. “Left me there in madness and blood, all so that she could try and dabble in the affairs of her betters. More heartless than Tal’kamar, though less to blame. More like you in many ways.” She glanced across at the sha’teth. “I will remind them both of what screaming is before this world is done. But no, Vhalire. Tal’kamar will not seek Nethgalla, not while he believes me still captive, still easily accessible. Even if he didn’t, in fact. He will always prefer my screams to her whispers, and think them easier to believe.”
“Deilannis, then.” Asha could barely hear Vhalire, he was talking so softly. “I have seen him venture there once already. If Serrin’s story is anywhere, it is there.”
“His story, perhaps, but not how to replicate the horror he wrought. Not how to bend it to fulfill Andrael’s task.” Isiliar shook her head as her voice echoed crazily through the stone passageways. “No. He will come for me.”
They had made their way through several new twists and turns by this point, and now entered a corridor that was wider and straighter. Asha dropped a little farther back, intrigued by the conversation but unwilling to risk discovery, especially as the discussion between Isiliar and the sha’teth appeared at an end for now.
After a few more minutes of tensely creeping along after the pair, Asha spotted a new source of light up ahead. For an irrational moment her heart leaped, thinking it was daylight. Soon, though, the illumination revealed itself to be Essence, a bright and pulsing globe set into the wall.
Below it sat a door that closed off th
e end of the passageway; Isiliar opened it and with an exaggeratedly polite gesture, motioned the sha’teth through in front of her. Beyond the doorway Asha could see a well-lit space, furnished and distinct from the sparse corridors they had been traversing thus far.
Asha hesitated, then silently hurried forward and slipped in behind them, careful not to make a sound. She barely made it inside before Isiliar closed the door again.
There were no other visible exits from this new area, Asha quickly realized. They were in a massive hall, the vaulted ceiling at least thirty feet high, the thick pillars of stone that towered every ten feet or so decorated with intricate friezes. At the far end of the enormous room, a crystal clear waterfall fell gently into a narrow pool, though where it drained away to she could not see.
Asha swallowed, then stepped carefully over to the nearest column, well out of the way of any conceivable path the other two might take.
“So, Vhalire,” Isiliar said quietly as she pocketed the key to the door. “We come to the end of our journey.”
“We are not yet at Alkathronen, Lady Isiliar.”
“No, Vhalire. We are not.”
Isiliar didn’t move but suddenly Vhalire shrieked. It was a terrible, stomach-churning keen; Asha clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp of horror, eyes wide as the sha’teth stumbled, flailing as though it had suddenly lost control of its limbs.
Isiliar gestured and suddenly Vhalire was being lifted into the air, then slammed with enough force against a pillar to shake dust from the ceiling. The scream cut off abruptly, replaced by ragged gasps.
Isiliar moved forward, her face a blank mask. She stopped only inches from the still-struggling sha’teth, then reached up and drew back its deep hood.
Asha’s stomach twisted. The scarred white skin of Vhalire’s face was puffy in some places, limp in others; the entire thing was a disfigured mess, a parody of what a man’s face should be. And yet the eyes staring out from it, full of pain, were blue and clear and intelligent as they watched Isiliar.
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