Forever.
Ever.
Ever.
Ever.
Chapter 6
RAFAEL
Ever
The girl sleeps for hours. Secured in my arms and rocked by the roll of Jinn’s easy canter, she is a dead weight against my chest.
We’re currently passing through the Valley of Light, a thin track that twists between the Dún Mountains’ black cliffs. Opaque walls of flat stone rise on either side, hulking ever-upward until they become impenetrable battlements lining the purple sky. Even to my jaded eyes, it is a spectacular sight and a shame the human misses it as she slumbers on.
Come to think of it, why should she sleep like a babe while I suffer the journey in wakeful exhaustion?
I give her a quick, sharp squeeze, my forearm contracting against her ribs.
“What?” she says, jolting awake.
“We will be at the Emerald Keep before long. Do you wish to sleep through our arrival? This land is mine, the Land of Five. Look around you.”
Yawning, she stretches against me as if I’m a comfortable chair. I dislike being used this way and shift backward to avoid her touch. As I do so, it occurs to me I barely feel the black poison as it creeps through my veins. The pain in my chest is minimal, too. The Lake of Spirits is indeed a miraculous cure, and I should make a point of swimming there more often. But no, the pain disappeared well before then, around the time I found the human.
Her head tips back, tucking under my chin as her gaze scales the bold black cliffs.
“Oh, wow. What is this place?”
“The Valley of Light. When we are clear of the mountains, we will be in Talamh Cúig.”
She snorts. “Valley of Light? Are you sure? I see a lot of black stone, some gloomy shadows, and the usual gray sky above, but not so much in the way of light.”
“It wasn’t always like this. Once, when the sun used to shine on this path, it was a sight to behold.”
“And the sun not shining… that’s your fault, isn’t it?”
A torrent of rain erupts from clouds and falls on our heads. My fault? How dare she?
“Stop that,” she says, shielding her head under the woolen coat. Instantly, the rain disappears. “I wasn’t trying to be rude. It’s just a fact, isn’t it? You control the weather somehow.”
“It’s not so much that I control it, but that we are linked. I cannot be bothered trying to control anything. I am as I am, and the air currents follow accordingly.”
“So, does that mean you can make it warm if you want, push the clouds away and let the sun shine?”
“Of course.”
“You say that a lot, you know. Of course,” she says affecting a deep, haughty voice.
“That’s because you are forever questioning my abilities, and I can do most things I set my mind to. Therefore, there is no other answer I can give you.”
“So humble,” she whispers, not comprehending I hear her slightest breath. Air is mine. I am air.
She glances over her shoulder, green eyes flashing with amusement. “Well, go on then, Never. Give us a beautiful sunny day.”
“As usual, you misunderstand. I just told you the weather is tied to my feelings. I would need to be exceedingly happy in order to clear the skies, which is impossible. Many years ago, when this was a sunny place, I was a different creature.”
A miracle occurs—she stays silent, possibly pondering my meaning.
Then, “Something must have happened to make you so gloomy. Either you weren’t loved by your parents or you lost the love of your life? Which was it?”
Partially the first. Certainly not the other. Never the other. I don’t have a breakable heart, merely a rotten one.
Murder and mayhem come to mind, chased quickly by sorrow and pain.
“I don’t wish to dwell on it.” Other than throwing my younger brother a few morsels, so far, I’ve divulged my inner thoughts to no one at court. I’m not about to start sharing confidences now with an annoying human prattler.
“Can you at least try to think of something happy? A memory perhaps? It would be amazing to be warm even for a few minutes. My clothes are damp. My bones are frozen. Do happy thoughts work?”
The eagerness in her jade-colored eyes flicks a switch inside me. I wish to flick it back but cannot.
“Sometimes they do. I suppose I can try it,” I hear myself say. I’m the monster in the shadows, suddenly transformed into a player in her dream. A nightmare. A story I no longer control. Why do I do her bidding when she asks?
Immediately, my mind is flung back to Mount Cúig; the doe has died, and the girl is singing. This should not be a happy or a pleasant thought. At the time, I felt only anger and shame. Even so, I’m there again, my pulse thundering in my ears as she somehow sings calm into a moment polluted with the struggle of death.
I remember the warmth unfurling in my chest and spreading to my gut, my head dizzy like I’d drunk an entire jug of the sweetest wine. And, now as Jinn steps out beyond the cliffs of the valley and the wide sky spreads above us, I let the feeling overtake me. Like hot butter dripping over golden apple cake, my muscles melt into a childhood memory of warm dirt and wild roses. A feeling of purity. Innocence.
And I stay there on the mountain with the dead doe because it is good.
I stay there with her because it is also good.
I dwell in this calm state because I like it.
Eyes closed, I concentrate on the warmth in my chest until, like a flash of lightning, sunshine explodes around the lowlands and blazes over our skin.
The human squeaks like an excited mouse and pushes back her sleeves, thrusting her short arms into the air. Balor frolics, running circles as he chases his tail. Jinn prances like a foal and shakes his braided mane. And I focus on melting every fiber of my body to keep the golden warmth around us for as long as possible.
Sunshine rays into the Valley of Light, and it transforms the path into a river of liquid silver.
“Look behind,” I whisper against her ear.
Laughter bubbles from her throat. “Oh! That’s amazing. Now its name makes total sense. Look what you did. Well done, Never!”
I swivel in the saddle once more and smile at the shining spectacle. When I turn back, the tallest spire of the Emerald Castle glitters in the distance, and cold seeps back into my stomach.
The sunlight flickers.
Her fingers dig into my thigh, an unpleasant feeling. “No, Never! Keep it going. Please. The warmth’s wonderful.”
“Don’t speak, then. I must concentrate.”
Telling myself I do this not for her, but for Jinn and Balor who revel in the change in temperature, I let her song weave through my mind again. With its haunting melody come more memories of childhood—traipsing through the countryside with my brothers, dogs bounding around us while we fished in streams and ignored the wood nymphs who strove to tempt us from our games. Even then, my older brother, Rain, could not ignore them for long.
“Look,” she cries. “There’s someone galloping toward us.”
In the distance, a white horse with a dark-haired rider move at speed from the direction of the city. Oh hell. This is not good.
“It is my younger brother,” I say.
“Oh, and is he as is horrible as you are?”