Bound (Bound Trilogy) (44 page)

I heard it again, once. It was distant and muffled, not speaking any words that I could understand, but hearing it again filled me with relief and longing. “Don’t forget me,” I whispered.

I paced the edges of the clearing, counting my footsteps and finding it impossible to keep track of the numbers. The dark path was still dull and shadowy and vaguely frightening, while the other path remained bright and inviting. It smelled good, too, like there might be a meadow just around that bend in the path, filled with warm sunlight and sweet peas and clover. Maybe strawberries. I stepped onto the path, intending to go just far enough to see, when a sound froze me where I stood.

“Rowan!”

The voice again. So close and so clear, coming from somewhere above me. I noticed my heartbeat. Had that been there before? Certainly not so loud or so fast. I knew that this was important. Rowan was my name, I was sure of that, but who did the voice belong to? I felt the memory becoming clearer, but still just out of reach.

“Rowan!” the voice called again, and everything came flooding back—the world I’d grown up in, my family, my past, magic, and pain, and a long journey. And…

“Aren!” My voice was far too quiet.  I cleared my throat, took a deep breath, and shouted again. “Aren!”

I kept yelling, not really aware of what I was saying, desperate to be heard. A shadow passed over the clearing, and I looked up in time to see a winged shape gliding overhead, gone before I could wave my arms to attract attention.

Which way had he gone? Suddenly I couldn’t keep any of it straight in my mind. I ran to the river and shielded my eyes against the sun, searching the sky, seeing nothing.

“Rowan?” His voice was behind me now. I spun around to see him standing at the place where the dark path met the clearing. Almost. I almost saw him. He didn’t seem real, and I could make out the shapes of the trees behind him. I stepped slowly toward him and halted a few steps away. I was in shadow there, and I could see him better without the sun in my eyes.

“I can hardly see you,” he said.

“I’m here.” My voice cracked again.

He held out a hand and I tried to take it. There was nothing there but warmth. Nothing I could hold on to. An empty pit opened inside of me. “Are you alive?” I asked. He certainly looked like a ghost.

He smiled. “Yes.”

Another thought occurred to me. “Am I?”

“So far,” he said. “I don’t know for how long, though. You’ve been gone for too long.”

“I thought so.” I took a long look around the clearing. “I want to go back with you.”

He looked behind him, listening for something. “This way,” he said. As I watched, he flickered out, then returned. “I don’t think I can stay here.”

“You’ve been in my dreams before.”

“I don’t think this is really a dream,” he said. “Not for you. Maybe that’s why I can’t see you properly.”

“Guess we’d better go then.” I wanted desperately to take his hand, but all we could do was walk beside one another, occasionally overlapping when we climbed over a fallen branch or dodged a boulder. He kept disappearing, and appeared less substantial every time he returned. A crashing noise grew louder as we stepped out of the forest onto unfamiliar, stony ground. I could barely see Aren in the bright sunlight.

He pointed out over the water. “That’s how I flew in.”

I stepped closer to the cliff. There was no way down. No path, no handholds, no boat at the bottom to carry me home, just rocks and crashing waves a terrifying distance below me. I stepped back. I’d always been afraid of heights.

When I turned toward Aren again, he was gone. I waited, but he didn’t reappear. I wondered whether he could still see or hear me, or if he was awake now, waiting for me to follow. I walked along the cliff, but everything around me stayed the same.

Ahead of me and behind me, the edge of the land stretched out in a straight line as far as I could see. Below me, that horrible drop to the rocks, the water, and waves that crashed so hard that the spray wet my skin. The path into the forest was still there, ready and waiting. I knew that I could go back, that the sweet-smelling path to the meadow would be there for me. But I also understood that while going that way would lead me to a beautiful place, maybe a better place, it would never lead me home. My body would die. I would never see Aren again.

I turned back toward the cliff. My heart slammed, and my stomach tried to climb into my throat.

I hope this
is
a dream.

I closed my eyes, leaned forward, and dived off of the edge.

At first it didn’t feel like falling, aside from the wind rushing into my face. The sound of the waves quickly grew louder, though, and nothing happened. I didn’t transform into a bird or a fish, the waves and the rocks didn’t disappear. The roaring beneath me only grew louder. I forced my eyes open and was faced with the unforgiving surface of a huge rock, so close that I could see the barnacles clinging to its cratered surface. I threw my arms around my head, knowing that it wouldn’t do any good.

The impact knocked the wind out of me, but was considerably softer than I’d expected. It didn’t even hurt, once I managed to draw a breath. The air didn’t smell like salt, but like air-dried laundry, and I felt warm again. My body was heavy, though, and it was a struggle to pull my arms away from my face, to drag them down over the soft, smooth surface my body rested on.

When I manage to force my eyelids open, I found myself in an unfamiliar room. Moonlight flooded in through a large window near the end of the bed. My neck was stiff, but I managed to turn my head to the left. Furniture—a sitting area with sofa and chair. A glass vase of flowers and a teapot on a low table in the middle. A bookshelf, too far away for me to be able to see what kind of books it held. Interesting, but not at all what I was looking for.

I took a deep breath and forced my head to turn the other way.

Aren lay beside me, still asleep. His breath was heavy, but uneven. Dreaming. Was he trying to get back to me? Or perhaps he’d made it back, and found that I had disappeared.

I only enjoyed the sight for a moment while I worked up a bit more strength, enough to try moving my fingers, to lift my hand to his face. His cheek felt rough under my fingers.

I lifted my head and slowly shifted my body toward his, every movement a little easier than the one before it. I thought I might cry. Instead, I leaned in and kissed him, brushing my lips gently over his, then pressing harder, not wanting to let go.

His eyes snapped open.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” I whispered. “What took you so long?”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Aren

“Rowan?”

She kissed me again, and laughed. She was back, no question—bright eyes, mischievous grin, and looking like she’d just wakened from nothing more than an incredibly restful nap.

I looked past her at the door that separated her room from Albion’s, waiting for it to open, but nothing happened. He didn’t know she was awake, or he was giving us a little more time. Either way, I would take it.

Rowan laid her head back down on the pillow, and I ran my fingers through her hair. She sighed and closed her eyes. I pulled my hand back, and her eyes blinked open. “Why did you stop?”

“I didn’t want you falling asleep again.”

She smiled. “For the first time in a long time, sleep is the last thing on my mind.” She touched my face again, brushing her thumb over my eyebrows, smoothing away the tension. “You look like you could use a little more, though.”

“Probably. But not now.” Her hands were still cold, but felt so good touching me.

“You can sleep,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I’d always thought heartache was a sentimental concept imagined by someone with no understanding of the human body and even less sense, but I was learning I’d been wrong. This hurt.

“I want to ask where we are, and what happened,” she said, and traced her fingers over my face, pausing over the faint scar on my chin that magic had yet to heal completely. “But I need to say something first. Back at our camp—”

“I’m sorry for all of that. For lying, for not trusting you to decide for yourself, trying to push you away. I—” I hesitated, searching for an excuse or a way to gloss it over, but there was none. “I was wrong.”

Her face broke into a warm smile. Perhaps she understood how difficult those words were for me. “I’m sorry, too,” she whispered. “I said some horrible things. I was just so angry. But I do love you. And I was coming back.”

“It’s okay to be angry.” I took her hand, and her fingers curled between mine. “Maybe not as often as I am, but sometimes. And I promise, no more lies. No more keeping information from you for your own good.”

“And maybe we’ll try to be more understanding of each other when we get it wrong.” She turned to look around the room, taking in everything that the moonlight revealed.

“Don’t let your curiosity kill you,” I said, and she laughed quietly.

“Is this Belleisle?” she asked, and I nodded. “And they’re letting you stay?” She sounded cautious, as though she knew she wasn’t going to get what she wanted this time.

“Well, for now. Just don’t talk too loudly. It’s temporary.” The door to Albion’s room opened wide enough to allow his fox face to peer into the room. “Never mind.”

“What?” Rowan turned toward the door, still moving slowly, and gasped. She pushed herself up to sit with her back against the pillows and watched the fox slink into the room. He leaped onto the bed, landing so lightly that he seemed to be made of air, and sat with his enormous tail wrapped around his black-gloved paws, head tilted to one side, watching Rowan.

He looked at me next. “Not yet, please,” I said, and he gave a little nod before turning back to Rowan.

“Rowan,” I said, “may I introduce Ernis Albion. My grandfather.” She looked from him to me in surprise, then back. “He and his wife have been caring for you. If I’m not mistaken, you’re to stay here while you recover. Perhaps longer, if your magic returns.” The fox nodded again. “They’ll teach you how to use it properly.”

“Oh,” she said, and held out one hand. The fox stepped closer and sniffed it. They looked into each other’s eyes, and I wondered whether he could read something in her that I couldn’t. He spun and bounced to the end of the bed, made a playful bow to us, and trotted out of the room.

“What was that all about?” Rowan asked.

“I was just about to tell you. I’m still not welcome here. I was able to stay as long as I might help bring you back, but no longer. You’re here now, which means my time is up.”

Anger flashed across her features. “But that’s so unfair!” she whispered. “I wouldn’t be here without you. You saved my life.” She pulled herself closer to me and curled up with her face pressed to my chest.

I traced circles on her back with my fingers, unsure how else to make her feel better. She didn’t move or speak, but I felt my shirt growing damp. I wondered whether she cried so much when I wasn’t around.

“We make a good team, you know,” I said.

“We do. So what am I supposed to do without you? I don’t even know these people.”

“I might point out that you didn’t know me a few weeks ago, either. They’re good people, Rowan. This is my fault, not theirs. They have students here, and they don’t want my kind of influence around them. Or around you, I suppose.”

I could tell she wanted to say something to that, but she seemed to change her mind and instead sat up and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her nightgown. “Is there no chance you can stay? Like with the merfolk?”

I remembered the hate in Emalda’s eyes when she looked at me. “No. If there’s any way I can come back to see you, I will, but it’s better for everyone if Severn knows I’m not here. Especially for you. These past few weeks, though… they’ve been amazing, in spite of the crazy parts.”

“The best.”

It wasn’t long before the day’s first light glowed in the window, followed all too quickly by a bright, clear sunrise, and a knock at the door. Albion entered, followed by Emalda, who carried a tray loaded with breakfast foods, a towel-wrapped teapot, and several labeled glass jars filled with dried leaves, berries, roots, and scraps of bark.

I stood and moved out of the way, and Emalda took over the space around the bed.

She smiled at Rowan, a warm, kind expression I hadn’t seen on her before. “Hello, my dear,” she said. “Welcome back.”

Rowan returned the smile, but she looked wary as her eyes searched Emalda’s. “Thank you. Aren tells me you’ve been taking excellent care of me.”

Emalda’s smile tightened at the sound of my name, then relaxed. “Well, it seems he’s done well too, hasn’t he?”

“I never would have found my way back without him.”

“Is that so?” Emalda glanced back at me. “I’m very glad. We were beginning to think you were lost forever. Are you hungry?”

Rowan’s stomach growled loud enough for everyone to hear, and she grimaced. “I think I might be,” she said, and Albion carried the tray of food over to the bed.

Emalda came toward me, her lips pressed together in a hard line.

“She’s out of danger now,” she said quietly. “I’ll do some tests after she’s eaten, see what she needs to get her strength back. It seems to me that she’s empty of magic right now. It might not come back, you know.” She looked up and stared straight into my eyes, challenging me. “Does that change your feelings or intentions toward her?”

“No. But it might change your son’s.”

She raised an eyebrow, then glanced over her shoulder and saw Rowan watching us. “Might we speak in private?”

Emalda started toward the other room, pausing at the bed to test the temperature of Rowan’s forehead. “Please eat. We’ll be back.”

The room Albion had slept in was much smaller and more plainly decorated than Rowan’s, with a desk beside the narrow bed and a door opening into the hall. “Extra student room,” Emalda said, and gestured for me to sit in a hard-backed chair. She stood looking out the window. “We have a problem.”

“I know, you need me to go. If I could just stay until she’s comfortable here—”