Page 42 of Enthralled

A wave of homesickness crashes over me. It makes no sense, and yet how can I deny it? I was dragged into this world against my will, forced into a war for which I was wholly unprepared and hopelessly ill-equipped, all with the inevitability of doom hanging over my head. But I was happy here. I was full of drive and eagerness. Even when the days and nights of perpetual twilight bled together, and I was so weary I feared I would drop, I loved the sense of belonging. As though I’d finally found both home and purpose.

It wasn’t just the library, nor the work, nor even the people beside whom I labored. They were all important, yes, but . . . in the end it washim. Just him, him, always him, pushing me, prodding me, frustrating me. Driving me to the absolute brink of violence! Then a word, a look, a single gesture would set my heart dancing and my world ablaze. Because I belonged with him. Even when we both fought it with everything we had, even when that resistance made us enemies, that one truth remained.

“This way,” the Prince says, leading me across the empty floor, past the drafting table and my old desk. I cast a longing glance that way, wishing I could step into it, refamiliarize myself with its contents. The Prince continues doggedly forward, his footsteps determined if tottering, his breath labored. He staggers, and I grasp his arm, just preventing him from tumbling headlong.

“Please!” I place a hand on his bony spine. “You must stop. Rest in one of these chairs, catch your breath.”

He sighs and casts me a sideways glance from under his sparce brows. “It’s not safe out here. My office, however, is heavily warded. We can regroup there.”

He leads on, and I have no choice but to follow. I’ve never been to his office; it’s always been his private haven, one I’ve not dared intrude upon. I used to avoid it, sensing strongly that he fled there at times to get away from me. Sometimes the draw of our Fatebond was too great, and he could not bear my proximity. I felt it too. Of course, I did, though not as strongly, not without fae blood driving my senses wild. All I knew was that it felt safer at times not to breathe the same air as him . . . though any atmosphere he did not share always seemed thinner, less satisfying.

Deep shadows surround the doorway leading to his office, but none of them writhe with nightmare energy. The Prince fetches a key from his pocket and unlocks the door. It creaks when he pushes it open, and a strange frisson of magic ripples in the air along the doorframe. The wards he spoke of? I’m not sure. Something feels off about it, though I can’t say why. Apparently oblivious, the Prince steps through. He lights a little moonfire lantern and hangs it on a hook before calling back over his shoulder, “Shut the door behind you, Darling.”

I hesitate, peering into that space which has always been off-limits to me. It’s exactly what I would expect of Castien’s office—an untidy disaster, but with a sort of care in the chaos that leads one to suspect he knows exactly where each item is. A tall bookcase full of unwritten tomes lines one whole wall, a rolling ladder reaching to the highest shelves. Tall, pointed windows with diamond panes offer a splendid view of Vespre City spread out below.

With a little shiver, I step across the threshold. The hair on the back of my neck rises as I pass under the lintel; if I didn’t know better, I’d say it reminded me of passing through a Between Gate. But that doesn’t make any sense. Hastily I pull the door shut and turn the latch with a click.

I turn just in time to see the Prince bow over the desk. He looks ready to collapse. “Castien!” I leap to his side. One quivering hand grasps mine weakly, and he allows me to help him around to the tall, velvet stuffed chair. Sinking into it with a heavy sigh, he tips his haggard face back and breathes out through tattered lungs. “Not as spry as I once was,” he says and chuckles darkly.

I stare down at him, destroyed at the sight of his ruin. Of all the evils I’ve wrought through my stubbornness, my ignorance, my willful blindness, this is the worst. I want to sink to my knees, to let my head fall into his lap as I weep and beg his forgiveness. “What . . . what happened to you?” I ask instead in a whisper.

He opens one eye, peering up at me. His rotted lips twist, but his expression is strangely soft. “You, my dear, don’t look a day older than the last time I saw you.”

A knot tightens in my throat. “It’s been two days.”

He shakes his head and heaves another rattling sigh. “Not for me.” His eyes drop shut again, his features slack save for a tight line between his brows. Though I study him intently by moonfire light, I can find no trace of the beautiful man I once knew. It’s simply not there, not when his eyes are closed. He’s a wreck, a gross approximation of a living thing. Yet somehow my heart still calls to him, desperate and starved.

“When I made my daring dive through the collapsing gate,” he says at last, each word as labored as his breath, “it dumped me out in the middle of the Hinter Sea. Vespre was already cut loose and had disappeared from the horizon. I nearly perished swimming back to the shores of Noxaur. Since then, I’ve been searching the Hinter far and wide. Seven long turns of the cycle.”

My eyes widen. “Seven years have donethisto you?”

“What?” He cackles bitterly. “Am I not carrying my age well?”

My knees are weak. The nausea which has abated since my arrival in Vespre returns in a rush. I sink down on the edge of the desk, shaking. “I did this to you,” I whisper.

“Well, yes. But not intentionally, I trust.” He peers up at me again. Those terrible, beautiful eyes of his like knives to my soul. A claw-like hand, several fingers rotted away to stumps, moves as though to take mine, but he thinks better of it. Instead he folds both hands in his lap and blinks at me blandly. “It’s the Fatebond, you see. The moment you were beyond this world, I began to fade. That one stolen kiss before the collapsing gate did wonders for my restoration, but then you were gone again. Beyond the boundaries of Eledria. The fading set in once more and steadily ate away my life force every day, every night, every hour.”

Tears race down my cheeks. “How did you survive?” Memories of Lodírhal appear vividly in my mind’s eye. “Your father . . . he lasted only five years.”

“Ah, but you were not dead, my dear. So I could not die.” He grimaces, his gums black and gaping. “I admit, sometimes I wished I could. I may have even contemplated taking matters into my own hands . . . but then I would think of you out there in the farther worlds. You and the child you carried. I would wonder if you were both alive still, and if my death might affect you. One can never predict how the Fatebond will react. So I clung on. Day by day, hour by hour. Moment by bloody moment.” His grimace slowly twists into a smile. “Imagine my surprise when, mere hours ago, I suddenly heard your voice in my head, calling out my name. My true name.”

“You heard me?”

“Of course I heard you. I told you I would, didn’t I? And the power of your call led me straight here, straight to this damned island for which I’ve been searching all these damned years.”

I can’t even begin to guess how he managed to come so quickly, by what magic or what means. I can only look at him, both horrified by what he has become and humbled that, after everything I’ve done, he would still honor that vow, would speed across worlds and realities straight to my side, only to save me again from the monster of my own creation. To give me one more chance to fight, to survive, to atone for all I’ve done.

But what will it matter if, at the end of all my fighting and striving, I am to lose him?

“Castien,” I say softly, wishing he would look at me, wishing he would give me the relief of his beautiful eyes. Instead he sits so still, I could almost believe that desiccated form has already given up its last gasp of life. “Castien, what will become of you?”

“Oh,” he says, his brow puckering slightly, “not to worry, Darling. Now that I’m back in your lovely presence, I’ve already begun de-aging.”

“What?” I blink, unable to disguise my surprise. “You have?”

He laughs weakly. It’s nothing but a shade of the warm, bitter-chocolate laugh I know so well, the one that never failed to set my blood on fire. This laugh is cracked, sharp-edged, and grates on the ears. “Would you believe I looked significantly worse than this not two hours ago?” he wheezes. “Fewer teeth, less hair.”

I shake my head. It simply doesn’t seem possible. “Will you recover now that I’m here?”

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