There was nothing.
My skin was just as pale and soft as it had ever been, but the burn of his touch still stung so badly that involuntary tears welled up in my eyes and spilled over my lashes.
“Your fingers…they felt like razors cutting into my skin,” I said turning to him as I spoke. His head was hanging down in defeat before I uttered my last word. Something was really wrong.
The pain was beginning to lessen. I ran my fingers over the very spot where he had touched me, unable to believe nothing was there.
Dayne turned and left the little room. I followed him, still holding my cheek.
“Dayne? What’s wrong? What’s going on?” I was at his heels as we left the barn, begging him for some sort of answer.
He said nothing, and I found myself running along the gravel path behind him, trying to keep up with his pace.
He walked straight into the kitchen, down the massive wooden hallway lined with life sized portraits, and stopped when he stood in front of two full length mirrors at the end of the hall.
I stood back and watched him. He stepped in front of the first mirror, and the same reflection stared back at me that I had seen all day.
He took a giant step to the side and came face to face with a different reflection. In this second mirror he was younger, more youthful, and I immediately recognized the Dayne I had met when I first came to Clonlea.
How had I not noticed that his beard was beginning to grow fuller, darker over the past weeks? His curls had begun to straighten into waves, and a few grey hairs were curling into the mix. His eyes were tired looking with wrinkles of worry webbing over to his temples. He wasn’t a gross looking old man, but he certainly looked closer to 30 than he was supposed to be in this life.
My mouth hung open in shock as he walked back and forth between the two mirrors. Beautiful, youthful Dayne and older, tired Dayne took turns looking at me.
“What is this Dayne?” I finally asked.
“These mirrors show my people what we look like in the two worlds. This one is what we look like in LisTirna,” he said, as the mouth of young Dayne spoke to me. “This one is what we look like in this world,” he said as he took a step and landed in front of the other mirror and old Dayne’s eyes looked at me in worried defeat. “Sidhe use this when they come through, before they enter into the real world, so they can see themselves as humans will.”
“But what does it mean?”
“It means my power is fading, Faye. It means that I have to do something to regain my power, or I will continue to age like this until my years catch up with me.”
“But you’re still young in LisTirna?” I said as I looked at the image in the mirror.
“Everyone is young in LisTirna. It’s part of our magic.”
“So you mean you could go back to LisTirna and be young again?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“Because that is no longer my life.” He turned from the mirror and stormed down the hallway. I followed after him again, still unsure of what this all meant.
He walked to the fireplace, placed his hands on the mantle and rested his head on them in thought.
“When they see what is happening to me, they will make me leave.” His words were soft, almost as if he were afraid of the fate that awaited him.
“What happens then? What happens to us?”
“They will replace me, and I will have to go back to LisTirna or shift to an animal life until I regain my strength.”
His words knocked the wind out of my lungs and I sunk down to the chair that was by my side. I stared around the room, unable to focus on anything other than the thought that he was leaving me if we didn’t do something to stop it. My eyes rested on an enormous bronzed statue of a man carrying a young girl lifelessly in his arms - Fairy Art, Dayne had joked when I had first noticed it.
“You can just steal what you need like everyone else.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Of course I would have done anything at that point to save him—to save us— but even I knew how absurd what I suggested was. I cowered slightly against the back of the chair and waited for his response.
His body tensed and he shook his head almost before I was done.
“In theory, yes, but you know how I feel about that.” He didn’t look at me, staring instead at a portrait of two young children above the mantle.
I couldn’t believe I actually wanted Dayne to do the thing he despised most. It was selfish of me to even suggest it, but it was the first thing that popped into my mind. I had never thought about what I would do when this reality finally caught up to us. I didn’t want Dayne to steal anyone’s soul and go against everything he believed, but I also couldn’t lose him.
“Then shift forms. Change to Cotton.”
“I would have to live that entire life for it to do the trick. Are you ready to lose me for that long?” He paced back and forth and I immediately began shaking my head wildly. No, I certainly wasn’t ready to lose him for years.
“Then what will you do?”
“I used to challenge someone to an arm wrestling match and steal a little of the extra energy their struggle naturally pushed into me. But no one is fool enough to accept after I beat Burly Hugh.”
“Well, then, we’ll go to another town. We’ll find some pub where they don’t know you.” He turned to face me, and I walked forward into his arms, just as I had a hundred times in the last few weeks.
As soon as his arms closed around me, the same burn I had felt earlier in the barn wrapped me in a suffocating bear hug.
I pushed away from him with all my strength, throwing him back against the fireplace and myself against the chair a few feet away.
“Why does that keep happening?” I stared at him in confusion.
“Because you are everything I need. Young and innocent and pure.” His tone was so hungry I almost wished we had finished things on his kitchen table. His hands dragged down his face, repulsed by what he was saying. “My body needs the energy you possess, and I can do nothing to stop it. The pain paralyzes our victims so we can...” He hung his head down, holding it in his hands as he shook it back and forth with the realization of what this meant. “I can’t touch you, Faye. The pain you feel is my body doing what it must.”
I reached out a fingertip and touched the bare skin of his chest. It burned as if I had just touched a skillet frying on the stove. I jerked with the pain, instinctively pulling the finger away and sticking into my mouth to stop the burn.
I reached out again with a different finger, this time touching the cloth of his shirt. It didn’t hurt at first. However, as soon as my finger felt the solid heat of his body beneath the shirt, it sizzled with fire. It wasn’t as intense, but it was still pretty unpleasant.
Dayne watched me as I did this. His eyes followed my every move, clearly as injured by the pain as I was from the look of desperation pulling at his tired features.
I reached out a third time, going for his face.
In a second he was gone. I spun around and found him on the other side of the room.
“It isn’t going to go away, Faye.” He said as he began to pace.
“Well, we’ll make it. We’ll find a way,” I said, walking over to him.
“I need to think about his. You need to go home.” He shook his head and waved me away like an annoying fly.
It was the first time he had ever told me to leave. My heart sank when I heard his words and saw how easily he dismissed me.
“No,” I said quietly as I continued to watch him pace the room.
My response caught him off guard. He stopped and looked at me.
“It wasn’t a question, Faye. I can’t protect you anymore. If some Sidhe came through the portal right now, I wouldn’t be able to save you.”
My chest caved in, creating a hollow space in my core that I gasped to fill back up. As if floating along on feet that weren’t my own, I retreated to the window and gripp
ed one of the heavy velvet tasseled curtains that hung down to the floor in a shaky hand, trying to steady the swirling world around me. I looked out the window searching for a way to make this go away.
“I’m sorry, Faye.” I turned in time to see the room we were in disappear. He wrapped a blanket around me and took me in his arms.
The world went black.
A second later I was in my bed, writhing in the misery Dayne’s touch now brought my body. He was gone. I curled into a ball, trying to comfort myself like a little child. The hurt was excruciating, and Dayne wasn’t there to make it better. He was gone, and I was afraid my perfect life had left with him.
I knew I had magic in me, but it was unpracticed and not at all under my control. It was pointless to try and find him, to chase him and make him listen to me. I had to wait until he wanted me. So, I did the only thing a girl could.
I stayed curled on my bed and cried until the tears ran dry.
Rose was surprised to find me in bed when she made her way up to my room to deposit a fresh vase of flowers. I rolled over to face the wall when I heard the door open.
“Faye? I didn’t see you come in.” She lingered in the doorway and cocked her head to the side, trying to figure out what was going on with me. The memory of Dayne forcing me home brought a fresh wave of tears to my eyes. The physical pain was gone, but the emotional suffering of his rejection was more than I could bear.
She quickly deposited the vase on the mantle when she saw my body quake with the sobbing gasps of my grief.
“Oh, honey!” She exclaimed as she made her way over to me. “Is it Mr. Dayne?”
I nodded my head, my cheeks brushing against the cold wet pillowcase where my tears had pooled for the past few hours.
“Oh, sweetheart. Love has to break your heart at least once. That’s how you know it’s real. I’m sure you two will work things out. No relationship is perfect.” She began to rub my back soothingly, and I wished our relationship were as simple as she thought. If only she knew how far from simple things were.
I turned and curled my body into her. She stayed there and rubbed my back, played with my hair and tried her best to comfort me with stories of her failed loves before she met Phin.
I didn’t have an appetite for dinner. She brought me a cup of tea and said she would cover for me with Phin. “Men don’t need to know what we women go through for them,” she said to me with a wink. I loved her for understanding so easily.
I thought for sure he would come to me that night. I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and snuggled into the oversized chair in front of my open window and waited. I found myself jumping up to stare out the window whenever the breeze rustled through the trees and the leaves of Rose’s garden. But it wasn’t him.
That was the loneliest night of my life. Sitting, thinking, worrying, wishing things were different. Why had it all been given to me only be taken away in the blink of an eye? This wasn’t how I envisioned my fairytale ending. It was not supposed to break down like this.
When dawn began to break over the horizon, I knew he wasn’t coming, and I knew what I had to do to save us. I crumbled onto my bed and felt the emotionless tears of my exhausted body leak silently from my eyes to the cold cotton sheets.
“You feeling better?” Phin asked on the drive to work.
“Yeah, just some girl stuff,” I said, hiding my puffy eyes by looking out the window. I’d wrestled all night with my decision, but I couldn’t see any other way around it.
“I know, I know. Rose told me. My ears don’t need to hear that stuff!” Phin joked loudly before I finished speaking. He was driving one handed and rubbing his upper arm with the other hand.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” I poked my chin toward the arm he was massaging, quickly turning my head back to the window when he glanced away from the road ahead.
“My arm’s been giving me fits this morning,” he said, wincing with pain as he tried to rub the discomfort from his shoulder and upper arm.
“Did you sleep on it wrong?”
“Yeah. I must have,” he said and we continued on in silence.
I hadn’t dreaded going to Ennishlough so much since my second day at work when I was sure Dayne would fire me. I hadn’t spent a night without Dayne since he had saved me from death, and I hadn’t ever faced a day with so much uncertainty. Were things over between us? Was he already gone? Would I ever be able to live a life without him in it?
I knew the answer to the last question. That would be impossible, but I was hoping I was being a drama queen and that there was no need to even ask questions one and two.
When we arrived at an empty barn, the fear that I might not be over reacting settled into my bones.
A cold fear enveloped me when his tender good morning greetings only hung as memories in the dark shadows of an abandoned wash rack. He wasn’t waiting on me with LeSheen and Lisana like he had every morning before. My desperate sigh echoed down the darkened corridor of the barn. He wasn’t there.
Phin knew something was wrong, but thankfully, mercifully, he didn’t ask. He gave me a list of chores and kept me busy all day. At lunchtime we ate in silence. Phin still rubbed at his arm, and he grumbled about needing to get more sleep as I left the office to begin the second half of my day.
I was closing Sterling’s stall door when the sensation of Dayne’s proximity prickled along the length of my body. It was such a blissful feeling after an entire day of pain I was almost afraid to turn around. I was afraid what he would say to me.
My eyes blinked disbelievingly when I finally turned and saw him. He was worn and ragged, like he hadn’t slept in days. A week old beard covered his beautiful face that hadn’t been there yesterday. His hair hung in greasy strings, and the overstuffed bags under his eyes were the color of the dark cement under our feet.
I instinctively rushed to him, wanting to feel the comfort of his embrace once again, needing to hear the softness of his voice purring in my ear, telling me it would be okay. He disappeared as soon as he saw me move toward him.
A loud commotion rang out behind me and I turned in time to see him collide with a pitchfork leaning against the stall wall. He crashed down to the floor along with it, unable to hold himself up on his feet after traveling so quickly.
I looked at him lying there helplessly on the ground. I walked over and offered my hand to help him. He shook his head and instead reached out for a lead rope wrapped around the stall door and hauled himself up to his feet.
“It’s gotten worse?” I asked, already knowing the answer as I watched his chest heave with the labored breath his movement had caused. Dayne had officially run out of gas.
He nodded his head but said nothing. I took a deep breath and gulped it down, quieting myself before I made the ultimate sacrifice.
“Take me. I want you to have it,” I whispered, eyes closed, body leaned towards him, offering whatever it was I had that he so obviously needed. Would it hurt? Would I feel him borrow my breath or would his painful poison numb me to what he would do? The impossible decision had kept me up all night, but it was the only way. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t lose him.
This way, I reasoned, at least we could be together. Even if I would become some catatonic puppet, at least I would be with him.
He sucked air angrily through his teeth. A rush of wind wafted over me and I relished the warmth of his body so close to mine. My head fell back, and I closed my eyes, ready for him to take me. The delicious scent that I had come to know as Dayne filled my nostrils. I wanted to do this. I had to save us.
“I would die before I would destroy you,” he hissed. I had never known words could be filled with so much love and anger at the same time. Another puff of air and he was gone. I opened my eyes, a bit stunned that he had refused me. I had been so ready to make this sacrifice; I had never imagined he would refuse it.
“In here,” he called out from LeSheen’s stall. “I have an idea.” Dumbly, I shuffled to the stall, still reel
ing from his refusal, and closed the door behind us.
He shook his head when I looked at him. I’m not sure if it was disappointment of disbelief at the sacrifice I had been willing to make for us. I grimaced when he fell onto a hay bale, breathing heavily with the effort, but didn’t offer to help him. I knew he wouldn’t want it.
LeSheen ambled over to his master and poked his nose at Dayne’s chest, looking for a treat the way horses do. He squealed in pain and threw his great head high in the air when the agony of Dayne’s touch hit him squarely in the nose like a boxer’s right hook. Dayne’s body was so desperate for strength at that point even the beating heart of an animal would do. LeSheen snorted at the lingering effect of Dayne’s touch, and retreated to the far corner of his stall rubbing his sore muzzle along his strong white leg.
I noticed for the first time that Dayne wore the thick leather gloves he usually had on when he was mending fences.
“Does it help?” I asked pointing toward his gloves.
“A little. But it will continue to get worse the weaker I get,” he said as he turned his hands over and studied the gloves
“What’s your plan?” I asked as I looked at the gloved hands with a sinking feeling, knowing they could no longer protect me from the dangers of his world if he had to.
“There’s a boxing match scheduled for the town festival this weekend. If an arm wrestling match can recharge me, I’m sure a boxing ring spar will too. At least it would be enough to give us more time to figure out what to do.”
“No, you’ll get killed,” I said shaking my head. “I won’t let you.” Every man in Clonlea who had stupidly challenged Dayne to arm wrestle in the tavern wanted another shot at him, especially that huge beast Burly Hugh. If they came at him in his current condition, he would be beaten to a bloody pulp, fairy or not.
“You can’t really stop me,” he said arrogantly punching his chin in the air, knowing his pain was the only power he could rely on at this point. It was a new place for our relationship. I was pretty sure I was physically stronger than him right now, but with the touch of a fingertip he could inflict more pain than a Golden Glove boxer. “Even if I get knocked out by the first punch, there’s got to be enough power in that one blow to recharge me. That’s all I need, Faye, Just one powerful touch, and I should be back for a few days at least.”
Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods) Page 33