Unchanged (18 page)

"It is doubtful."

Ahaziel seethed. "Stay away from her."

"She has found another. It is she who has betrayed you."

"She would never."

"She has, Ahaziel," Merko reported triumphantly. "Go see for yourself how fickle are the whims of humans. She led you to believe she loved you, yet she seeks her comfort in the arms of a human boy."

Half doubting, half fearful, Ahaziel strode away from Merko. He headed for the human town, breaking into a run. Concealed beyond the tree line, he circled the town, searching the faces of humans for the one so dear to him.

When he saw her, he realized Merko had spoken the truth. This did nothing to lessen Ahaziel's anger, for Olivia might have made different decisions had the water spirit not intervened. He did not blame her. Even now he imagined ways in which her new life could be abandoned for eternity with him. It would be easy if only he could speak with her. He watched her for days, however, and not once did she set foot in the forest. She scarcely ventured outdoors if she could help it.

Ahaziel felt the yew tugging at him from across the forest as if it sensed his newly fragile heart breaking with sorrow.

~

She could feel him watching. Watching from the trees, as he had been all week. She couldn't see him but she knew he was there.

Olivia felt her throat constrict as she sat by the window, folding sheets.
Don't cry now, you fool.
But she wanted to. She and Kennard had nothing like what Lionel had with Sophia. Those two would have a good marriage, while Olivia would spend life in misery.

Only yesterday she had brought up her idea of saving money and leaving town to Kennard. He had laughed and asked her where she wanted to go. She didn't have a definite answer.

"Why leave?" he'd asked sensibly. "Everything we need is right here."

Kennard did not love her any more than she loved him. Theirs was a smart, convenient marriage. Olivia held on to the memory of the day she'd spent with Ahaziel in the cave, especially at night with Kennard above her. That was when it seemed most elusive.

She had no right to feel upset, she knew. This was the life she'd chosen, a life where she took care of a house and a husband who kept sneaking out to meet someone else, thinking she didn't know. She had spurned Ahaziel because he was strange and unfamiliar. Perhaps evil. Even so, she hadn't realized how lost she would feel without his arms to hold her. It seemed too late to beg his forgiveness.

You did the right thing
. She kept trying to convince herself but never believed it.

~

The sky was a roiling mess of clouds. Thunder rumbled, shaking the walls of the house. The lightning was bright, blindingly blue. Olivia chewed her nails, staring fixedly into the forest. Kennard lounged by the fire and didn't ask her to join him.

"I have left something out in the storm," she heard herself say.

"What did you leave?"

"A . . . a basket of clothes. I should dry them by the fire."

Without waiting for Kennard to reply, Olivia flung open the door and started to dash out of the house. He got up quickly, though, and grabbed her arm to hold her back. "Let go!" she shrieked.

"You are
not
going out there," he said.

"You cannot stop me."

"I can. You are my
wife
."

Glaring at him murderously, Olivia twisted her arm. "As if you care about me," she spat. "Why not just let me go out in the storm? If you are lucky I'll get struck by lightning. Then you can marry Alette or some other girl in town."

"
We
are married. You should make the best of it as I have."

"I've no doubt how you have made the best of it, and no illusions you would let me do the same." Twisting her arm harder this time, she managed to get free. Her skin burned where he'd held it so tightly but she scarcely noticed. She could hear him shouting after her but she was already running for the forest. Half blind in the rain, she barely managed to dodge the trees and ignored tiny branches stinging her face. Water dripped off her eyelashes as she trudged forward through puddles and muck.

She had to see him.

Only when she stopped for a rest, leaning against the solid trunk of the nearest tree, did she realize she wasn't going to find him. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. It wasn't because of the storm. It was because she had not chosen him. She had not placed in him the faith he had placed in her. She hadn't loved him enough, and he knew it.

Still, she had to keep looking for him. She had to let him know she'd made a mistake.

A bolt of lightning suddenly struck somewhere nearby, so close Olivia screamed at the flash and stumbled backward, landing hard on the ground. She looked up and saw the lightning had caused a fire despite the heavy rainfall. She could see bits of flickering orange, just barely, through a haze of mist and the thick grouping of trees. The forest was huge and she had no reason to believe Ahaziel was in danger from the fire, yet she was more determined than ever not to go home, not until she knew he was safe.

Heaving herself up, she took a step in the direction of the fire. How close did she dare go to it?

"I would not do that," said a voice.

Olivia turned, expecting to see Ahaziel. For a moment she thought it
was
him, that dark figure slightly blurred by rain mist. Then the figure stepped forward, turning into Merko. Her heart fell and she felt an expression of dislike twist her features.

"Where is Ahaziel?"

"How should I know?"

With a sound of disgust, she turned her back on him. She heard him laugh and she began to walk forward once more, wanting to put the offensive sound behind her. She wouldn't get too close to the fire, she promised herself. She wouldn't put herself in danger. She would call his name and if he did not answer, she would leave. Go back to Kennard. Back to life in town. Even if the thought of doing so made her shudder, she would.

"Ahaziel!"

A hand slapped over her mouth, cutting her shout short. She bucked against Merko. "Stop fighting. You cannot go in the fire."

She bit his hand. "I am not leaving here until I know Ahaziel is safe."

"I will take you to him."

"No!"

He hoisted her over his shoulder as a deafening burst of thunder made the world tremble. Rain continued to surge down and Olivia's shouts for Ahaziel were lost in the din. She kicked at Merko and pounded on his back as he carried her, but her frantic struggles appeared to have no effect on him. She lost all sense of direction the farther he walked and the heavy rain did not help matters. The whole world was wet and gray. It was timeless.

Finally Merko slowed and Olivia twisted around, trying to see where he had taken her. They were standing at the top of a rise, a small cliff overlooking a part of the beach. The dirt and leaves of the forest sloped down to rock and sand, tall trees giving way to bushes and seaside plants. She did not recognize the place, but she remembered what Ahaziel had said about staying alive. He drowned people in the river, Merko drowned them in the ocean.

He was going to drown her now.

She screamed again and whipped her body back and forth. She fell and hit the ground, managing to scamper away only because Merko had already started to loosen his grip on her. But he was faster and caught her before she could find her feet. He grabbed her right arm and wrenched it as he pulled her back to him. A horrible, burning pain overtook her and she felt her knees giving way beneath her. Oh god, it hurt. She was sightless with agony.

"Olivia!"

The voice was familiar. She blinked, squinting through the rain, but all she could see was Merko looming above her. His eyes were wide and wholly black, his face devoid of emotion. He reached down and lifted her and for a moment she thought she'd be all right. But then she was weightless, her broken arm spiking with pain as it flailed uselessly at her side. Then she landed on the grouping of rocks below, just at the edge of the water. She was still, and oddly there was no pain. Just the sound of rain, and the ocean, and someone's angry, haunting screams.

~

Heedless of Merko's cruel laughter, Ahaziel scrambled down the cliff. His bare feet gripped the slippery rocks as he made his way to Olivia. She had to be breathing, she had to stop bleeding, but he already knew he was too late.

He knelt beside her and clutched her lifeless body in his arms. His face was naked with grief. "Olivia," he choked out. "Olivia, Livy, Livy, my Livy." His words dissolved into sobs. He rocked her back and forth, his body curled around her broken one. The rain beat on his back and the rocks bit into his knees. He could not bring himself to lift his face from her sopping hair.

"We will never be free of each other," he whispered into the darkened strands. "You do not realize what you have done to me. You must return here until we belong to each other. Until I no longer feel the pain you have wrought in me."

The ocean was not the place for her and he was grateful Merko had at least not managed to fling her that far. He stood, holding her to his aching chest, and began to trudge back to the forest. His feet bled on the rocks. He didn't stop until he was safely within the trees, pulpy ground soaking up the blood from his feet, the river calm and deep before him.

He searched for small but weighty stones, smooth with the ancient caress of water. He slipped them inside her sleeves. Kissing her cold lips, he placed her in the water and watched as her white skin disappeared beneath the silvery surface, her body sinking to the murky bottom.

The stones would anchor her so she would never get lost. She would always find her way back to him.

His heart ached whenever he thought about her. She filled him up like water. He knew the sound of her bones. Her exhale was his inhale. Her golden-white skin was his food. She was the worst thing, the most wonderful thing. He needed her.

All their years apart, denied each other's presence . . . His fingers burned with the yearning to touch her. Anticipation filled him with the most dreadful impulses. When he saw her, would he be so eager he'd squeeze bruises onto her skin, crush the bones in her wrist, smother her? He wanted her so badly he didn't know how to deal with such dangerous, destructive emotions. His feelings were so violent he was afraid he wouldn't know how to express them. But he wouldn't hurt her. Never.

Until he found her again he would be miserable and angry and sick. He could never rest until their love was without obstacle. Until she remembered how she had wronged him, wounded him, ruined him eternally.

Part V

(Lilly)

A Break in the Clouds

My arm hurt. That was the first thing I knew when I awoke. The next was fear.

I rose up off my aching arm and stood on tingling legs. My face was wet with snow that had melted on my skin, but I suspected tears, too. I didn't know how long I'd been lying there, though it must not have been long. It was still dark, the night dusted with crystalline whiteness. The world, devoid of sound or movement, seemed to have frozen. Everything slept. Even the wind rested.

I was alone.

"Ahaziel," I whispered. "Ahaziel, I'm so sorry."

I waited, hoping he might have heard me, somehow. But there were no answering footsteps, no breath of response. Perhaps he really had given up on me.

It's your own fault
, I reminded myself.
And Olivia's.

Nothing was chasing me any longer, if anything or anyone had been in the first place. I wasn’t bleeding, as I’d feared. I started walking, the sound of my footsteps swallowed quickly by the night's chill. I moved slowly because I had no idea where I wanted to go. Home sounded like the best option, but I couldn't remember where I was, how far I'd come from the party. I would walk until I came upon a road or some sort of landmark, and then I would head home. Once there, I would take a hot, hot bath and go to sleep and never, ever wake again.

I wished I could talk to Ahaziel.

I had treated him badly. Not just as myself, but as Olivia. She had led him on so it hurt all the more when she'd married Kennard. But I couldn't truly blame myself for her actions any more than I could blame Eve.

What about my life now, my current actions? I had hardly known Ahaziel, a stranger who'd appeared in my life without warning, who I'd spurned out of my own doubt and fear. I was leery, full of suspicion for strangers in a way Olivia wouldn't have been. Caution had been drummed into me since childhood. I hadn't meant to hurt Ahaziel when I'd kissed him and run. I must have confused him at the very least.

I tried to imagine the years he'd waited for me. He had loved Olivia and had seen her murdered. Decades had passed where he'd remained faithful, thinking of nothing but seeing her face again. My face. A girl might only dream of such devotion, yet it was my reality.

Could I love him with equal intensity? As Lilly, as myself, without the influence of Eve and Olivia's feelings? I had their experiences by which to judge him as well as my own. I wasn't sure enough had happened between us for me to fall in love with him, yet I couldn't deny the pull I felt in his direction or the powerful attraction he aroused in me. I blushed to think of it even now. The mere thought of him made my stomach drop and my breath come in short gasps. I couldn't stop imagining the kiss we had shared even though doing so made me shiver and clutch the sleeve of my sweater to my mouth.