"What the…." she muttered as she finished. To her surprise, there was no wound to be found. The only sign he had been stabbed at all was in the light tinges of red where his skin had stained from the blood. "Alec? Alec, wake up!"
"Ariana," Alec croaked.
Her head snapped up, tear-filled eyes widening as she saw him shift and take a breath. She watched his chest rise and fall, though she scarcely believed what she was seeing. He had been dead, she was sure of it. Yet, the color seemed to be returning to him, and he mumbled. She was about to answer when his forehead wrinkled with worry and his eyelids flitted open as he shot up. A groan of pain escaped his lips as he doubled over, calling her name once more in panic.
"I'm right here," she assured him.
He turned around at the sound of her voice. His hand wrapped around her head and pulled her close, meeting her forehead with his own. His breath came out in ragged gasps that sounded like sobs.
"I'm so sorry," he muttered. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Ariana chuckled incredulously. "You get stabbed and beaten, and you're sorry."
"I was so scared of what they might do to you when they finished with me.”
"You were dead," she whispered with uncertainty.
Alec kept his forehead pressed to hers as he tried to catch his breath. "When I am gravely injured, my body goes to sleep in order to heal itself."
“What?” Ariana blinked at him, shaking her head. How was that physically possible? Then again, she supposed nothing was outside the realm of possibility in a world filled with magic. "Hibernation? Are you serious?"
He opened his eyes, and for a moment she thought he was going to answer. But then his brows furrowed in question and lifted his fingers to her neck. She flinched as he made contact with the cut she had inflicted on herself.
"I hurt you," his voice was soft and so filled with remorse his words were almost too quiet to hear.
"I've been through worse. Recently, as a matter of fact."
Her words didn’t seem to be bringing him the comfort she hoped. His eyes lowered to the ground, his hand dropping. He muttered more apologies, though she couldn’t tell if they were still meant for her.
She lifted his chin with her finger. "Hey, don't beat yourself up over this. It doesn't even hurt. Besides," she nudged him with her knee, "you look much worse than I do."
"You don't understand," he stammered. His eyes were wide with horror and regret as if he could now see all the possibilities playing out before them. "If I had held on too tight or jerked you the wrong way—"
"I'd be a bit sore, so what?" she interjected, still trying to make light of the situation.
He was still horrified as he stared at her neck and choked on his own words. "I could have killed you. With so little effort."
"But you didn't," Ariana responded. "You wouldn't." Even as she said the words, she knew she truly meant them. Whatever connection they shared only seemed to grow with each day.
His tone was still apologetic as he spoke. "Are you sure you aren’t in any pain?"
"Well, I guess I might be if you poked it, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't try.”
"There's one thing I don't understand though. Why are you bleeding?" He asked the question as he dabbed at the cut with the supplies she had demanded to aid him.
"I sort of...cut myself. They were hurting you," she added quickly. "I had to something."
He dropped his head. "You should have run like I told you to."
She placed a hand on his cheek and urged his head back up. "Hey, don't you want to get out of here too?"
"Of course I do."
"Then why should I not do everything I can to make sure that happens?" she asked, her tone earnest. "If I leave you to rot here, am I really any better than Kellen?"
He took hold of her hand and dropped their intertwined hands to his knee. "Now what? That was our one shot, Ariana. They won't fall for that again, and they certainly won't get within striking distance of me. Once Kellen gets back...."
"We'll be gone," she assured him. "I think it's time for Plan B."
"Which is?" he asked, exasperated.
Ariana stood up and looked down at him confidently. "We do things my way. I'm going to learn to tap into this power she's been bragging about."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Rhaya sat in the middle of the largest bedroom she had ever been in. There was even an antechamber, though she had no idea what the functionality of that room was. Immediately to the right of the main doors was a closet the size of her bedroom at home. There was also a fairly large bathroom in the corner, connected cleverly to the closet by way of a sort of curtained off dressing area. On the opposite wall from the closet was a large dining table that could easily seat six people comfortably, followed by a study area complete with well-stocked bookshelves and a desk. She inspected the titles, being an avid reader, and was happy to see that she could not only read them but recognized a few classics as well.
There was a large four poster bed just by the study area, but she had felt entirely too small in it, so she had opted to plop herself down in the middle of what she was now thinking of as her lavish apartment. It was too big to be considered a bedroom in her mind. So she currently sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor staring at the biggest window she had ever seen. It stretched from wall to wall opposite the door, casting a golden glow around her otherwise unlit room as the midday sun began to sink. There was a light knock behind her and Terrena slowly opened the door, peering around it tentatively until she spotted her sister on the floor. She gave her a puzzled look, opening her mouth to ask the question, but then deciding to close it.
“That’s usually best,” Rhaya remarked as she looked over her shoulder at her visitor, quite used to being on the receiving end of the look Terrena was giving her. People usually looked at her like that, as though they were trying to make heads or tails of her. "I was weird even on Dhara. Probably best not to even try to understand me,” she said as she spread the long skirt of her dress out around her.
Terrena nodded her understanding and seated herself across from her sister. “I’ll keep that in mind. How are you doing?”
Rhaya smiled, not needing her gift to sense her sister’s discomfort. “I’m not sure what to say to you, either. It’s okay. I never had a sister. It was always just me and Raemann. He always said I was too much of a handful on my own.”
“Same for me. I mean, it was always just Kenward and I. Most of the time,” she corrected eyes grew sad and her thoughts drifted back to recent memories.
Rhaya knew her sister must be missing Garrett. She almost felt like she was cheating by knowing so much about her long-lost sister already, but not too long ago Terrena had been nothing but a character in a book to her. Now she was here, in the flesh, and her sister. She wasn’t sure what to do with that.
“How is Zelene doing?”
Rhaya looked up, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. “I don’t know how she’s doing. They kept telling me she was resting yesterday.”
Terrena shook her head sadly. “It’s terrible. It’s like Solanna’s child all over again. Right within our walls. And poor Zelene…her love, taken from her. I would imagine she needs some time.”
Rhaya resisted the urge to comfort her sister, suspecting her knowledge of Garrett would probably not be welcomed at the moment. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to be left alone with her grief.”
“Why not? To her, we are still strangers. I can’t imagine we would give her much comfort right now.”
“No, but I don’t think we should let her stew either. Because she is fire. I don’t know what her mother was like, but from everything I have seen of Zelene, she is a spitfire bursting with passion and eager to take action. Kyle meant the world to her. Take him away, and she just might be willing to bring about the apocalypse to get him back.”
They both looked up as another knock sounded on Rhaya’s door.
“Come in,” she shouted. She noticed the
cringe Terrena couldn’t hide in response to her yell. “What?”
An older woman with golden brown hair and a kind yet timid demeanor entered the room. When she looked down at the two girls seated on the floor, her blue-green eyes glistened with emotion. Rhaya automatically jumped to her feet, not needing an introduction. She had been waiting for this moment since she arrived.
“Mom?”
Meridel held her arms out to her two girls as the tears flowed freely. “Oh, my girls! My beautiful girls!” She clung them tight after they both dove into her arms, kissing their heads in turn. She pulled away and placed a hand on each of their cheeks. “I have missed you so much.”
“Why didn’t you come before?” Rhaya felt like a five year-old whining like this, but her heart was still broken over their delayed reunion.
“Sylvanna did not think it was best to overwhelm you with a smothering mother. But after Zelene was attacked…I told her the Mhathair Mhor herself could not keep me from my daughters any longer.”
Rhaya threw her arms around her mother’s neck once more. Her mother loved her, she was certain of that. And she was also fairly certain she was not going to like Sylvanna.
An hour later, the girls were dining with their mother, laughing over stories from their lives. Rhaya surprised herself with how relaxed she felt as she laughed at the story Terrena had been telling them from her time on the run in Estridia. It almost felt normal. Well, normal enough seeing as how Raemann had been forced to wait outside the door like a dog put out in the rain and her perpetually angry father was nowhere to be found. She was afraid to even ask her mother where he was.
"So Kenward walks in right as the boy kisses me," Terrena continued, "and the look on Kenward’s face was priceless." She had been laughing so hard that tears formed in her eyes as she struggled to continue the retelling of her first kiss. "He was so confused because he had sensed my fear, so he thought I was in trouble."
"Oh no," Rhaya laughed. "Did he have the whole scary black eyes thing going on?"
"Not long enough to be obvious,” Terrena answered with a chuckle, “but long enough to scare the boy away. I never saw him again."
Meridel's hand covered her eldest daughter's as she laughed. "You poor dear. Your first kiss chased away by your Cyneward."
"I didn't like him much anyway." Terrena raised her chin. "Besides, I knew nothing could ever come of it. One day I would return home," she said with a sigh.
"What does that have to do with anything? I mean, you were young, but so what if you did fall in love with someone while you were hiding from the Cahirans? Anscombe is a big place. I'm sure we could find room." Rhaya noticed the firm look her mother had given her and returned it with a confused one before sensing the sadness in Terrena growing.
"It's not so simple," her older sister explained calmly, not a trace of her heartbreak over losing Garrett evident on her face. "Nothing would ever come of any relationship I might forge out there because I might already have a betrothed here. If I didn't, I soon would after returning."
Rhaya laughed in disbelief. "How could you have a betrothed here if you hadn't been here in eighteen years? Did you pick someone out when you were seven?" She frowned when she realized neither one of them were laughing with her. "That's ridiculous. How can you pick out who you're going to marry when you're seven?"
"She didn't," her mother answered. "And she doesn't choose who she marries. Your father and I do."
Rhaya stood up quickly, unable to believe what she was hearing. "Arranged marriages? You have arranged marriages here? Does that mean you have someone picked out for me already?"
"It's complicated," Terrena tried to explain hastily. "Pre-arranged betrothals are not always the way."
Rhaya looked at her doubtfully, still shaking her head as though she were begging them to tell her she heard them wrong. "There's a 'but' in there, and I'm not sure I want to hear what follows."
"Sit down, Rhaya," her mother ordered calmly. "Now," she began as her daughter obeyed, "I will explain since apparently Tate has not broached this particular topic yet."
"You mean the part where my freedoms got stripped away? Nope, haven't covered that in class yet," Rhaya remarked sarcastically, suspecting Zelene’s snarky attitude might be rubbing off on her.
"It's not that bad," Terrena assured her, though her slumped shoulders conveyed her misery.
"Yes, your father and I will decide who you are to marry," Meridel explained. "The first marriage will begin when you reach the age of twenty one."
Rhaya paled. "The first? Meaning, more than one?" Images of the terrible reality shows she and Raemann had mocked over the years flashed before her eyes. Was that what her future was destined to become? A parody of life where she greeted her husband's other wives each morning at breakfast? She swallowed back her nausea as she turned her horrified gaze to her sister. "We don't have to marry the same person do we? I know I grew up an only child and everything, but I don't think I'd be able to get into that kind of sharing. No offense."
Terrena looked at Rhaya as though she had grown a second head. "Why would we marry the same person?"
Rhaya gestured emphatically to their mother. "She said the first marriage. Meaning more than one."
"Not necessarily." Meridel leaned back in her chair, her hair spilling over the back as she explained their marriage customs to her daughter. "First, you should know each match is...temporary, in a way. You see, we have a ritual—"
"Wassail," Rhaya interrupted with a nod. "Isauria...told me about the ceremony," she lied, deciding it was a simpler explanation. She made a mental note to tell Isauria she needed to do a better job of explaining these things in her manuscript before turning her full attention to her mother.
"Yes," Meridel answered with a slight bow. "The ritual of Wassail is performed at one of the four festivals of the year. In this ritual, couples are joined together. Their hands are bound to symbolize their commitment to one another. Exactly one year later, they will announce whether or not they intend to go forward to the joining. This takes place the next day. If they choose to stay together, their hands are bound once more with a cord made of metals and the cords they wear around their hands represent their commitment to stay together. The cord between them is burned, and they are left with this," she said as she held up her left hand. The thin gold chain wrapped around her wrist and her middle finger also wound itself back down to her wrist.
Rhaya took in a deep breath as she let the idea sink in. "What happens if you don't want to stay together?"
"The same cord binding you together at the first ceremony binds you together once more, and the person wishing to terminate the link is then responsible for cutting the cord. Then you go your separate ways," Meridel said with a spread of her hands as if to convey how easy the idea was.
Rhaya could sense apprehension in her older sister, almost as if she was biting her tongue. Her bright eyes examined her closely and then flashed back to her mother. "What aren't you telling me in all this?"
"It can be...slightly more complicated for us as the Duillaine. We have very important roles, Rhaya, and with those roles come responsibilities."
Rhaya was unhappy with the whole situation, but mainly how her mother had tried to manipulate the truth to be more appealing. "How do you choose who we marry?" She asked, her chest still heaving with righteous indignation. "Because judging from what I’ve seen of our father—from a distance—you didn’t marry him for love. And I can sense it when I talk about him. What kind of life is that? To live without love?"
"Rhaya," Terrena chided.
Meridel held up a hand to stop her eldest daughter's defenses. "It's all right, Terrena. She can't help but see the bonds between your father and I since she has inherited my gift. I am not in love with your father, though I do love him as a person. We were a political match. We spent our year together, and I found him to be pleasurable company and a good friend, and so I did not break our bonds."
Rhaya looked at the ceiling, sha
king her head. "I'm sorry, but that's terrible. And I'm not sure I could ever do it." She glanced down at her plate, which was still filled with food as they had hardly begun their meal. "I don't think I'm hungry anymore. I think I'm going to go to bed." She didn’t give anyone time to object before she walked around the table and slipped through the doors.
She stood there in the hallway, feeling the sting of disappointment flood to her eyes. She had never fit in on Dhara and when they had first arrived here, Anscombe had been home straight away. She thought she had finally found a place to belong. She hadn’t necessarily agreed with everything she had seen, but she’d at least had hope it would get better. And now, the more she learned about this world, the more betrayed she felt by it all. She had been looking at through overly-optimistic eyes and was now seeing Zelene had been right to not take everything they were told at face value.
***
Zelene had draped herself across her bed, staring up at the canopy above her. Tears ran down her face, pooling at her ears, as she replayed the recent events in her mind. She had woken up in the leigheas, her father and brother both at her side and one of the Duillaine Banair—Sylvanna, she thought—pacing the room. Varrick had sensed her fear and immediately rushed to her aid, but in the short time taken for him to reach her, Kyle and their attackers had disappeared without a trace.
Everyone was concerned about security, but no one seemed concerned at all about finding Kyle. She had argued vehemently, begging Varrick to go find him. She had battled with Sylvanna until she had become hoarse, demanding that if they wouldn't do something to let her go search for him. But it was no use. No one took her side, and there was no way she could take them all on. Kyle was nothing more than a casualty of war to them. They were all too grateful she hadn't been hurt to see what a loss this was.
She felt as if a gaping hole had been ripped in her chest. Everything around her seemed too bright, too real. The world had become too harsh for her to take in. So she had closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. She had lost all hope this would all be a dream even though she wanted nothing more than to wake up and find herself back in Nora's house. Having things go back to normal would be better than this. Hating Kyle and not understanding all he had done and suffered to protect her would be better than not having him at all.
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