I sat in the car outside the cottage in the dark. I had driven home with my thoughts in a tangle. On the one hand it would appear what I needed to do was pretty straightforward, if you looked at it unemotionally. Unemotional seemed to be eluding me though. I tried to think about it coldly, logically. If I got pregnant now, the child would be born in the autumn, I would have fulfilled the prophecy, as that’s what it appeared to be, and I could begin my mission to make Corvus forgive me. After all, I would have an eternity to do just that, if I chose an immortal life when the choice arose when I was twenty one. Except what if he never forgave me? Could I live forever without him? Maybe I would make a different choice after all, to live as a human ...and then what of my son? He would be part fae; he would share Corin’s powers, including his long life span.
Wouldn’t I want to live for him?
Apart from all of this, I was nineteen. I didn’t want to have a baby yet, it was madness, and then there was the little question of the key. I had to go into the underworld and return the key to Hekatê. I couldn’t go without Corvus because of the bond, a bond Corvus had assured me there was no way of breaking. We were tied together for eternity now and the likelihood of him wanting to still help me if I was carrying Corin’s child ... I didn’t need to think too hard about that one.
I felt the heat of fury building inside of me and let go of the steering wheel which I had been clutching with white knuckles, as my hands exploded into flames. I got out of the car, drawing in lungfuls of cold air and holding onto my anger. At least it was better than crying. Why did this happen to me, why was it that every time I got close to being happy everything went to hell?
“What do you want from me?” I yelled into the darkness, and felt my blood freeze in my veins as a deep, masculine laugh echoed through my mind. I had almost forgotten about him, about the man who spoke to me in my dreams, who said I belonged to him and that he was coming for me.
I was remembering fast.
I ran into the barn, away from the sound and blasted one of the stones that Corin had left with magic. It glowed, white hot, illuminating the darkness and giving off heat and I stepped closer to it, though nothing could warm the chill I was feeling. I wanted Corvus with a longing that constricted my chest and made it hard to breathe; I had to speak to him, to make him understand.
I sank down beside the heat of the rock, senses on alert for any sign of the man, the voice that terrified me more than anything else I was currently facing. I had to evade him at all costs. I didn’t know who he was or why I was so afraid but every instinct told me to run from him.
My breathing steadied as I sat in the soft glow of the stone; he wasn’t here, it had just been a reminder. A warning that whatever problems I was facing were trivial compared to him, he was the end of everything ...and sooner or later he’d catch up with me.
A deep shiver ran over me, like someone had stepped on my grave. What was it about me that made me such a magnet for trouble? Was it my life as Jéhnina, had I done something so terrible that retribution had followed me into my next lifetime? I was so sick of stumbling around in the dark. Just for once I wished I knew what the hell was going on.
I concentrated on Corvus, and was surprised at how easily I found the connection with him. I guessed it must be a result of the bond. I was looking through his eyes which were focused on his hands. They were turning a bracelet around and around. It was the ouroboros, the bracelet he had given me when we had first been together, when I was Jéhnina and he was still human. I could feel a longing for me which was only matched by my own for him. His hands stilled as he felt my presence.
“Hello, Jéhenne.”
“Corvus,” I whispered his name, afraid that he would begin to shout at me again.
He didn’t speak though, just sat silently and I began to feel that maybe shouting would be better.
I didn't know what to say to him, how to begin. “We ... We need to talk.”
“Do we? What is it we need to speak of?”
I felt sick. He didn’t sound angry. He just sounded tired, tired of me.
“Us,” I said, cautiously.
There was a flash of anger that seared my skin before his temper was reigned in. “There is no us, Jéhenne. It has taken me nearly two thousand years to get that fact straight in my mind but finally you have brought it home to me.”
“No, don’t say that, please, Corvus. You know it isn’t true.” I felt fear like acid, swirling in my stomach, taste it in my mouth. I couldn’t lose Corvus. I gasped as the connection was broken and suddenly he was standing in front of me in the dim light of the firestone. I looked up at him and knew my life would never be the same without him in it. I scrambled to my feet and flung my arms around him, holding on with everything I had.
“I love you, Corvus, only you. I want no one else, I will never love another. You know I’m telling the truth!”
His arms went around me, pulling me close, and I clung to him, desperate that I should make him understand. “I know you speak the truth, my heart, and you know I will always love you but I have made my last sacrifice at your altar. No more, Jéhenne.”
I looked up into his eyes, so blue and so very, very old and I knew that he had made his mind up. Nothing I could say would change that, unless I was prepared to sacrifice the child ...and I couldn’t do that.
His hand went to my face, caressing my cheek. “You warned me to stay away from you. When I first saw you, you told me I didn’t understand what I was doing and that if I did I would run as far and as fast from you as I could get. I never believed you, Jéhenne. Even when you told me you never wanted to see me again and I thought my heart would break from wanting you, I never regretted it; never regretted meeting you ...loving you. Not until now. Now I wish I had listened, that I had never met you. I had built a life for myself, not a happy one perhaps but I was satisfied enough and now ... And now you have brought everything crashing down on my head once again, my world is filled with pain and regret and all I wish for is the ability to forget you.”
I could barely breathe, the tears streaming down my face as I shook my head. I wouldn’t believe him, he hadn’t said that. “No, Corvus, please, please ...”
“Then give up the child!” he shouted, and I screamed, falling to my knees as his anger burned my skin with white hot rage.
I curled at his feet trembling with fear and misery. “I can’t, I can’t ... Corvus, please understand. It’s not a choice ... There is no choice. The child must live ... He has to live or everything I have fought for since the very beginning will be lost. I can’t explain any more than that because I don’t understand it myself!” I practically screamed the last, clinging to his legs, begging him to understand, and I felt his hand on my head, stroking my hair and I wept that he could be so gentle when I knew how the anger burned in his soul.
“I do understand, Jéhenne. I can feel the way you long for your child and I understand that longing better than you can possibly imagine.” There was such pain in his voice that I looked up. “You don’t remember do you?”
“Remember what?”
He shook his head and looked away.
“Remember what? Corvus, please ...tell me.” I watched him, his profile silhouetted against the black sky, visible through the open doors of the barn. Stars glittered brightly in the darkness as his eyes glittered with emotion.
He was silent for a long time and I began to think he would never answer me. “The day I left you alone, Jéhenne, the day I left you unprotected ... That morning, you told me you were carrying my child. You were pregnant when they killed you, Jéhenne, and I lost everything I loved to the fire.”
I felt my breath catch in my throat. “No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t know ... I didn’t know.”
He nodded. “It’s not your fault, I should have protected you. I should have been there when they came for you but I wasn’t. You should have lived and had my children and now ...” His voice caught and he stopped.
I got unsteadily to my feet and laid my head against him, used now to the silence, the lack of a heartbeat stirring his chest. “It wouldn’t have changed anything, Corvus, they would have just killed us both.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. We will never know.” His arms went around me and I closed my eyes. This was where I needed to be, where I belonged.
Safe.
The word whispered through my mind and even though I knew it wasn’t true, it was how he always made me feel. But in truth there was nowhere safe for me, and there never would be.
He put his hand under my chin, tilting it so I had to look at him and I flinched as his eyes blazed with anger and hurt. “I cannot watch you bear another's child, I won't be a fool for you anymore. You should never have let me love you, Jéhenne; you should have made me leave. We have caused each other nothing but unhappiness.”
“Don’t say that. It isn’t true. It isn’t true!” I put my hands around his face, pulling his mouth down to mine and he kissed me. I felt my senses leap and my heart swell with longing, and I knew he felt it too. I was crushed in his embrace, the weight of love and desire and regret enough to smother us both and then suddenly I was embracing a cold, empty space ...and he was gone.
I sank to my knees, stunned that he could really do it. After all this time, I had finally found a way to push him away for good. I curled up on the floor, unaware of the cold creeping through the open doors, of the dying light of the firestone at my back.
Corvus was gone, and I would never be whole again.
I didn’t know how long I lay there in the dark but dimly I became aware of the wolves, their solid presence pressing against me, fighting to keep the chill from my bones, and I accepted their comfort and their warmth just as I let my heart accept the fact that nothing, nothing, would ever be the same again.