Out of the Mountain (51 page)

When another creature joined the fight, grabbing Rowan’s arm and knocking his blade away, I panicked. I tried to run to him, but I couldn’t get there in time. I had to save him, to save them all. I squeezed the staff, pushing all the power I had left in me through it and screamed as my magic exploded outward in a blinding light that filled the room. It all happened in a matter of seconds, and I was left in the dark.

I blinked, eyes blurry and unfocused, and began fighting to regain consciousness. I wasn’t in any pain. I felt almost as if I was floating. At first I couldn’t move, and I panicked when my toes didn’t respond to my brain. I tried my fingers, and when they twitched, I took a deep breath trying to calm myself.

“Vinnie!” I heard a sob break from Rowan’s throat from my bedside. His face appeared above mine and he blinked back tears from his eyes. His hands cupped the sides of my face as a multitude of emotions sped toward me, and I took in his appearance. Both his hair and beard were longer; his eyes were exhausted with dark circles under them. His face appeared hollower, sunken somehow as if he hadn’t been eating much for a while.

“Are you all right?” I tried to ask, but my voice cracked and my throat burned. The words were jumbled. I winced. He produced a cup of water from the table next to my bed and helped to prop me up. My body was slow and sluggish as if every extremity had been asleep and was just waking up. I felt painful prickles spreading throughout my body, and I tensed.

“Drink,” he growled, putting the cup up to my mouth. I complied and tried to take in my surroundings. I was in the infirmary.

“What happened?” I tried to ask, but he didn’t respond immediately. His eyes were fixed on me, taking in every inch as if afraid I might disappear. There was something visceral behind his eyes. He seemed off balance.

“You saved everyone,” I heard Farran say as he pulled the curtain aside and entered the makeshift room. Tears sprang to my eyes as I took him in: hair cropped short and skin a few shades paler than usual but healthy and alive.

“You survived!”

“As did you.” He grinned, pulling me into a fierce hug.

“What about the others? What happened?” I croaked, trying to remember the battle . . . the explosion of light.

“The staff, you restored it with your blood, and in turn it amplified your light. From what I have heard, there was a blinding flash, and when it dulled . . . you were on the floor, but so was everyone who had been overtaken by the Shade. You released them, and beyond that you healed everyone who was in the room. It was miraculous. You saved so many lives.”

“So no one died?” I asked, heart swelling with hope.

“All battles are followed with loss, and though you healed those who were not mortally injured, the dead stay dead, Vivi.”

“Who?”

“We can discuss it at a later time. You’ve only just awoken. I need to retrieve Seraphina—”

“Tell me now,” I growled, fear filling my gut. Rowan flinched at the sound, standing rigid at my side he glowered at Farran, who sighed disdainfully.

“I need to know,” I whispered, and he nodded.

“Twenty three deaths, not including those of the Six and our group.” He sighed, and I flinched. Twenty three lives lost and that was only the beginning.

“Of our group?” I prompted.

“Of the Six, Zoran and Orion. Of our group . . . Jonah, Finley, Tasmin, Marlowe, and Willa.” My stomach dropped. Grief filled me as Rowan pulled me to him. I could feel his anger at Farran flow, his worry for me overtaking all. I cried, confusion and guilt filling me because I was so happy that others had survived, that Rowan had.

“Do not feel sorry for the dead, Vivi, for they surely would feel sorrier for you and the hardships you have yet to face,” Farran said softly.

“You sound like a monk,” I tried to joke.

“Yes, well, I spent some time with them.” He smiled.

“How long was I out?” I asked, thinking of the first time I had used a burst of power and rendered myself unconscious. They shared looks before Farran finally spoke.

“Just over a month.” My heart stopped. A month! An entire month lost. What had happened in that time?

“Show me,” I said to Rowan. He stood rigid at my side as if at any moment Farran might jump at me and attack, which was absurd. I looked at Farran in confusion.

“Unfortunately he can’t show you anything. Much to our chagrin and warnings that if and when you woke up and found out how he had been acting, you would be pissed- He didn’t leave your side unless absolutely necessary. Even held his meetings with the guard here in the infirmary. He’s been an absolute nightmare to deal with,” Farran groaned, and I winced. I looked Rowan and the room over again and saw the evidence of a month spent by my side. Books were piled on a table, maps lying out, pins stuck here and there.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I complained, and he frowned. I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it.

“What’s done is done,” he grumbled.

“What’s done is never done,” Farran replied, but he ignored him.

“How did I survive a month like this?” I questioned aloud. No food or drink? Was I truly out the entire time?

“It was almost as if you were frozen in time. There was magic surrounding you, cocooning you, and preserving you. It was unlike anything any of us had ever seen before. We thought you would surely die, but a week passed and then two, then three, and nothing changed. You looked exactly the same. We weren’t sure if you would ever come out of it,” he admitted sadly.

“Come here then, Farran. Let me see.” I complained, and he complied. I placed my hands at his head and watched the month of my life I had missed play out.

The monks had helped him survive the night, pushing their magic into him to keep him alive to fulfill a purpose he had yet to discover. I saw him return, and I watched the guard fill him in on what had happened. I saw funerals and ceremonies dedicated to those who were lost. The novices of my group were inducted as guards for their services. I saw vigils held for my supposed sacrifice, the cleanup and rebuild that had already begun, and endless meetings on where to go from here. The rest of the group were alive and well, thrusting themselves into their work and helping to repair the security of those they swore to protect.

Narissa had been captured and was being kept in the cells below the city to await judgment. So far she hadn’t done much but mumble unintelligently. Her mind seemed to be broken. The king’s staff had disappeared with the explosion of light. No trace of it was found, and Farran had looked diligently. Farran had received word from his Fae contact that Kieran was still within Ambrosine’s lands, and something had gone wrong with the deal that they made upon his entry. The guard had been meeting, trying to figure out a plan of action to deal with Kieran and whatever objects he might manage to retrieve from the Fae realm.

Rowan had indeed been none too friendly with the others. His conflicted feelings raging just below the surface weren’t helped by the looks of pity he often received from the others. He had reverted to his short and gauche manner, his condition worsening by the day as I lay still, held by the output of all my magic. All in all, the kingdom was still roiling from the attacks and the losses they all had suffered at the hands of someone they had trusted, someone they had inadvertently put into power.

Seraphina came into the room and shared a glare with Rowan that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about. When her eyes met mine a smile split her face, dissipating the mounting tension.

“Finally! Now we can get this oaf out of our hair!” she grumbled, flinging a hand Rowan’s way. When a low growl escaped his throat, I frowned at him in shock.

“Behave yourself,” I complained, and he blinked at me, taking me in once again. I could see that he was balancing on a precarious edge. His emotions were everywhere. He couldn’t have slept in days and most definitely hadn’t been eating.

“Go get yourself cleaned up and fed,” I said, and the growl came out at me this time, eyes flashing. I gaped at him.

“Oh no, he didn’t,” I gasped at Farran, who shrugged as if to say, “This is what we have been dealing with.”

I grabbed him by the front of his rumpled shirt and held his eyes firmly to mine.

“Stop this. Control yourself.”

“I cannot leave your side.”

“You can and you will. Have you completely forgotten the deal we made? You’re supposed to be fitting in, not alienating yourself further.”

“I care nothing of the thoughts of others. You are my only concern.”

“Well, I care about the others. They matter to me.”

“You have no idea what it was like, watching you stuck like that and being unable to do anything to help.”

“I am looking at you right now and what I see certainly reflects that sentiment.”

“I am fine.”

“So am I.”

He stared at me, eyes narrowed, for a moment longer before his entire body relaxed. His head dropped forward, and he fell onto my lap in a heap. I put my hands into his hair and sighed my own relief.

“I need you to let Seraphina check me over so that we can leave here together. I’ll even let you carry me to my room if that’s what it takes. We both need to get ourselves cleaned up and fed before we have to face the others and deal with what is to come.”

“I thought I might lose you. I couldn’t reach your mind. It was like the most important part of myself had gone missing from me. That I would indeed be cursed into existence without you was more than I could bear.”

“You didn’t. I’m here.”

***

Clean, dressed, and feeling steadier on my feet by the minute, Rowan was feeding me dinner in my room. He too was refreshed, groomed, and back in pristine order. I could almost ignore the desperate look that was still behind his eyes. I allowed him to spoon the soup into my mouth out of both his insatiable need to take care of me and my need for him to get whatever this was out of his system, and to return to the man who was ever in control. I couldn’t face the others yet. I needed to wrap my head around all that had transpired since the battle. It was enough to know that they were alive and well for now. When I had had my fill, I motioned for him to stop and sat back. He froze as if unsure, and when he moved the spoon toward me again, I tensed.

“Unless you want to lose that hand, you will leave well enough alone and feed yourself,” I hissed, and he blinked a few times before sitting back and finally eating his own food. While he ate quietly, I tried to think about what I was going to do next. Newly crowned queen and useless—that’s exactly what I had been to these people.

Their worlds had just been rocked, loved ones wrenched away from them by force. They were trying to put back the pieces and little did they know that an even bigger evil was waiting just around the corner. What would Kieran do with the amulet? I didn’t know much of its power, but with his mother’s blood he could surely use it. What if he used it to take command over the Shuni? He would split apart families, friends . . . an entire nation. It was one thing to fight your loved ones when they were hidden behind another face, but how could you fight the people you knew and loved? I would never be able to fight Rowan, let alone Briony, Luca, or Malachi. There had to be something we could do to get to that amulet first. I wondered why he didn’t use the amulet when he had the chance before.

“It is not such an easy thing to wield the amulet of the Shuni king. It takes training and skills that are passed down . . . I suppose if he would have had many years with it, he could have warped it to his will like he did the staff, but Narissa would not have made it that easy for him. When it was taken from her, she lost some of the leverage she had against him. Farran was smart to hide it with Ambrosine,” Rowan rumbled, and I would have complained for the intrusion on my thoughts if what he had said hadn’t sounded so normal from him. Clearly my emotions and thoughts did help him as much as he had said. That was a heavy load to bear.

“I am sorry to be such a burden.”

“Stop it. You’re not,” I complained.

“I can tell you are lying.”

“That isn’t true. You’re just jumbling everything together. I am worried about you. I have never seen you so . . . uncontrolled, and I’ll admit it is unsettling,” I said, and he sat up straighter, eyes narrowing on me in a very Rowan-like gesture that pulled a grin to my lips.

“Time may have stilled for you, but for me it has marched on, and in your absence I lost myself.”

“You can’t do things like that. Think of how much more would be have been accomplished by now if you had been in top Rowan-form! This place would be back in order, running more smoothly than ever, and I wouldn’t have this mess to deal with,” I tried to joke, and he adverted his eyes guiltily.

“I took comfort in the idea that we were tied together so completely, if you were to die, I would have died, and I was happy with that. I was not OK with what happened. I have lived a long life, Vinnie, and it was like my own personal hell, stuck there with you . . . unable to move forward. I did not know if I could live without you, but I knew that I certainly could not die and leave you alone and unprotected either.” Fear, grief, pain, heartache deep and full smothered me as his thoughts washed over him. He kept looking at me as if I wasn’t real, as if this was all a dream and he was terrified to wake up from it. I did the first thing that came to my mind.

I smacked him hard and full on the jaw with so much force that his head snapped to the side, a welt appeared on his skin immediately, and he froze in disbelief.

“What was that?” he growled, turning on me, confusion filling him.

“Pull yourself together, Rowan! That pain, anger, and confusion you feel—this is real! I am real, and I am here!” I yelled at him in frustration, guilt already filling me at the sight of my handprint across his face. He stood in front of me, tall and imposing, and I tried not to slink away from him when I saw the predator behind his eyes.

“You are here,” he agreed before he pounced on me, knocking me back onto the bed. The tray I had been eating from clattered to the floor, dishes broke, and silverware clanked as he pinned me beneath him. Eyes glowing and heart pounding, he dropped his head to my collarbone and took a long full breath. He pinned my arms above my head in a crushing grip. It was almost uncomfortable . . . almost. I shivered as his nose skimmed the line of my jaw, and he planted a kiss on the pulse at my neck.