Memory's Wake (29 page)

“I know. I was there.”

It was after she’d come back with that knife, shoplifted from somewhere. She looked at it like it was a thing of salvation. But when the man at the children’s home had come for her again, the knife mustn’t have helped, just as he had never helped. He didn’t know what happened. She came back bloody, badly beaten, blind with panic. She’d never been beaten before.

“You ran away from the home. I followed you. When I caught up, that man, Thayl, had you. Don’t even know what he was doing to you, but it looked bad and I… just pushed him.”

“Oh God, I saw that in my dream. But it wasn’t you. It was just a kid, some little boy.”

He pulled his lips inward
. She does remember me. Just some little boy.
“It was me. Years ago, don’t know how many. I don’t get it how you look the same still, but things are different here, all magic and stuff. There was no magic there, only stories of it.”

She shook her head at him, “I don’t remember anything else before waking up here a few days ago. We were somewhere different? A different world? What does that even mean? It wasn’t... hell?”

“Not hell. Just... our world.” He shifted his legs, moving back away from her into a crouch. His throat felt tight. She asked so many questions, and he struggled to make his words work. Mina wasn’t much for conversation. “I don’t know. We were there, then I was here. They’re different. The man grabbed me when I pushed him, pulled me back through his weird portal. You tried to catch me and we both fell. I lost my grip on you and you disappeared in the smoke.” He swallowed and licked his lips. Sometimes he used to worry that she had never come through at all, that he would never find her. “Then I was in that forest, with all these dead people all around. Thayl tried to use his hand on me, but some woman started yelling at him like he’d done something wrong and I ran off. Been in the forest since.”

“If you hadn’t followed me, hadn’t stopped Thayl…” Her voice broke.

“You ran off without your wallet. I was just taking it to you.” He reached into the folded leathers at the side of his hip and pulled the wallet out, worn and tattered, and handed it to her.

She peeled it open, running shivering fingers over the contents. “Oh. Is that my name?”

He nodded. “Sorry it’s dirty.”

“I- I don’t know yours.”

“Will.”

She reached out timidly for his arm and turned it over to show the wrist, holding hers up against it. Their wrists matched. Rough inked tattoos of the symbol for eternity with a swirl through the centre.

“Did them ourselves.”

“Weren’t you like, eight or something?”

“You were my best friend.” Will’s face heated. “And, kind of a bully.”

“I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I must be such a disappointment.”

Will shook his head, but couldn’t say what he wanted to; that she was the only thing from that world that he missed, after a while. Except maybe the internet. After he’d lost his parents, everything in that world seemed cruel except for her, no matter how tough she pretended to be. He knew she thought of him as a weedy younger brother, but he didn’t care as long as she let him hang out with her. He always figured he’d make it up to her one day.

“Was I happy there?” she asked.

A frown chilled his face, and he looked away with a vague shrug.

She pried herself off the muddy wall, rivulets of water streaming down into the space she left. “Will, I need to find Eloryn and Roen. Can you help me?”

Will stilled himself and listened. No more screams, no more gusting of dragon wings. The smell of blood still lingered, reaching them on a gentle wind.

Mina had left with the other sprites, back through the Veil to their homeland as they often did. There was no way to say how long they would be.

Until then, he could look after Memory.

He nodded, took her by the arms and swung her around onto his back. Memory’s muscles jumped and tensed when he took hold of her and he cursed internally. In his time spent with Mina and the fae, touching was so natural that he kept forgetting the rules of his and Memory’s once-upon-a-time friendship. He pursed his lips, waiting for retaliation, but she remained holding on.

He reached up for the strongest exposed tree roots, and began pulling himself up out of the gully with her holding tightly around his neck.

Roen slipped again. The increasing rain made the ground slick and his body burned.

His arm around Eloryn grew numb, his fingers locked in their grasp around her. His muscles screamed. He wasn’t strong enough to carry her, not like this, but he had to get farther away. The trees in the direction he’d taken were thin and leafless, not providing enough cover from the deadly creature if it flew above. His other arm was useless, dislocated, possibly with bones broken. He wished it was numb too.

He floundered further into the woods. Sweat mixed with the dripping rain, running down his hair into his eyes. It stung, blinding him. Barely able to move, he saw a darker shadow, a thicker trunk. He gritted his teeth and dropped down to his knees. Lowering his shoulder, he let Eloryn slip down onto a bed of fallen leaves. He looked the other way.

Roen half walked, half fell into the wide trunk of the oak that covered them, its leaves not yet dropped. His shoulder muscles spasmed and he held back a moan, pulling his knife from his belt and biting down on it. He placed his shoulder up against the lichen encrusted bark and breathed out through his teeth. Then he pushed.

He couldn’t believe it had been only a fortnight ago that he’d done this for the first time. He had become too complacent, too sure of his skills, too damn arrogant. The house guards at the estate he’d made a business call to heard him. They gathered secretly, silently, and surrounded him, cutting him off on the second floor. He’d jumped from a window, farther than he’d normally dare, before any of them could see his face. His shoulder tore then for the first time.

He’d relocated it himself before heading home. Somehow, his mother still knew, still saw the way he nursed it, and he had to lie to her even more. He remembered thinking that night that he could never live if anyone found out what he was, what he did. Now he knew there were worse things to lose.

If he’d never injured his shoulder, he would have picked a more challenging mark in Maerranton markets that day. He would never have met Eloryn. Lucky, his mother always told him; that was his blessing. If his
luck
hadn’t brought him to her, would she have fallen into the care of someone more capable? Someone who could have saved her from this?

Tears ran into his mouth, mixing with the taste of metal. He pushed harder, and heard the pop as his joint was forced back into place. His knees withered and he bit hard into the knife, knowing he couldn’t risk crying out, as much as he wanted to. He breathed through the pain.

Done, he pulled the knife from his mouth, absently noting the teeth marks, and forced himself to go back to Eloryn. He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to see, but some fool hope in him said there might still be time. Maybe he could save her.

Kneeling back beside her, Roen gently moved Eloryn’s limp arms off her chest. Seeing her now clearly, he choked.

He ran his fingers over her neck, feeling for a pulse. His hands hammered to the beat of his own heart: useless. He bent in close over her face. Her normally alabaster skin was icy white. The warmth of a weak breath met his cheek.

“El.” He frantically pulled his tattered shirt off his arms. Bundling the cloth, he held it against the torn flesh on her torso, trying to hold in her life. Blood welled up through the fabric, staining his hands. He tore strips off her skirt and tied them around her waist to pull closed the largest holes in her body.

Eloryn’s mouth opened as though in pain, and spluttering a deep breath, she opened her eyes. They were dim and moved slowly, taking in her surroundings. Her eyes flickered over his shirtless chest and a trace of color made it to her cheeks.

“By the… Don’t blush now, you haven’t enough blood.”

“Roen. Are you hurt? Where’s Mem?” Eloryn’s voice was the softest rasp of whisper.

Roen’s emotions caught in his throat. Memory. He saw her fragile body fall under Thayl’s deadly magic. No one could survive that. The Wizards’ Council members were captured, awaiting execution. Alward was dead too. They were alone, and there was no comfort he could give her but more lies. Before he could answer she began to fade again. Roen squeezed her gently.

“Please, stay awake,” he begged her. “Can you heal yourself, with your magic?”

Eloryn’s eyelids fluttered. Roen knew it was no use.

“I’m sorry I can’t… Is there nothing else I can do? Tell me what to do.” He brushed his hand over her forehead, under her hair, feeling it cold under his flushed skin.

“Please don’t leave me again,” Eloryn murmured.

“Never, Princess. Just don’t leave me.”

Eloryn stilled. Roen lifted her shoulders, pulling her up into his lap.

Roen cradled Eloryn’s body. He stared at her face, as still and silent as she, in too much pain to let tears fall. Hearing the sound of soft footsteps approaching he wrapped his hand around the hilt of his thin knife. His other arm remained around Eloryn. He barely looked up to see who approached.

“Roen! Oh God.” Memory came to a stop just in front of him. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

Roen tightened his hand around the knife hilt.

“It’s me,” she said, fighting the whine in her voice.

“It can’t be. I saw you fall,” he said.

“I’m fine. Tell me she’s not dead, please.” Memory moved closer, and he jumped in shock when she touched him, finally looking at her properly. He twitched again when he saw the tall shape of Will shadowing them. He pulled Eloryn’s body closer to him and looked to Memory with a skeptical frown.

“He helped me find you,” Memory said. “Roen, please, is she still alive?”

Roen’s head dropped. He laid Eloryn flat on the ground so Memory could see.

Memory suppressed a dry heave. The dragon had messed Eloryn up badly. It took her three times to build the courage to feel for a pulse, but when she did, she found one, slow and fading.

Memory looked up into Roen’s eyes. Red-rimmed, bloodshot, a question read in them clear for her to see. She nodded in slow motion.

“Do you think you can?” he asked.

No.
“Yes. I summoned a dragon. I can do the goddamned impossible.”