Water's Wrath (Air Awakens Series Book 4) (38 page)

T
HICK FURS WERE
piled atop Vhalla, and bandages were wound tight around her chest and shoulder. There was pain, but none too great, and sleep sat heavy upon the tops of her closed eyelids. She stirred in the hazy dawn she should not have been able to greet, pulled from sleep by the long fingers weaving themselves gently through her hair.

Aldrik stared down at her. A silent, relieved breath huffed across her face as a disbelieving smile crossed his mouth. His warm fingers stroked down to hold her cheek. He leaned forward.

It was a dream
. She had died and walked in the faraway lands.

His lips pressed firmly upon her forehead. They were hot and soft, and his breath ruffled her hair as his body shifted closer to hers beneath the blankets. It was too wonderful a feeling to be real.

She forced together her last memories.
The crystal caverns, the fruition of Victor’s plans, Aldrik’s rush to her side
. Vhalla inhaled sharply and felt an aching in her ribs. The wound that severed her from shoulder to chest, the wound he had foretold would kill her. Vhalla remembered the warmth of his body holding her as she slipped away from the land of the living.

“Vhalla,” he whispered, just barely audible. “How do you feel?”

“I’m dead, aren’t I?”

Death was fitting. It had been because of her foolishness that Victor accessed the Crystal Caverns. The taint would be unleashed upon the world once more. Men and beasts would be twisted into monsters in addition to whatever great powers Victor had so clearly gained. She regretted so many of her actions, but the greatest ache was knowing that she had brought death upon the world and would never have the chance to fix it.

“My Vhalla, open your eyes and look at me.” She obliged, trading her guilt for the visage of the crown prince. “You are not dead.”

“But I . . .” She moved her good arm, wincing at the lightest touch on the bandage over her shoulder. “How?”

“You gave me life once; I gave it back,” Aldrik breathed, nuzzling her neck lovingly.

“I don’t understand.” Vhalla frowned.

“Quiet.” Aldrik glanced across her. “Or else you will wake them up, and I will be forced to share you prematurely.”

“Them?” Vhalla asked. Her body was stiff and ached as she tried to lift her head. Fresh skin pulled taut under the bandages, and Vhalla was careful of her healing body.

It was a small room occupied by five others sleeping cramped upon the floor. On the other side of Aldrik, the feet of the ever-tall Jax poked out from under the blankets that he had effectively cocooned around his head. Elecia slept with her mouth open, her limbs spread wide and her breathing heavy. Cuddled closely to the woman and to Vhalla’s immediate left was a messy-haired man; words could not describe the immense relief that filled her at the sight of him.

However, huddled in the corner were two people that Vhalla had never expected to see: Za was propped up against the wall, the princess clutched tightly against her. Vhalla scowled, remembering the arrow that had been shot for her heart.

Aldrik’s arm tightened around her, and Vhalla allowed him to pull her back down onto the straw and woolen pallet that covered the floor. She looked to him in confusion.

“What happened?” she rephrased her demand, keeping her voice low. There was seemingly no possible explanation for how she was alive or in the company she now kept. Least of all the questions swirling through her head was where, exactly, they were.

Her eyes scanned the room once more. There was one window, though it did not appear to have glass. Shutters were pulled over it, which did little to keep out the icy cold. The walls were well made, but a rough construction of cut logs layered upon each other, with river clay packed between to keep out the draft. There was no ornamentation. Nothing showed the careful hand of a craftsman. Even the small table and wardrobe looked to be slightly off-level, the rough edges having been smoothed from the oil produced by the rubbing of fingertips over sandpaper.

“Grahm found Fritz after he saw you leaving with Victor.”

“But Victor—”

“As a Waterrunner, Grahm saw through the illusion,” Aldrik preempted her question. “Fritz got Elecia, who went to me.” His dark eyes glanced toward the corner, his voice dropping again. “They were unexpected and insistent additions.”

“But Sehra knows about the crystals,” Vhalla filled in logically.

Aldrik nodded, continuing. “When Victor left the caverns, he collapsed the entry, leaving us for dead. Luckily, Elecia was waiting with Jax and Fritz. Fritz could hide them with his own illusion, and Elecia managed to reopen the caverns.”

“But, how did I . . .” Vhalla could logic together the events that led Aldrik to the Crystal Caverns and how
he
managed to escape alive.
But he hadn’t had a wound from shoulder to chest
.

“You were weak, dying.”

“I was dead,” she corrected morbidly.

Aldrik didn’t argue that point. “Elecia couldn’t heal you; there wasn’t enough life left in you for her magic to mend. So I returned to you the life you gave me.”

“The Bond,” Vhalla breathed, realizing while his magic had been taken from her when the barrier fell, her magic had still lived on within him.

“It was enough, thank the Mother, for your body to accept her healing.” Aldrik’s hands were back to touching her, as though he needed to reaffirm each second that she was real.

“Aldrik, giving me back the magic I used to form the Bond with you could’ve killed you.” Vhalla gripped him with her good hand. “What were you thinking?”

“That I wouldn’t be able to face the world without you by my side.” The prince’s proclamation held no hesitation or thought beyond instinct. “Vhalla, I—” His words stuck. “I need you to know that how you are now has no bearing on what I feel for you.”

“How I am?” Vhalla repeated, the moment too serious to merit a parrot comment.

“Victor took all your magic. It blocked your Channel like an Eradication . . . The magic of the Bond was enough to give you a spark of life and get Elecia’s healing to take. But it was only a spark . . .”

“I’m a Commons now, aren’t I?” Aldrik’s pained expression told her everything.

There was a time when that was all she wanted, and now the knowledge threatened to crush her. She remembered the pull of Achel, of Victor using his magic as a Waterrunner combined with the crystals to steal her magic.
It was all gone
.

Panic welled up in her and threatened to burn her eyes. She wanted to scream and shout and rave like a lunatic. Her magic was gone and it now sat in the hands of the most wicked creature she’d ever met. The thing that had been the catalyst for so much in her life over the past two years had vanished as though it had never been there. It was so unfair.

Vhalla pressed her lips together and let the moment wash over her. She let the panic fizzle and die without being given life by escaping between her lips. Her heart shattered into pieces that would be put back together in a new shape. She had lost her magic. But she lived to fight another day.

“Victor—” Aldrik spat the word with an instant malice. “Victor took everything. That bastard stole your magic from you. Curse him, damn him, fu—”

“Aldrik.” Vhalla cut off his justified tirade. Nothing could be solved with his rage or her panic; all it would result in was waking everyone else. He conceded, the anger vanishing just with a look. “I understand. And you have yet to tell me, are you all right?”

“What?” Aldrik blinked.

“Are you all right?” She moved her own fingers to touch his beautifully high cheekbones. Her hands were now in further contrast to the flawless alabaster of his skin. She had raised and ugly scars covering her fingers, the skin stretched thin to the point of shining.
Burn scars from his fire
. “The Bond, the magic, when you gave it back, did it hurt you?”

“Vhalla.” His brow softened, and his eyes widened. “How, why,
why
do you worry for me when you have lost so much?”

She smiled softly into the morning chill. He didn’t understand the precious thing that still clutched her.

“Will my magic return?”

“Not without enough of your own magic to call to your Channel and activate it once more. Usually, it would take a Vessel. But, we never made one for you. The only ones you ever created were unintentional and sent to me, and that magic has been exhausted. I’m certain Victor had a hand in seeing that overlooked, I should have—”

She spoke again, stopping him before he fell back into anger and self-hating, “Then that’s that. And the Bond can never be reformed.”

Even if she still possessed her magic, that fact would likely remain true from what she now knew of Bonds. It was not worth their lives to try to rebuild it. Sorrow threatened to consumer her again and Vhalla vowed not to let it. The Bond may be gone, but he was still her prince. She did not need to feel his emotions magically to know he blamed himself when that was the last thing he should be doing.

“But I live,” she breathed in disbelief. “I live, and you live, because of you. Aldrik, you are amazing.”

“Aldrik,” came a sharp whisper. “Are you awake?”

“Yes, Elecia.”

“What’s the . . .” Fritz rubbed his eyes, sitting. He looked at Elecia first, but it only took half a second for his head to snap over to Vhalla’s and his eyes to become twice their normal size. “
Vhal!
”

With a straight arm, Fritz gave a shove to Aldrik’s shoulder to push him aside. Fritz’s hand fell across Vhalla’s stomach, his palm on her pallet. He was sitting next to her before the flurry of blankets had time to land across the room. Fritz completely ignored the offended scowl coming from the prince. His bright blue eyes were glued to hers.

“You’re alive!” Fritz almost shouted after a long moment of staring at her.

“You doubted me?” Elecia huffed in mock offense.

“I am.” Vhalla struggled to sit, scooting up under Fritz’s arm.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I just had an axe in my shoulder.” Vhalla brought her left hand across her chest, lightly massaging the bandages that lurked beneath the oversized shirt she wore.

“Sleeping beauty wakes.” Jax roused and sat up on the opposite side of Aldrik.

Vhalla’s eyes fell on the two Northern women in the corner. They had been woken by the commotion and regarded the Imperials with guarded attention. Vhalla’s lips pursed at Za. Vhalla knew that if Za posed a direct threat to her life, Aldrik would allow the archer nowhere near her. But that only made the woman’s presence all the more confusing.

“Let me see, Vhalla.” Elecia walked over. It was now Fritz’s turn to be unceremoniously shoved aside to make room for Elecia to access Vhalla’s chest.

“Yes, why don’t you take off your shirt and let us see?” Jax cocked his head to the side with a crooked grin. The action caused a cascade of perfectly straight black hair to slip over one shoulder and fall just below his pectorals.

“Jax,” Aldrik gave a low growl.

He smiled sweetly. “What, my prince?”

“You know what.”

“I don’t think I do.” Jax snickered.

“Boys.” Elecia clicked her tongue. “I was serious; I wish to check her. All of you, out.”

“
All
of us?” Fritz pouted. It was his turn to earn a warning—and slightly confused—stare from Aldrik.

Vhalla bit her bottom lip as she tried to hide a tiny grin, remembering her friend’s delicate hand in helping her wash up after Baldair’s death. The memory wiped any levity from her face fairly quickly. Like ice in her veins, the younger prince’s untimely demise sobered her.

“
All
of you, yes.” Elecia sighed and shook her head.

Aldrik stood, as if to lead by example. Vhalla was relieved when the two Northerners followed him as well.

“Now, off with the shirt,” Elecia demanded the second the last of them had vanished through the curtain that served as a door into the unknown room beyond. Vhalla blinked at the other woman, startled by her directness. “I know you’re hardly modest, and it’s nothing I, or the older girls, haven’t already seen.”

“Older girls?” Vhalla paused, halfway done with unbuttoning the front of the oversized shirt, a shirt she had never seen before. Her movements were still painfully slow.

“Fritz’s sisters,” Elecia elaborated. “After Aldrik was a reckless idiot and nearly killed himself giving you the magic back—”

“Nearly killed himself?”

“Yes.” Elecia scowled. “I will never forgive you for making him the reckless fool that he’s been.”

Vhalla had no retort.

“When I saw the mountain wall sliding to close up the caverns, I thought you all were dead. But, no, you were alive and, despite dodging fate once more, Aldrik was determined to save you. After Aldrik gave you the Bond magic back, he collapsed, and I could do
nothing
. The princess was equally spent doing . . . whatever she does with her Northern magic. We couldn’t ride back to the capital in such a condition,” Elecia’s words spilled out. “Luckily, Fritz could navigate us here. You were a bloody mess, more than anything I had ever tried to heal, and Aldrik wouldn’t wake for a whole day, leaving me to guess if he would ever wake again—I thought he was dead because of you!”

“Elecia . . . I’m sorry.” The other woman’s pain was sudden and intense.

“First, it was Baldair, and I couldn’t, I wasn’t fast enough to get there.” Elecia balled a fist in the blankets. “Then I thought I lost the man who has been like my brother. I shouldn’t forgive you!”

“You shouldn’t,” Vhalla whispered, looking down at her hands. “For Aldrik, and for Baldair. I couldn’t save him either.”

“Shut up,” Elecia said sharply. “Just shut up, I won’t tolerate you feeling sorry for yourself and moping around. Aldrik, god knows what will happen to him when he gets back to the capital,
if
we get back. After how he left, I have no idea what the Emperor will do.”

Vhalla stared at where Aldrik and the princess had departed.
What would the Emperor think?

Elecia started on her bandages in heavy silence. They fell away, and Vhalla followed the woman’s eyes to her chest. The moment softened as Elecia’s fingers fell on the hideous deformity that now marred Vhalla’s skin. “It’s going to stay.”