Page 16 of The Gargoyle’s Glade (The Gargoyle Knights #3)

Coltor

I ’d become one of the things I hated most.

A coward.

My thoughts had become consumed by Merry.

Even in my restless dreams she was there.

Only stone sleep was a reprieve, and there was only so much of that I could do.

I was plagued with figuring out how to prevent the fate I’d seen from happening, how to explain to her what I’d seen, and why I was acting the way I was.

Even broaching a conversation, a casual one, felt like a ridiculously daunting task.

Most of all, my thoughts circled around to apologizing to her.

Both for behaving in such a manner and for being so temperamental in general.

In an attempt at regaining focus, I’d immersed myself in the carvings.

At first, it was just a little hawk, something she might find cute.

Leaving it on her porch had seemed clever at the time, but it too was a cowardly way of escaping a conversation.

Now, she had as many wooden animals plaguing her cabin as real ones.

She’d seen them, I knew she had, because I’d been watching her from the shadows between the trees.

But she hadn’t touched any of them, nor taken them inside.

I couldn’t blame her for that reaction any more than I could keep myself from making more.

She had every reason to refuse to accept them and I couldn’t prevent my tendency to turn that rejection into a need to keep trying.

Then there were her trips through the portal to her new job. Hailon and I had crossed paths one morning and she’d explained with bright enthusiasm that Merry was working with Tap. It shouldn’t have, but that too irritated me.

Emry, at least, had returned to work, no worse for wear, just in time for the cabins to be completed aside from the interiors.

Somehow, despite the hammering going away, the glade had gotten louder—the wildlife had grown concerningly in number.

My teeth ached regularly from being clenched together so tightly, and I constantly felt on the edge of a complete breakdown. I hated it.

Unable to settle down after my rounds, I went to leave another carving on the porch, expecting that Merry had gone to the crossroads for the day.

Instead, I found Hailon and Merry cheerfully planting seeds.

A rush of emotions passed through me, feet frozen on the path.

As I watched them, my chest ached like I’d been the one to be impaled by a roof tile instead of Emry.

Tired of my own madness, I pocketed the wooden rabbit and used my wings to get me to the portal to avoid being seen by them. Feeling like there was a raging hornet’s nest in my gut, as I crossed the grounds at d’Arcan, and carried myself straight to Ophelia’s hut.

Her powerful wards weighed down on me like always, a sense of panic pressing in the moment I crossed into her part of the Dread Forest. The urge to turn back, to leave such a place, was insistent, but I knew it would pass.

A vision came across my mind so abruptly when I first touched down, I stumbled, falling to my knees in the dirt.

Ophelia, in her chair, her teacup shattered on the floor. This vision imparted the very insistent feeling that she was no longer in her physical body, that she’d abandoned this place for the next plane without so much as a farewell. I lurched to my feet and sprinted across the yard.

Heart pounding, I knocked on her door and waited.

When no response came, I knocked again. Concern grew as I saw that the blooms in her flower boxes were wilting and there was a layer of dirt and leaves accumulating on her stoop.

Despite the appearance of clutter inside, Ophelia was not one to let her home become unkempt.

I’d quickly learned that everything in her little dwelling was stacked with intention, piled up in a precise order.

She knew where everything was and why it was there, even if it made no sense to anyone else. Neglect and disorder were worrisome.

“Ophelia? Are you here?” I called, as if she would be anywhere else.

Fear gripped me for multiple reasons as I knocked on the door again. If I invited myself in, I could very abruptly end up in the afterlife. But if something was wrong with my kin, one of our elders in particular, and I just left… I’d never be able to forgive myself.

I tested the knob, and to my surprise, it turned with ease.

It occurred to me then that I had no idea whether or not Ophelia ever bolted her locks at all.

Anyone brave enough to come into the Dread Forest and not run screaming from her heavy warding and march straight up to her door might actually deserve to meet Ophelia face to face.

Not that they’d survive it necessarily, but they’d have earned it.

Bracing myself, I took a deep breath and pushed the heavy wooden door open.

Instead of the fresh-baked-bread smell that usually greeted me, or the heat from her oven, there was nothing but stale cool air and heavy silence.

“Ophelia?” I moved quickly through the kitchen to the living room, acid in my throat and a cold sweat prickling along my back.

My eyes took in the shelves, the table, the stacks of books and papers.

I went warm with relief as my eyes found her empty chair, nothing but the well-worn pillow and dented cushion right where it belonged.

Going into her bedroom felt like a violation, but I had no choice. I pushed the door open slightly, and a breath left me in a rush. She was tucked in tight under an old quilt, stone sleeping in the same position I imagined she’d take a regular nap in.

Relieved, I removed myself back to the main room and scribbled out a note for her, letting her know I’d checked on her and would likely be back to do so again.

I left the paper under the rabbit carving I still had tucked in my pocket on her coffee table, and fled the hut, taking flight as soon as possible to get out from under the oppressive wards.

As I made my way back toward Revalia, I calculated how many days it had been since I’d seen Ophelia last. If I had it right and she’d gone immediately to her rest that day, she’d been locked in stone sleep for five or six days.

Most of us only did multiple days if there was an extreme case of exhaustion or injury.

Ophelia was ancient, and I had no idea how frequently she might take a restorative stone sleep, but everything about this felt wrong somehow.

I scratched at my arms, unable to shake the sensation of something crawling around under my skin, the prickle of warning that had never once been wrong needling at my senses.

I’d ended up making a quick flight to the conclave to let Lovette know what I’d found at Ophelia’s hut, as my father was at the council building instead of d’Arcan.

My sister had given the same thoughtful silence and frown when I told her the number of days I suspected it had been since Ophelia went into her rest, but she promised to investigate where she could and let our father know if I didn’t see him before she did.

Confident I’d adequately reported my concerns to those with much more ability to do something about it than I could, I portaled back to the glade.

Weary to my bones, I shuffled along the path, preparing myself to be brave, to knock on Merry’s door and look her in the face even if it meant she slammed it in mine.

Like the coward I was, I manufactured a way to delay such a meeting and decided to venture past the new construction by the hot springs pools first.

The construction noise was gone, but the steady hum that followed the wildlife around got louder as I approached the pools.

One of the deer glanced up, and the birds scattered from the trees as I passed under the branches.

There were now white foxes and hares I was sure had traveled from somewhere cold, like Ravenglen or Vincara.

Strange deer with antlers unlike the type that was native here.

The local wildlife had been bad enough, but now they were coming from elsewhere?

I’d given up keeping track, as the numbers had grown so much in recent days, but I was doing my best to represent several of the new species with the carvings that kept my hands busy in the hours I couldn’t find other distractions.

I was grumbling to myself about the invasion when it was suddenly as though I’d swallowed hot coals. My chest ached and burned, my ribs sore with every breath. I clutched at myself, palm rubbing along the muscles, the gesture useless in relieving the burn.

My eyes passed over the collection of animals scattered around, searching for the object of their infatuation.

Through the fur and the feathers, lying on the stones among the wild flowers growing through the cracks, was Merry. I choked on the air, a gruff gasp rumbling through my throat and panic flooding my veins with ice.

Her positioning, the way her hand lay limply on the stone…

“Merry!” I shouted her name and lurched forward, the sound desperate as it reached my ears. The burn in my chest intensified as I grabbed at her wrist to check for a heartbeat.

She was bleary-eyed as she sat up violently, one arm swinging and the other dangling from my fingers.

I was oddly relieved that at least she had some defensive instincts.

The animals startled, several moving further away, feathers drifting on the breeze as she squinted and blinked, clearly trying to sort out what she was seeing. “Coltor?”

“What are you doing out here? Are you hurt?” My instincts screamed at me to grab her up, take her to her cabin, get her inside, and make her safe. I shook with the effort to contain that need as she ran a hand over her body, verifying she was in one piece.

“I’m fine. I… fell asleep after sitting in the water for a while.” Her hair was still damp now that I was looking, the color darker and her curls more pronounced.

She frowned, rubbing her free hand across her chest. Her eyes drifted from my face to my hand, and I released her.

After a moment, I cautiously reached out to help her to her feet.

Relief had washed away the bitter taste of fear, but I was still reeling.

Twice in a day was too damn much for things like this.

It was like the universe was testing me, having a laugh at my expense.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” I grumbled.

She dusted off the back of her skirts with her hands. “Looks like I did that to you first, so we’re even.”

I nodded and we stood there for a long moment, not speaking, glancing around awkwardly.

“Listen, Merry, I?—”

“Coltor about the?—”

We both tried to speak at once, starting and stopping at the same time before she broke the tension altogether by laughing at me. She started toward her cabin, the animals scattering then forming a tight wall around her. I hesitated so long I was effectively blocked out.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Come on then. You can bring all those carvings inside for me, then apologize properly over a bite to eat.” Merry stopped, finding me still standing where she’d left me, too stunned to move.

“You have been practicing some kind of apology, haven’t you?

” the smirk on her mouth, the way her eyebrow lifted in challenge did something to every bit of my ability to think clearly as all the blood in my head fled south.

Finally, I managed a nod. “Good.” She spun, marching down the path with authority.

I ached for this woman.

After a long, noisy beat with animals of all kinds squawking and chattering around me, I made my body move and followed along behind her, a wholly different possible future, one that had nothing to do with my gift, playing behind my eyes.