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Chapter twenty-eight

Freedom of Choice

I watched with increasing horror as the Shade whipped his shadows around the courtyard, pushing, shielding, and battling the worm. It wasn’t like the morning he’d fought the prince at the manor. His shadows weren’t as dark or thick as they’d been when the prince attacked us, or during the ballroom fight. Their reach wasn’t as far. Their lines seemed almost whispers as opposed to the ferocious and indefensible force of nature I’d come to know. In between attacks, the Shade was heaving deep breaths.

“Uncle Koll, what is happening?” I asked, turning my back on the king regent.

He was silent. I turned to him, but he was watching the Shade, his brow furrowed and his lips pressed tightly in unspoken words.

“Uncle Koll, why isn’t he fighting at full strength? He’s usually better than this.”

“He’s fighting with everything he has.” His voice was quiet, the acceptance a death knoll.

We watched as the worm bore down again, and the Shade ducked to the side. A shadow barely caught him, and his head whipped hard toward the ground .

“Why is he so much weaker now? The prince looks tired, but his magic is just as strong.”

Uncle Koll dragged a hand over his face. “Oh stars, he’ll hate me.”

“What is it?”

Jamison flitted overhead, hovering before me. “You did this. The master is suffering from half a bond.”

Half a… “What did you say?”

“When you came to us…he bonded himself to you to save your life.” Uncle Koll’s hand clasped my arm. “That’s why you can hear the creatures. That’s why the marking is distinct but seems to bother you. It’s incomplete.”

I touched my neck. “But I had the mark before I came to you.”

“Master said he’d seen you in the forest when you were trespassing. He noted your clumsiness even then.”

The Shade had been the forester…and he had caught me, placing his hand on my neck. That was our first touch, and though I’d had a tiny dot there before, it was when the mark had first expanded like a twisting bloom. It was, even now, a black whisp curling up and curling down—not full circles. Was the mark…if the Shade was the boy from my childhood…had it started forming then? But the Shade didn’t have a matching bond mark.

Jamison continued . “That’s why he’s weakening. It’s why he’s been limping. He continues to feed his magic into you, but there’s nothing going back into him. As I said, you are a leech.”

Cold flooded my chest. He’d bonded with me. “Why would he half-bond, and why didn’t he tell me?” And where was his bond mark?

“You’d have to ask him that. But if I were to guess, I’d say he was unwilling to steal any more of your freedom after you’d already sacrificed so much to others. He wants you utterly whole and unbound, as you told him you wished to be. He would rather die so you would be untethered—and therefore free to choose—than think you had to choose him against your will. Against your conscience.”

“He’s such a fool,” the bat hissed.

I whirled to watch this man—this idiot of a man—throw everything he had at the worm. The prince had been knocked off the tower, but he looked okay. He struggled to heave himself back from the battle scene; a soldier ran to pull him toward the wall. The Shade stood alone in the center. He knew he was weak and had gone anyway. I remembered him trying our various potions, but they must not have worked. He wasn’t weak because the earth was sick. He was weak because he was giving his strength to me. No wonder I had healed so quickly. And now, he was going to lose. I know what I want. The memory was as clear in my memory as if he were saying it again in my ear.

What did I want?

Bonded. Enslaved. That’s what a bond had always meant to me—a connection where, if you lost them, you lost everything. If you lost your partner, you lost your will to live and your will to love ever again. But that hadn’t been true for Uncle Koll.

“You said it was worth it?” I turned to him, searching his face for the answer. “To bond even though you lost her?”

“Every second with her is one that I would never exchange for anything in the world. My loss is great, because my love is greater, Aelia. Love is worth the risk.”

The Shade was willing to die for me. He knew how I felt about bonding. He knew the pain caused by my father and the loss of my mother. He knew the half-bond would save my life, but I hadn’t known fully what I was agreeing to. At that time, I wanted him to save me from everything, including death. He had acted. And now he stood alone, fighting off a creature he could never defeat by himself—one that, though blistered and angry, didn’t seem to be slowing in the least.

Galers fell as the worm’s tail slammed them to the side; yet the arrows kept missing its eyes, and the Shade fought on in the center of the hill. His shadows only reached treetop height, a fraction of his full power. They laced above him, shielding him and throwing what they could at the worm.

He glanced up to see me standing on the balcony before facing the worm again. “Aelia ,” the Shade panted. “ I think it’s time for you to run. I can’t stop him. You’ve got to go. Run to the coast.”

He sounded so hopeless, alarm burst through me. “ You have to come with me. I’m not going alone. We’ll evacuate the village and start over.”

“Of course not. You have Koll. You have a future. I have to keep you safe.” His voice was exhausted but firm.

Mine wavered. “ I need you alive. I need you with me.”

Another blast from the worm shoved the ball of shadows he had whipped around him deep into the cracked balcony, creating a round basin. As the shadows faded, the Shade’s head was low, and he rested on one knee, his hand raised above him.

“Koll, he’s going to die. How do I save him?”

The older man looked me over carefully. “Are you saving him because you are compelled by guilt or responsibility? By your need to help? Or are you saving him because you want him? A whole bond would strengthen his magic and give him a fighting chance, but don’t do that just because you want to help. Very few people have looked at him and wanted him for himself. Don’t save him just to disregard him like the others. Go to him because you care for him. Bond with him because you love him—and only for that reason.”

I had lived my whole life for other people, helping, serving, catering, fawning. I served my queen. I served my father. I bowed my head and curtsied and kept silent. I chose every outfit for someone else’s approval. I said yes to things I didn’t want and had never learned to say no. Now that I had found myself, I knew what I would do. I chose this. For me. My necklace sparked with a pulse of light.

Without another word, I bolted down the wall-less stairwell that wrapped outside the castle wall to the courtyard. The ground looked perilously far on the unsteady stones. King Regent Harold cried out but didn’t stop me with his galers. Bodies of creatures lined the patio, rocks and boulders littered the way, and I stumbled countless times, but I couldn’t slow down. I had to reach the Shade before the worm killed him. So I could tell him how I really felt. So I could complete what he had started.

He saw me sprinting across the rubble of the courtyard.

“Stop her!” the Shade cried to our minds.

“Aelia, no!” my father cried. He picked up his rate of shooting, trying to distract the worm as I worked my way to the center of the crumbled balcony. The Shade turned, and fury burned across his face. His shadows reached for me.

“Pull me to you!” I cried.

“I told you to run.”

I gestured at my body. “ And I listened! I’m running!”

“Blasted woman.” A whip of his hand brought the shadows around me. With a tug, they flew me to him. I wrapped my arms around his neck as the shadows writhed around us, guarding us, shielding us. A dense circle of darkness wrapped around us. A boom from above shoved us downward, the worm, presumably, beating us down. The shadows seemed to strengthen as the Shade gritted his teeth.

“Dayspring, you foolish creature.” The worm slammed into us again. The Shade winced; pain from that hit to his waning magic cut through me now that we were touching. “You have to get out of here. I can’t hold it back much longer. My magic—”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had bonded with me?”

His eyes flew wide, and as his focus faltered, a rock landed beside his feet. “Seriously? Now?” He glared toward the castle. “My uncle is a dead man.”

“Sure, yell at him and Jamison too. But why didn’t you tell me ?”

“Because I wanted you to be free to choose, free to leave, free to—” He raked a hand through his hair. “Free to love. If I told you, I knew you would return the bond because of some predetermined nonsense about being nice and helpful. You’d choose it for my sake. I wanted you to choose me because it’s what you wanted. We should have had so much time”—his breath hissed through his teeth—“but we’re here now, and I can’t beat this creature, nor woo it.” Of course, he’d tried to befriend it. “I’m going to let you go so you can be truly free, even free from this half-bond.” A half-bond that would break at his death.

“Would you choose it again?” I stroked a finger down his cheek, the tip of my finger following the lines of his lips.

“I would choose you and die here a thousand times to be with you for even a moment. Your brief stay has brought more light to my black heart than I ever thought possible. Why do you think I call you Dayspring? You are the sun, and I am a winter wasteland desperate for life.” He paused. “You are not my prisoner or my servant or some passing amusement, which is why you need to go, Aelia. Let me save you! The world needs your light.”

Hope glittered in my chest. “What’s your name?”

“What? Shea.”

I blinked twice. “That’s it? You’ll just tell it to me?”

“You never directly asked.” He chuckled. “It wasn’t much of a leap to my nickname, was it?” He smiled, that glorious half-hitched grin .

I giggled. It was an impossible, defiant giggle—despite the whirlwind of death and shadows around us. “Shea, I choose you—for me. Selfishly, greedily, demandingly. Because I love you. I say my most enthusiastic, heartfelt yes—to all of you.”

He gaped and pulled back slightly to argue. “Aelia—”

I pressed my fingertips across his lips. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

I leaned forward, threading my fingers through his locks. Then I pulled him down, crashing my lips into his. My hand rested on his chest, my fingertips touched his collarbone, and his heart thudded against my palm. His arms wrapped around me, one hand grazing my ribcage, the other gripping my hip, pulling me toward him. White light exploded between us as my necklace beamed. Heat ripped through my chest and burned its way around my heart. My soul sang. The mark on my neck tingled pleasantly. And when we finally pulled apart, the Sh—no, Shea—pulled up his sleeve and tugged on the top edge of his leather bracelet to reveal a swirl: two arms thinning as they spun once, twice around itself in a widening circle. His completed black bond mark. His fingers tickled my neck as he traced what must have been a similar pattern. So that’s where his mark was.

Brightness burst between us, but it wasn’t from my necklace alone anymore. Looking down, my hands glowed, my skin bright with its own light. Shea gaped. Hot white heat burst from two points in my back, streaking outward on either side like sunlight through storm clouds. I turned and saw impossible wings that arced behind me. I had magic. Light magic. I laughed.

Shea’s shadows, now as dark as night, contrasted like darkness around a candle flame. They reached forward, danced along the edge of the brightest beams, wrapped about my ankles, slid through my hair, and traced circles along my spine. His emotions, awe and contentment, flooded through me with the strong scent of forests in winter. The bond was complete. He was mine, and I was his, and no one would take him from me.

“The power of a full, heartfelt, powerful yes.” Shea smiled. “I knew it! When we played hide and seek as children, I swore you glowed in the dark! But then my stupid father and idiot brother and those ridiculous nobles drained you dry. You poured out yourself for others for so long, Dayspring.” He cackled. “Look at how amazing you are.”

A wrenching cry ripped through the wonder. The worm was pulling back. Its eyes clenched shut, and it whipped its head back and forth. Shea dropped his shadows to the ground to see what was happening and held my hand. My light burst brighter at the contact.

“Too bright. Too much light.” It wailed. “ Give me what’s mine, and I’ll go ,” the worm cried. What’s his? Shea looked behind us. His irritation vibrated under my skin.

The prince and a group of soldiers were closing in behind us, rallying for another fight. Shea pierced Leon with a glare. “What did you take?”

The prince shifted his grip on his pommel as he stood at the ready. “An egg.”

“An egg?!” Shea cried, the shadows boiling along the ground in wild waves at his agitation. “You stole an egg? Is it alive?”

“It is. We were going to study it and raise it…you know. For science. For the kingdom’s defense,” the prince replied weakly.

Rolling his eyes, Shea turned back to the worm. “We will give you your young,” he said. “Then will you leave?”

The worm swayed his head back and forth. “Stop destroying my home.”

Shea added, “She wants to know if you’ll stop digging.” Oh. She was a mother worm, of course.

“She has my word,” the prince cried back .

“Mine too!” The king regent had stepped forward to the edge of the broken balcony. “Leave us in peace, beast, and we will leave you to yours!” he shouted. The worm growled at the him, who stumbled back into his galers.

“Very well.” The worm held still, lowering her head until she lay not twelve feet from us, her uninjured eyes glaring at Shea as she waited. The rest of the creatures from the caverns held still as well. The cloudy sky was lightening by degrees. The badger stood atop of the wall with a long spyring leg dangling from its mouth. The crunching echoed in the stillness. As we waited, my glow settled slightly, still present but not blinding.

Several long moments later, a massive egg was rolled out from the stables by twelve soldiers, with several ropes holding it onto a wheeled platform. Pitch black, impenetrable shadows raced across the courtyard and lifted the massive object, waiting for the soldiers to drop the rope. Then the shadows delicately set it before the creature.

“For the mother worm. May you go in peace,” Shea said.

We stepped back as the worm lunged forward and grasped the egg as tenderly as a toothy-vortex ever could. “May you keep your word.” She rumbled as she dove back into her caverns. She screeched, apparently calling to her creepy minions, and they all fled back into the darkness.

Shadows billowed, stretching around the castle, looking for stragglers. They wrapped the entire castle and filled the courtyard. Soldiers shifted uncomfortably as they brushed by, but when no more monsters were found, the shadows retracted back to Shea. With a smile, his hand slipped along the small of my back, and he pulled me to him. The happiness in my chest bubbled up again, and my skin brightened by degrees. I felt a little sheepish—definitely uneasy with this new magic. Shea felt my discomfort and kissed my temple.

“Shine brightly, Dayspring. Don’t hold back. ”

I smiled, unable to restrain the shine now. Shea’s shadows traced the beams of light, thrilling and vibrating the very center of my soul. “Kiss me, Shea. Don’t hold back.”

Shea leaned down, his breath tickling against my lips.

“Wait.” I stopped him with a hand to his chest.

“Wait? What? Why?” Annoyance filtered through the bond.

I tugged on his collar. “You never said it.”

“Said what? Oh.” He planted a quick kiss on my lips, brightening the light around us. “I think you’re kind of okay.”

The Shade, a being of darkness and shadow, swept me backward in a glorious kiss. Our magic danced together—a beautiful mosaic of power—before he answered. “I love you, Dayspring. I have liked you since we were children, and I have loved you since you stumbled into my manor, and I will love and protect you forever. Every night needs day, every shadow is born from light, and every darkness needs a spark of hope.” Shea smiled. “You are my perfect match in every way.”

His lips met mine in a gentle fervor. Our emotions threaded together, woven in a contrasted tapestry of magic. My magic . His touch was gentle. Mine was not. I pulled him closer, wrapping my arms more tightly around his neck. I had chosen him, and I would never let him go. The clouds were thinning as the sun beamed at us from the horizon. We pulled apart, and a prickling discomfort made me fully aware of our audience.

Shea peered over my shoulder at Leon.

“Ready to talk to them?” I asked.

He grinned. “There’s a choice? Then no. Let’s make a run for it.”

I snorted even as I shook my head. It was time for him to come home and be acknowledged as a hero, or better yet, accepted as a son. Already, a great defense of my bonded partner rose within me. I had no idea what my—this light—my magic could do, but there was no way I would let them harm him ever again. He deserved their love, but today, I would settle for their gratitude—for saving their sorry, greedy lives.