Chapter 10 10
Narnia's POV
Nyrand dragged me through hallways I didn’t recognize. Hidden passages behind tapestries. Narrow staircases twisting down into darkness. Behind us there was clamour in the castle. Screams. Shouts. The crash of breaking furniture. And then, underneath it all, that awful, inhuman roar that shook my bones.
Elias.
“More quickly,” Nyrand urged, his fingers around my wrist tight but not quite hurting. "We do not have much time."
"Where are we going?" I shrieked, tripping over my feet.
"Somewhere safe. somewhere where they can't find you."
He took me up into a little chapel which nestled itself into the oldest part of the fort. It was little more than a stone room, with wooden benches and a rudimentary altar. Only the moonlight Bornbay came in by one narrow window. Nyrand bodily thrust me in and banged to the door with heavy clang, as he shot the bolt.
“You must escape the stronghold tonight,” he repeated urgently, facing me. His black eyes were filled with terror. “The Guild will now kill you both.”
I stared at him, my mind reeling to comprehend. "Why would they execute me? I did not do anything."
They’ll accuse you of having cursed him,” Nyrand replied darkly. "They'll say you infected the king with wolf blood. They’re going to call you a witch, a demon, a monster. And they’ll burn you alive.”
The words felt like a punch in my throat. I leaned up against the cold stone wall trembling unsteadily on my legs. "But I did not curse him. I don't even know what became of him."
“Truth doesn’t matter,” Nyrand said. "Only what they believe."
He walked to the altar and started removing supplies stashed behind it. A satchel. A water skin. Purse with some coins that clinked. "I have been training for this. I knew something would happen. Beneath the fortress is a secret passage that opens into the forest. I can get you out, but we need to go now.”
Before I had the opportunity to answer, the chapel door blew inwards.
Wood splintered. The bolt tore free. And Elias was huffing into the doorway with blood on his torn clothes. He was far less altered than he had been in the hall, but still his features were wrong. His jaw was too wide. His hands tipped with claws. His gold eye blazed molten like metal.
Nyrand jumped forward in front of me with his back protecting me. "Your Majesty, please. You need to calm down."
Elias didn't even raise his eyes to him. His eyes were wild when they stared back at me, full of a force that sucked my breath in sharply. He moved forward a step, then another, advancing and stalking.
"What have you done to me?" he roared, his voice still gravelly and unhuman.
“Nothing,” I whispered, the wall flat against my back. “I swear to you, I haven’t done anything.”
He crossed the chapel in three long strides and seized me by the shoulders, pushing me against rock. Not violently. Not cruelly. But desperately, as though I were the only thing holding him to earth.
“I’ve a something in me that moves,” he said, his face close to mine. “Something he didn’t have before. It is alive. It is awake. It is trying to take over." His claws dug only a little into shoulder -- not enough to draw blood, but enough to keep me still. "What are you?"
My own wolf, Eira, surged to life in me. She had woke up all the way for the first time since I was captured. Fully present. And she was not afraid of him. She was straining toward him, acknowledging him, responding to him in a manner that defied logic.
"I'm not certain," I said truthfully, my voice hardly more than a whisper. “I don’t get what’s going on.”
Elias eyes fell again to my throat, his expression turning stormy. His gaze fell on the necklace Nyrand had sent to me weeks earlier. Something primal flickered onto his face. Jealousy. Possessiveness.
"He come visiting yer," Elias spoke in a snarl. "Giving you gifts." That golden eye flicked toward Nyrand, then back to me. "Has he touched you?"
The question was raw, tinged with something that could have been pain.
"No," I said quickly. "He has only been kind to me. He has helped me. That is all."
“Kind,” Elias echoed, his voice thick with derision. He glanced back at Nyrand, and I saw a rage smouldering in his eyes. You call this what? Kindness?"
Nyrand raised his hands slowly. You yourself must know that I am innocent, Your Majesty. All I've ever done is to try to keep her safe.
"From what?" Elias snarled. "From me?"
"From everyone," Nyrand said quietly. "Including yourself."
Elias glanced down at Cahill, then to me, and the rage in his gaze faded into something else. Anguish. Confusion. Desperation. “You have damned me,” he said, but it was more an appeal than an accusation. “You have made me do something I don’t know how to reverse.
“I haven’t cursed you," I whispered, and my heart was racing so fast I thought it was going to come bursting out of my chest. “I swear I did not do anything.”
"Then why?" His voice cracked. "How is it that I can't seem to get you out of my mind? Why do my body aches when you are far? Why is it that my skin is ripping apart from me unless I'm with you?"
Those words hung between us, thick and vulnerable. I looked at him through the sleeve curtain, short of breath, and seemed to see very strongly that I also felt like that. The gnawing pain in my chest even at the mere thought of him being married to Vaera. The peace I felt in my wolf whenever he was around. That weird, inexplicable pull that made me want to touch him even if he was my enemy.
"I do not know," I whispered.
Elias’s hands left my shoulders and took hold of my face. His claws snapped back a bit, once more gentle on her skin despite the feral look emitted in his eyes. "Then explain why my wolf knows you," he rasped. "Explain why you are called mate by it."
The word hit me like a bolt of lightning. Mate. The bond wolves had with one and only one other being in their lives. The link that could not be severed, could not be denied and certainly could not be explained.
But he was human. He was supposed to be human.
"That can't be," I whispered.
"I know," Elias said. "I know it is not possible. But I feel it anyway."
We were so near that I could see the silver flecks in his golden eye. I felt the warmth of his flesh. I heard it in his heartbeat, fast and irregular like mine.
"You don't make sense," I muttered.
“Nothing makes sense anymore,” Elias said. His thumb moved against my cheekbone; I shivered. "Nothing has been right since I got my hands on you."
Then he stepped into me and kissed me.
The world exploded.
It spread up through me like wildfire, burning and bright and overwhelming. Silver light exploded from my skin, blinding me so I had to close the eyelids of vision. The windows of the chapel splintered, and glass fell like rain around us. The air sizzled electric, and I heard Eira come alive within me, louder than she’d ever been.
My mind reeled with visions. I witnessed Elias turn with wilderwolfed features -- bulky, silverfur, gold and grey eyes glowing. My mother's image appeared to me, her white fur gleaming in the moonlight as she stood upon a cliff with her arms raised over her head. I watched a hunter with dark hair and ice blue eyes plunge a silver dagger into her chest. I heard She Who Swims Within the misty voice of ancient power, but she was speaking something I could not understand. A curse. A binding. A promise.
When the light died and the visions ceased, I pulled away from Elias so I could catch my breath. My entire body trembled. Eira was there, wide awake and patrolling my mind; she felt closer than I remembered her being in at least a few months.
“I know,” Elias breathed hard, his eyes wide with disbelief. There was nearly no trace left of his transformation. His claws were gone. His fangs had retracted. He was human again, save for that single golden eye, which burned like the sun.
"What was that?" he whispered.
I clutched my own chest and felt the racing of my heart under my hand. It hit me like an immense coat of undeniable, absolute truth. I turned to look at Elias – truly looked, and saw what I should have seen before.
"You are not a man," I whispered, looking at him in awe and disbelief. "You never were."
Elias shook his head. "That is impossible. I am the king. I'm the finest warrior in the Guild. I am—"
"A wolf," I broke in now, more strongly. You have been a wolf from the beginning, Elias. They just made you forget."
He looked at me, like he wasn't listening and then horror dawned on his face. And after that was silence, and out in the corridor I could hear footsteps receding. Many footsteps. The Guild was coming.