Page 29 of Bonds of Blood
“Let him go!” I shouted.
“Release him?” Baylor lifted his head imperiously, staring at me down the bridge of his nose. “As you wish, Prince Sylvain.”
Emerald chains tinkled as Baylor relinquished his hold on Lochlann’s leash — but not his mind. His skin and flesh fell away. No longer a man, fully an undine, Lochlann Wilde surged forth. In the tumult of crashing, raging water, his burbling voice uttered a single word.
“Die.”
Off to my side I barely caught the sight of something flashing in the air, pinging again and again. It was Satchel, zipping in and out of existence, wielding his needle like a rapier. Ember was fending him off as best as he could, panting and gasping as he narrowly avoided each of Satchel’s attacks.
We had similar struggles, then. It would take something strong and significant to untangle the mess that Baylor had made of their minds. I knew that the effort would need to come from within. Nothing that Ember nor I could do would work as well at breaking the spell.
“This isn’t who you are,” I said, voice hoarse as I strained to make myself heard over the roar of water.
This was the man I’d fallen for, specks of his very being spattering my face, threatening to flay the skin from my flesh. Was Lochlann’s water his blood? When droplets of him soaked into my hair, evaporated in time, would that mean that he’d lost some part of himself?
Had I lost him completely? Not only to the iron will of his father, but to this strange, watery form his body now took. Painful and stinging, this unending torrent of water striking at my eyes, making increasingly dangerous attempts to enter my mouth and my nostrils. Yet nothing could compare to the despair that stirred in my chest.
What if there was no turning back? What if he was locked into his undine body forever, chained to the dominance of his father’s power?
I grunted, pushing Locke away, my mind a jumble. What could I possibly do to stop him, to bring him back? Instead of my hand nudging at his chest, it passed entirely through the rushing silhouette of his liquid form. There was no trace of humanity in the churning of his waters. Even his mother had taken the shape of a woman when she’d first emerged from the Wispwell, screaming with sentient anger.
No. He was his mother’s son, and half human, still. If there was even one final drop of Lochlann’s consciousness within that raging whirlpool, I would find it. I would coax it out.
“Come back to me,” I said, sputtering and gritting my teeth against the violent lash of his waves. “Locke. It’s me, Sylvain. Return to me. Please.”
Baylor Wilde’s cold, derisive laughter rose above the froth. “It seems that my son’s foolish affection for sweetness and love extends to his eidolons as well. Fight for your life, princeling, before the elemental creature writhing in your arms ends it for you.”
“He was your son. Heisyour son.” I thrust my hand into the water, unaware of what I was even doing, what it was that I sought. Angry water scoured my fingers. “Let me reach you, Lochlann. Let me find you. Find yourself. Return to me. Please.”
Again the only answer was Baylor’s harsh laughter, followed by the thunder and crash of Lochlann’s waves. I steeled myself, fought to stand still even as the waters battered my body, threatened to pierce skin.
“We have so much left to do, you and I. So many things to see. Didn’t I promise, Lochlann? I’d show you all the shades of autumn, take you to see my court. Bruna, Namirah, Ember, they can all come, too. And Satchel. Sweet Satchel.”
A momentary weakening of the waves, the roiling no longer so violent. For the briefest second, the liquid reshaped into the roughest outline of a man. Just about his height. Just about his width. I placed my hand on his chest, no longer pushing him away, resting it there instead, despite feeling nothing but the constant flow of liquid.
“Return to me, Lochlann. Enough of this. I want you back. I need you home. I love you.”
Where the undine’s head would be, the water bent itself again, curved in all the right places, forming the sockets of eyes, a nose, an open mouth. The strange, primordial lips parted, uttering a single word.
“Sylvain?”
I gathered him into my arms, encouraged and heartened when the bulk of his body seemed to solidify, more gelatinous than liquid. Water fell from his head as his face — his true face — emerged from the swirling mass. When I kissed him, I tasted salt.
But I also tasted the warmth of him, the side of him that was indisputably human. Vital. Alive. Somewhere nearby, Baylor bellowed in anger, at last faced with his own imperfection, his weakness. Curious fingers threaded through my hair, pulled me closer. The crash of water slowed to a trickle as the undine receded and Lochlann returned.
His eyes flickered open. “Sylvain? I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head. “No time for that now. This is where we fight.”
He glared at his father.
“Yes. This is where it ends.”
16
I remembered water.I remembered being water, being within it. As small as a teardrop, as colossal as all the oceans combined, as every molecule of moisture that had ever existed on this planet.
Once I was a loving mother, birthing life itself from the warmth of my vast, darkened womb. Once I was a spiteful father, churning and raging and hurting all who dared to swim in my blood, to sail on my skin. I was giver and taker, creator and destroyer. I remembered salt and sorrow. I remembered froth and fury.
