Page 23 of Her Blind Deception (The Dark Reflection #2)

Chapter Twenty-Three

I ’d seen nothing as terrifying as the chasm. Even standing far back from the edge, I could sense the emptiness of it, the endless space before me that would swallow me without a flicker of notice. I’d asked how deep it was and been told no one knew. A little voice that sounded like the Grand Paptich’s whispered in my memory, about the tear in the Yawn that reached into the Shadow Realm. Now that I was seeing the chasm with my own eyes, I couldn’t help but believe this was what all those stories had been about. That I was standing at the place a god had once fallen.

Elias beckoned me forward and I crept a little closer, breathless at the sight of the deep, thick black below, drowning even the high noonday sun.

‘I don’t see them.’ I hadn’t meant to whisper, but it seemed impossible not to.

‘Just wait,’ he replied, flashing me a grin and fixing his eyes over my shoulder where Goras was approaching. He strode past us and walked to the very edge of the chasm. It sent a thrill of fear through me just to watch him get so close.

Raising his hands to his mouth, he bellowed down into it, his voice echoing strangely. ‘Ignis!’

We waited in silence as his voice died away. Then the air started to quiver. Sound reverberated up the chasm, growing louder and louder. The sound of wings.

From out of the dark, a rush of shapes rose. They shot up and out of the chasm in a blast of wind that buffeted us, tearing at my hair as I craned my neck and hunched down, my instincts screaming to make myself small. There were a dozen, maybe more, sinewy bodies whirling above us, shrieking as they climbed into the sky and dove back down again. The sun glinted off scales in a rainbow of colours, from fiery orange to deep purple, as barbed tails flicked and twisted, and I was torn between the urge to run and a whole, gaping sense of awe as I watched them.

One of them hovered above us, wings beating steadily, and Goras backed away, giving the creature room to land. It touched down on two powerful hind legs, before falling forwards onto its wings. It shook itself, then stretched its head towards Goras on a long, slender neck. Goras stretched out a hand and it pressed its nose into his palm.

I wanted to move closer, that awe drawing me forward, but Elias put a cautioning hand on my arm.

‘They can be skittish. Move slowly,’ he said. I nodded, edging closer with careful steps. Goras was grinning at the creature—his bonded wyvern—with a smile far wider and warmer than I’d ever seen on him before. His whole face changed as he rubbed his hand up the creature’s neck .

‘This is Ignis,’ he said.

‘She’s incredible.’ I wanted to reach out and run my fingers over those smooth, shimmering scales, but I kept my hands behind my back, not wanting to offend her.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ I whispered as I watched a group of them soar overhead, awestruck. I wondered how it would feel to fly with them, to see the world recede beneath me. It gave me an ache of longing in my chest.

‘They live in a cave part of the way down the chasm,’ Goras explained. ‘There are a few hundred down there, but not all are open to linking with a rider.’

‘How do you know when they are?’

‘We’re brought out here after a gifting ceremony. The wyvern come and investigate, and sometimes our magic will resonate with theirs.’ He gestured to a mountain on the other side of the chasm, one that seemed to float in mid-air. ‘New riders live with their wyvern on Etherpeak for several months, taming and training them.’

Ignis flicked out a pair of frills around the sides of her head, and they fluttered back and forth. She made a low, trilling noise in the back of her throat, her eyes half closing.

‘She likes being rubbed here,’ Goras said fondly as he scratched between the leathery wings, where her back rose in two sharp spikes.

‘You don’t have a wyvern, do you Elias?’ I asked. He laughed, and I realised he had withdrawn to sit a distance away. He was sketching in the little book he always seemed to have on him.

‘I like my feet firmly on the ground, thank you,’ he said, glancing up from his page in a crooked half smile.

A gust of wind hit me as one of the wyverns swooped low, and a shudder of the ground behind me let me know they’d landed. Goras stiffened.

‘Don’t move,’ he said, his tone suddenly gruff. I did as I was told, freezing up.

‘Easy,’ he said, speaking to the creature over my shoulder, his hand held out in supplication. Elias half rose to his feet. Hot air blew at the back of my neck, stirring my hair. I shrank down as a nose nuzzled into my back, huffing air in and out, taking in my scent.

Slowly, Goras lowered his hand, a grin overcoming the worry on his face. ‘Are you seeing this?’

‘I am, but I still don’t know if I believe it,’ Elias replied, looking torn between worry and awe. The wyvern snorted, blasting me with a spray of wet against my back that soaked the tunic I was wearing. Slowly, I turned towards the creature. A pair of ice-blue eyes met mine.

‘Hello,’ I said. It cocked its head, as though to hear me better. Reaching out my hand, moving an inch at a time, I offered my palm for it to sniff. My heart felt too fast and large and warm as it leaned its head into my offered hand, letting me feel its smooth scales, the bristle of soft feathers. ‘What’s happening?’

‘He’s likes you,’ Goras replied, his tone disbelieving. The wyvern knelt, arching his magnificent head down towards the ground.

‘Now what’s happening?’ I asked, breathless.

‘He’s inviting you to ride.’

To ride. The word thrilled through me. I could ride this creature? I could fly? ‘What do I do?’

‘You have two choices. You accept. Or you run very fast. ’

‘Why would I need to run very fast?’

‘Because you’ll offend him if you say no.’

I’d have to be mad to say no. I edged towards his shoulder, expecting at any moment for him to turn his head and snap at me. ‘If I accept the invitation, what do I do?’

‘I’m told it’s similar to riding a horse,’ Elias offered.

‘There’s a spot between those barbs you can sit. Wedge your feet in beneath the wing joints,’ Goras instructed, still looking dazed.

Swallowing hard, I gripped the barbs at the wyvern’s shoulders. ‘Are you sure he won’t get angry?’

‘He’ll get angry if you take too long.’

‘Alright. Be brave. For once in your life,’ I muttered to myself, before I leaned my torso onto the creature’s back. He didn’t so much as flinch. Clumsily, I swung one of my legs up behind me and managed to sit on the wyvern’s back, the spines gripped in my palms. They were slippery. There was no way I’d be able to hang onto them.

‘How do--‘

My words ended in a scream as the wyvern leapt into the air. Wind rushed past me, deafening me, as we dove, plunging down into the chasm for a brief, heart-stopping moment of free fall. His wings snapped out and caught us, jolting me so violently that I slipped to the side and the only thing that kept me from falling was my grip on those spines.

We soared up, up, up, and my hair tore around my head as my scream was ripped out of my mouth. The wyvern angled his body, and we levelled out. I found my seat again, hauling my body back into position and wedging my feet around the wing joints to stop from slipping forward. The scream of fear became one of exhilaration. I was flying! The thought triggered a spasm of stress. What if I had a fit?! I tried to focus on breathing as my fear escalated. In. Out. In. Out. I was terrified of seeing an aura around my vision, a glowing warning that I was going to lose myself.

‘Can we go down? Please?’ I begged, tears in my voice. I didn’t know if the creature would understand me. I didn’t think it would. But what else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t get down without his cooperation. To my surprise, he angled himself down, and we descended, diving gently back towards the place where Goras and Elias were craning their heads towards us. We touched down lightly. I let out a breath, relieved, as I slipped back down to the ground.

‘Thank you,’ I whispered. The wyvern turned his nose to nuzzle me, before snapping his head toward a bird darting by. Without warning, he lunged back into the air and took off after the bird, buffeting me with wind as he went. A crushing sense of disappointment settled in my stomach.

‘I spoiled it, didn’t I?’ I said, my gaze still fixed on that miraculous creature who’d taken me into the sky.

‘Spoiled what?’ Elias asked from behind me.

‘The wyvern. He liked me, and offered me a ride, and I was too weak to keep going.’

‘Most people aren’t good on their first flight,’ Elias replied easily. ‘They faint or throw up. Sometimes they fall. He’ll be patient with you and you’ll learn.’.

I shot my gaze back to him in surprise. ‘Learn?’

‘We always need more riders,’ Goras said. ‘You have some catching up to do, but you’ll learn well enough when I teach you.’

‘You mean I can do it again? ’

‘He has picked you. He’ll expect it. Have you learned his name yet?’

A name sprung into my mind immediately, like it had been just waiting for the question to be asked. ‘Valoric,’ I whispered. Across the chasm, the wyvern swerved, turning back to look at me, like he was listening.

Goras nodded, unfolded his arms, and walked away without saying another word. He did that sometimes. Ended conversations without warning.

‘Come on,’ Elias said, waving me over. ‘Tan must have finished collecting stones by now. We’ll go find him.’

When we found Tanathil stretched out in the sun on a grassy riverbank, it took him a long time to believe our story about my flight. He kept shaking his head and laughing, waving Goras’s words away. When he finally realized it was the truth, I thought I saw a flicker of unease in his usually sunny expression, but it was gone so quickly I couldn’t be sure.

‘Why did you have Goras tell me if you wanted me to believe it?’ Tan said as he unpacked the basket of food we’d brought with us. ‘You know he tells jokes with the same expression that he uses when he’s delivering bad news.’

‘I don’t tell jokes,’ Goras grumbled, his face stony.

‘Exactly. I thought it was just a poor attempt at learning a new skill. It seemed more likely than a wyvern picking a human for a rider.’

‘Why do they pick some people and not others?’ I asked.

Goras twisted his mouth to one side as he cut the pit out of a furry, pink fruit. ‘We thought they liked one person’s magical signature over another’s.’

‘I guess we’ll need a new theory now,’ Tan said. ‘Given that you don’t have a lick of magic in you, sunshine.’ He said the words with a smile and an affectionate tone, but they still made my heart sink. I didn’t have magic. I wasn’t one of them. But if a wyvern had picked me… I didn’t follow the thought as I bit into a cake with a rich honey centre. I focused on the taste, swallowed down the question I had been trying to keep from asking ever since the Song circle. I already owed them so much. I couldn’t ask for more.

Glancing over at Elias, I noticed he was sketching again. He quickly flipped the book shut when he caught me looking and tucked it away.

‘What were you drawing?’ I asked as I licked the honey from my fingers.

‘Just whatever inspires me,’ he replied. I wished I had the courage to ask him to show me, but I didn’t.

‘Can we go back and see Valoric again before we go home?’

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Maybe we should talk to the Elders first.’

‘Oh.’ I dropped my gaze to the ground. ‘They won’t like it, will they?’ So what Goras had said about teaching me to ride would never happen. Elder Meira and most of the others from the mountain tops kept their distance, and even if they were never unkind to me, I knew they saw me as an outsider. When I was with my new friends, it was easy to forget that I was an intruder in their world. But every reminder that I didn’t belong struck with a clang, like a hammer against iron. That question bubbled up again. I wouldn’t ask it .

‘They’ll just want to be consulted first. We have to at least pretend we’ll listen to what they say,’ Elias replied, and I let the subject drop.

When the light turned dusky, we packed up and began the trek back home. Tan teased Goras as they walked ahead, trying to get him to tell a joke. His voice carried back in a constant buzz interspersed with the bigger man’s grumbling replies. Elias and I fell into step with each other. I stole furtive glances at him from the corner of my eye whenever I thought he wasn’t looking, just enjoying being near him. But beneath my pleasure in his company was a squirming worm of discontent. It whispered that I was an outsider, that I didn’t belong here any more than I’d belonged in the palace, that I was a nuisance who would be cast out when my month roaming among them was up.

‘Could I be given magic? Like the boy in the song circle was?’ The question had been beating against my breastbone ever since I’d seen the gifting ceremony, and it finally clambered out.

Elias was quiet for a long time, so long I thought he wouldn’t answer me. ‘No,’ he said finally.

My heart plummeted. ‘Oh,’ I said, feeling stupid. ‘Of course not.’

‘Not because you’re unworthy of it,’ he amended, seeming to read my mind. ‘Bonding humans with magic is forbidden.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s been done before.’ There was a tightness in his voice as he said this, and I shot another glance at him, but his face was carefully bland. ‘There’s something in humanity that makes it unpredictable. It manifests completely differently from the way it does with us. Remember how I told you it’s a sort of relationship, that magic lives with you but isn’t a part of you? That we can communicate with it?’

I nodded.

‘It’s not the same with humans. The connection is more chaotic, imperfect. The abilities that manifest are completely different, unbalanced in one area over another. Sometimes, they can be devastating. Sometimes, they destroy the person who received the gift.’

‘So it’s forbidden because you don’t know the outcome?’

‘The outcome is always disaster, in one way of another,’ he said firmly. ‘Elders past made mistakes in ever allowing it, and by the time they realised they had to put a stop to it, it was too late. Now every creature that lives in the Yawn is hunted for that magic that we refuse to give.’

I bit off the question I’d been about to ask as shame flushed my neck. Shame that overcame me every time I thought about what my people had done to theirs. At the Song Circle, when Elias had asked the Elders to allow me to stay, he’d said they shouldn’t judge me for the actions of my race.

I wondered if he would say the same thing if he ever learned that I was the crown princess.

We lapsed back into silence as we trekked through the valley, and I thought about what he’d said. There had been a part of me that had been stupidly hoping I could belong here the way they did, that I could really be one of them. But without magic, I’d always be a child in their social structure. Incapable of growing a home, or joining in Song, or working in the community when so much of their lives depended on the abilities magic gave.

Was magic really as dangerous to humans as he said ?

‘You’re quiet,’ Elias said as we drew closer to home. ‘Want to let me into your thoughts?’

I tried to figure out how to phrase them, to articulate the awe and the curiosity and the vast sense of inadequacy I felt here. I didn’t know how to say it without sounding ungrateful. I’d been tutored for years on the Brimordian provinces, the noble families, our neighbours and our allies, and yet there was an entire world in this valley that I’d never heard of, full of things I could never have imagined. An entire history I’d never known. ‘There’s so much I don’t know,’ I said slowly. ‘Every time I learn something new, I’m reminded of how ignorant I am.’

A trio of wishlights darted past overhead, drawn out of their slumber by the fading day.

‘You’re not ignorant,’ Elias said finally as we alighted on the path that would lead us over the river. ‘Not even close.’

‘How can you say that when you know how much I’ve had to learn while I’ve been here?’

Huffing a sigh, he stopped. I paused to look back at his folded arms and exasperated frown. The others drew on ahead without us, vanishing quickly around the bend.

‘Stop it,’ he said.

‘Stop what?’

‘Being so down on yourself. It’s hard to watch.’ There was an intensity in his expression, in the hard lines around his mouth.

I dropped my gaze. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, that’s not what I meant. I don’t want you to be sorry.’ He sighed again, and rubbed at his brow, like finding the words was hard.

‘I don’t want to frustrate you,’ I murmured, flushing with shame. ‘You’ve done so much for me.’

Without warning, he took my hand. I inhaled sharply, like his fingers were hot coals, and looked up. ‘Someone has taught you that you don’t deserve to take up space,’ he said. ‘And it wrecks me every time I see you shrink yourself down into some box you’ve been told you need to fit. Having things to learn doesn’t make you ignorant, and needing help doesn’t mean you owe me.’

‘I know. I should be stronger and—’

He placed a finger against my lips, stopping me from speaking. ‘I don’t want to hear another addition to the list of things you should be until you can acknowledge the things you are .’

I swallowed against the tide of emotion welling up in my throat. Gods, he was so beautiful, looking down at me with all that fierce warmth.

‘And in case you don’t know, you are vibrant,’ he continued, his voice softer. He eased his hand away from my lips, brushed up my jaw with the backs of his fingers. ‘And kind. And brave. And what you don’t know about this place is far less important than the fact that you want to learn.’

My heartbeat was a rapid flutter in my chest. I could hardly breathe. He lingered there and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. Was he going to kiss me? How badly I wished he wanted to kiss me. Even if I didn’t know how to do it, even if I worried that I’d be no good at it. I thought I’d die if I didn’t find out.

But he blew out a shaky breath, withdrawing his hand. ‘Come on. The others will wonder where we are.’

Disappointment was so bitter and icy, even if I had no right to be disappointed. I tried to scrape my heart up off the ground as he continued walking, feeding it with the words he’d spoken to bring it back to life. Vibrant , he’d called me. Brave . Such bold, lively words, conjuring a completely different girl in my mind than the one I thought I was. Someone more like Rhiandra than me. How I wished I had her confidence. She would have kissed him in that moment. She would have just decided that’s what she wanted and taken him for herself. I had to remind myself that I shouldn’t want to be anything like my stepmother, given what she’d done to me, but I couldn’t help it.

I was pulled from my thoughts when we rounded a corner and I caught sight of two figures standing together in the early evening gloom. One of them was Mae. Her eyes were bright with tears as a tall woman with dark, corkscrew curls stood before her, clasping her hands.

Elias stopped dead. ‘Orym,’ he said, and the two sprang apart. The dark-haired woman—Orym—turned on us. She blinked in surprise as she took me in, her sharp gaze slicing me up.

Subtly, Elias took a step in front of me. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘That’s a human,’ she said, flicking her attention to him. She had a low, husky voice.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he repeated firmly. ‘If you’re caught—’

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ Mae cut in, her tear-streaked face beseeching. ‘She won’t come back.’

Orym shot a look at Mae, her face softening as her shoulders slumped.

‘You never should have come in the first place,’ Mae whispered, shaking her head.

‘Come with me,’ Orym begged, taking Mae’s hand. The intimacy of the way she said it, of the way she stepped into the other woman’s space and touched her like she’d done it a thousand times before, made me drop my gaze, embarrassed to be caught watching them. ‘We’re going to turn the world over, Mae. He’s done everything he promised, everything we thought was impossible.’

‘Through violence,’ Mae replied, stepping away. ‘Through perverting the use of magic and shattering every value we have that makes us who we are.’

Orym jabbed a finger in my direction. ‘And that is your answer instead?!’

‘You need to go. Now. Before the patrols pass through,’ Elias warned, his voice harder now.

‘Please,’ Mae said quietly. ‘Don’t make me watch them catch you.’

Orym took a deep breath, caught Mae’s hand, and pulled her in, kissing her hard. Mae’s hands went to Orym’s face as she kissed her back, her eyes shut, tears streaming down her cheeks, her brow furrowed with grief. When they broke apart, Orym wiped at her own eyes as she pointed them to the ground, turning away from Mae like she couldn’t look at her again. She gave Elias a swift nod before brushing past us and disappearing back into the trees.

‘I didn’t know she was coming,’ Mae said, her voice choked.

‘I know,’ Elias replied, curling an arm around her shoulders. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that. I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask, but not while Mae was so devastated. We lead her away as I turned those questions over in my head. Orym was the name of the child the couple at Song had spoken of. Surely, this must be the same one. Had she joined the renegades Elder Meira had mentioned? What did Orym mean when she said they were going to turn the world over?

By the time we got Mae inside, her tears had dried up, and she was breathing more evenly. Daethie, one of the others who shared the dwelling, swayed to her feet from where she’d been sitting when she saw Mae. She wore her hair shorn shorter than any woman I’d ever seen, close to her scalp, and her eyes were impossibly large. She tilted her head as she fixed them on Mae, holding out a hand decorated with dozens of woven bracelets.

‘You taste of heartbreak, Mae,’ she said. Her voice was always quiet, but lyrical. She could sing like no one I’d ever heard. ‘Was Orym here?’ Mae nodded. Daethie took her hands and led her away, speaking to her softly as she did.

‘Who was that?’ I asked when they passed into the next room.

Elias leaned up against the smooth stone wall and crossed his legs at the ankles. ‘Orym used to live here. You’re in her old room, actually.’

I didn’t know how I felt about that. Something in me shied away from the idea that I was in the room of someone who Mae loved. Did she resent me for being there instead? ‘Why couldn’t she stay?’

‘Because she’s been cast out. Once you’re exiled from the Living Valley, there’s no coming back.’

That was… awful. I felt sympathy for Orym, even though she’d pointed at me with such accusation and called me that. ‘Who was she talking about? The one who perverted magic?’

‘That’s a question for another night,’ Elias said, pushing away from the wall. He offered me a crooked smile of apology. ‘I’m going to check the tombs before they’re closed up. Will you be alright?’

‘Of course,’ I replied, and he lingered for a moment, as though he was going to say something else, before he seemed to decide against it. As he left, questions kept rebounding around in my head, ringing with an echo of foreboding. Who had Orym been talking about? Who was he ? And what had he promised?