Page 38 of Duskbound (Esprithean Trilogy #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Light played out from beyond my eyelids. It was the first thing I registered. The second was the softness beneath me—unfamiliar but comfortable. Not my bed in the tower, nor the one in the Umbra lodging. My eyes shot open as panic clawed up my throat.

A piece of glass dangled from a string near me, causing patterns of muted rays to dance across rough-hewn logs, illuminating a small room with exposed wooden beams overhead. A stone fireplace was built into one wall, its hearth still warm with dying embers. My eyes traced the space, falling on a small table beside the bed.

It held various ointments and bandages, their herbal scent mixing with soap and woodsmoke. Everything about the space felt lived-in but sparse—a hunter's refuge perhaps.

Through a single window, I could see branches swaying in a gentle breeze, their leaves that strange, muted color that seemed to define everything in this realm. The isolation of the place struck me—no other buildings in sight, just dead wilderness stretching toward the gray horizon.

I was wearing an oversized white shirt that wasn't mine .

My heart still thundered as I tried to place where I was, who had?—

The sound of Vordr wings beating against wind drifted in from outside, followed by their distinctive neighs, and a shred of understanding tore through me.

"You're awake." Aether's voice came from the doorway.

My body sagged with relief for just a moment before memories flooded back—cold lips against my skin, the endless pull of them feeding, Valkan's dead eyes as he?—

I flinched involuntarily. Aether took a half-step forward before stopping himself, something flickering across his face as he registered my reaction. My gaze crept up to see him towering just a breath below the ceiling, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. His face had returned to that structured perfection, no sign of the cut or bruises I'd seen in Draxon.

"How long?" The words scraped against my throat, raw from disuse.

He held out his canteen. "Drink first."

The sight of it sent ice through my veins. I shook my head sharply, remembering metallic liquid flooding my mouth. Remembering his hand wrapped around my throat. How my back slammed into the wooden table.

A soft sigh escaped him as he settled into a chair across the room. His eyes fixed somewhere past my shoulder, deliberately avoiding direct contact.

"Two days," he said finally.

"Two days?" Panic surged through me as I swung my legs toward the floor. "The others—they're already back from the rip?—"

"Don't." His voice carried no real force. "What's done is done. Urkin knows we diverted. A few more hours won't change anything now."

My gaze fell to my arms, taking in the bandages wrapped around my wrists, my forearms, scattered across my skin in stark white patches. Horror coiled in my stomach as I remembered each cut, each blade slicing into me. The way their lips felt pressed against my flesh, leeching me. I twisted the sheet in my fingers.

When I finally looked up, Aether's posture was rigid, troubled. He was still staring past me, jaw clenched tight.

"Where are we?" I asked softly.

"A cabin, about half an hour from Ravenfell."

“Whose cabin?” My eyes darted across the space again.

“Mine. I built it years ago,” he said simply. “No one is supposed to know about it. However, I suppose Rethlyn does now.”

"Why didn't you just take me back to the city?"

He paused, his void burns growing darker. "I didn't want you to be overwhelmed when you woke up."

I nodded, my chest heavy with everything that had happened. The silence stretched between us, thick with unspoken words.

"Draxon will retaliate," I said quietly.

"I know." His eyes traced patterns on the floor, slowly sliding up to the wooden beams.

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know."

His gaze remained on the wall behind me, his brow furrowed with something I couldn't place. And he said nothing more.

Frustration gnawed at me. "Why won't you look at me?"

His head jerked slightly, gaze finally meeting mine before sliding down to my bandaged arms. The look in his eyes was pained, haunted and angry—a look I had never seen before, not on him. Finally, he shook his head, darkness bleeding from his void burns. "What they did to you..." His voice was strained, like he was fighting to contain something volatile. "I didn't get there fast enough."

"You should have gone back to Ravenfell."

His eyes went rigid. "And leave you behind? To those monsters?" He nearly shot up from his chair, rage flickering across his features.

"It's better than starting whatever is going to happen next. The Umbra can't fight two wars at the same time." I looked down at my hands. "I would have found a way to escape, eventually..." Even I didn't believe the words.

"We will find a way to handle it," Aether said, taking another deep breath.

"What will the Council think?" I asked, a lump forming in my throat.

"Draxon will need time to make their plans," he said. "They're not going to attack outright. And he's already lost most of their support."

"But what we did," I whispered, "it was an act of war."

"And I'd do it again," Aether growled, and my eyes found his once more. Heat rushed through me at his stare—dark and desperate. Longing. I found myself taking a shallow breath.

"They will come for all of us."

"They will. At some point."

Another silence fell, heavy with the weight of what we'd started. What we couldn't take back.

"How did you escape them?" The question had been nagging at me. "After the Vordr ran off?"

His jaw tightened slightly. "About twenty of them surrounded me in that clearing when I finally returned. I told Tryggar and Nihr to go—I didn't want his men to try and harm them." A shadow of something crossed his face. "I figured you'd already been taken, since you were gone and Valkan was nowhere in sight."

"You let them capture you?" My voice was laced with quiet shock.

"Seemed the quickest way to find you." His voice was carefully neutral. "Though I hadn't counted on them forcing that sleeping tonic down my throat. "

My stomach turned at the memory of metallic liquid. "How long were you out?"

"Hard to say. Woke up in their dungeons." His eyes fixed on some distant point through the window. "Found my way out." He cleared his throat and tilted his head to the side as if digesting a thought. Whatever he'd done to escape that cell, he clearly didn't want to discuss it.

"They tortured you," I said softly, noting the purple patches had disappeared from his neck.

"I’d hardly call it that." His lips quirked into something that wasn't quite a smile. “As soon as the drugs wore off, they found their branding irons lodged in their throats.”

Fire rushed through me, followed by a surge of rage that caught me off guard. My shadows responded instantly, pulsing outward as my vision tinged with darkness.

"Careful," Aether said, but there was something else in his voice now—something almost like wonder as he watched my shadows coil through the air. "Conserve your energy."

"They hurt you." The words came out like steel.

"They're dead now," he said it simply, but his eyes had turned sharp again. "All of them."

I forced my shadows back, trying to understand why his pain affected me so viscerally. Why the thought of them hurting him while he was defenseless made me want to tear the castle apart all over again.

"What exactly did you do to them?" The question had been burning in my mind since I woke. Even through the haze of what had happened, the memory was so vivid that it made dread settle in my gut. How the very air had cracked, how their bodies had twisted and broken without him laying a hand on them.

Aether's shoulders tensed, but he didn't turn to face me. "Does it matter? "

"You ripped them apart from the inside." The words were soft on my tongue. "I didn't even know that was possible."

His jaw tightened. "You're wondering why I never used it before." It wasn't a question. "In Sídhe."

"The thought crossed my mind."

He shifted in his chair, and for a moment I thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained. "Whatever I did... it's not something I can control. Not really." His fingers curled slightly against the armrest. "Once I start using it that way, it's hard to stop. And despite what you think about me, I don’t want to murder hundreds in the blink of an eye."

I studied his profile, noting how carefully still he held himself. Like he was containing something that wanted to break loose.

"But you did use it. For me."

"What I did in that chamber..." He looked away again, but not before I caught something dark flash across his face. "That wasn't a tactical choice. It wasn't strategic."

"Then what was it?"

He paused. "Seeing what they were doing—" His voice caught, and he had to take a breath before continuing. "I lost control. Completely. And that's exactly why I never let myself use it. Not like that."

I remembered the calmness in his voice as he'd torn them apart, how the very stones of the castle had groaned under the force of his rage. It should have terrified me. Instead, I felt something else entirely.

"We need to get back to Ravenfell," I finally said.

"You need to rest."

I shot him an irritated look. "We don't have time for that."

"We'll have to face Urkin once we're back. He's going to be furious." His voice carried an edge of concern. "I have no idea how he will handle our deviation. You need to gather your strength. "

"We need to tell him what we discovered about the siphon. About the King," I hissed.

"I already told you, he's not going to believe us without proof."

The silence that followed felt charged. I traced one of the bandages on my arm, remembering. "Valkan said something. When he was..." I couldn't finish the sentence.

Aether's jaw went rigid, his knuckles turning white, but he stayed silent.

"He said he wished he could open me up and spill my blood onto the land. That maybe that would restore the essence." I took a deep breath. "I'd never thought of something like that before."

His eyes locked onto me. "What are you trying to say?"

"Talon suggested that I create essence within me. I just wondered..." I shook my head, gathering courage. "What if I could transfer my essence to the land? What if I could imbue arcanite?" I peeked up at him.

"We don't have arcanite."

"What if we could get it?"

"How?"

"Riftdremar."

Aether leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "It was destroyed, Fia. You know this."

"But we don't know that all of the arcanite stores were destroyed. It's been over twenty years, for all we know, they just took what they needed and left the rest."

He sat back, deep in thought, eyes distant.

"You want to go to Riftdremar on another whim?"

"I was right about the siphon." I met his gaze. "Can't you try to start trusting me?"

He studied me for a few moments.

"I know it's not proof," I said into his silence. "Or the proof that will make Urkin believe us about the siphon. But it can buy us time. If we can start feeding essence back to the land, even in small amounts, wouldn't it be worth it?"

Aether sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. "You're sure you want to do this?"

"Time is our biggest enemy at the moment. Let's tackle that battle first."

"Time." He nodded, his face unreadable.

"Let's get back to the city." I pushed myself up, but the moment I put weight on my left ankle, pain shot through my leg where a deep cut remained. I stumbled, the room tilting dangerously.

Aether was there in an instant, his arms steadying me. But even after I found my balance, he didn't let go. The heat of him seeped through the thin shirt, and I became acutely aware of how close we were.

"I'm sorry," he said finally, his breath warm against my ear.

"It's not your fault." The words came out barely above a whisper as moisture formed in my eyes.

We stayed like that, neither moving away, and I realized it was the first time since entering this realm that I felt truly safe. The first time the constant weight in my chest had lifted, even just a little. I didn't know how long we stood there, but I knew that something had shifted between us—something I wasn't ready to name.