Cress almost fell on top of Teagan as they tumbled through the arch and rolled into the hot desert. They both let out groans as they rubbed their sore shins and elbows. Teagan had scraped her palm and she picked at the bits of sand as she wiped the blood away. She used the stick to help herself back to her feet. She should hold onto it—it would be useful when she became too tired to walk easily. Her mother’s voice floated down to her, and she immediately put her hands over her ears, the stick slipping from her fingers.
“Do you have any more of the coranderis dust?” Cress asked, her voice sounding muffled through Teagan’s palms. “I used all of mine.” Fearing further intrusion from the voices, Teagan quickly withdrew the pouch from her pack and dumped some on Cress’s open palms. Hopefully it would help protect them.
It was a grueling journey; she was grateful they had full flasks. She could almost feel her throat getting parched as she remembered just days ago, when she was wandering this desert on her own. And the whispers were back, louder this time, as if the Princess wanted to make it even more difficult for them to get beyond the next archway. If she was watching them, perhaps through the eyes of her creatures, Teagan wondered if she was pleased by their progress or scared of it. Although she’d given them this chance, she didn’t think the Princess wanted them to survive. Or, if she did, she wanted to make them suffer as much as possible on the way.
The Shadow Princess hadn’t always been like that. Even now, she had locked her own people inside this dangerous realm with her, but she hadn’t let them die.
“I still don’t understand why she did this,” Teagan said as they kept their eyes on the brick road.
“The dark magic was so tempting, that’s what she told me when I was with her. It wasn’t simply what happened with the prince; she’d been practicing dark magic long before that. She’d wanted all that power for herself.”
“Tell me the story where the Princess saved the lost boy who’d wandered too far in the enchanted forest,” Teagan said, wanting Cress to keep talking over the hot whispers of the Shadow Realm.
Cress didn’t respond right away, and Teagan thought she hadn’t heard her or simply decided she didn’t want to. Then, she started the familiar story.
“Long ago, after the princess saved her prince from monsters, she became the hero of her kingdom. He brought her home with him and the people adored her. Worshiped her. She promised them that they’d never have to deal with those creatures again.” Teagan let Cress’s storytelling voice wash over her. The voice Teagan had fallen asleep to so many times over the years. The voice that would always feel exactly like home.
“But that forest where she’d fought those creatures was still alive, brimming with the echoes of hatred and hurt. It was still cursed. No one was to go inside; it was a punishable offense. Even the princess herself didn’t step foot in it, for she wanted to set a good example. Yet she was also afraid, for though her power was great and her soul was immortal, it scared her. What she’d done that day had been terrifying, but she never let it show. And when a child wandered into the forest after the parents turned their backs for just a moment, she dove back into the trees without a care for herself.” That definitely didn’t sound like the woman Teagan had met back in the Deathly Palace.
“She used her magic to guide her to the boy, and when she found him, he was in the arms of a deadened oak. Its branches wrapped around him, as if it didn’t want him to leave the forest. She said, I’ve come to take him home. I’m sorry, but you can’t have him. She threw her starlight at the tree until it relented, giving the boy up. She carried him back to his waiting, desperate parents. And when she turned back, she thought she could see a glimmer of the once beautiful wood, before it’d been claimed by the darkness. By the monsters who’d fed and grown strong before she was born and became old enough to fight. It no longer scared her, and she was a hero once again. The shining savior of her kingdom.” Cress trailed off, took a pause, before she ended it. “But she never did leave the forest behind. What’d called to those trees, what’d called those monsters to it before, it’d begun to call to her too. And one day, she listened to it. She let the temptation of dark magic rule her.”
That story had always been one of Teagan’s favorites even though it was the start of the Shadow Princess’s dark descent. She’d been just a young woman who was fearful of what she didn’t understand; a young woman who just wanted to do what was right. It helped, a bit, to humanize her. The Shadow Princess was a villain—but she had once been just like any other witch.
After walking through the tedious desert landscape for an interminable time, they took a break. Teagan and Cress sat near one another as the sky grew a little darker and Teagan told her about the soul she’d come across on her first journey through the desert.
“I’m proud of you for doing that,” Cress said. Teagan had half expected her to lecture her about going off the path or using the rites because that could count as magic. It was a relief that she understood why Teagan had made this sacrifice to give the wandering soul the dignity of last rites. The dead deserved to rest easy, and the Goddess would have been dissatisfied if she’d left that soul alone, far away from the spirit realm.
Cress’s watch ticked away their time steadily as they talked, but neither of them made a move to get up. It was almost day three, and Teagan was sure their time was going to come to an end soon. Because they didn’t make it out of here before Cress’s soul died or because she would die if the princess didn’t keep to her word. So Teagan moved in closer, wishing she could rest her head on Cress’s shoulder. Teagan was taller than her, tall enough that she could lay her cheek on Cress’s luscious hair. She missed feeling Cress’s arms around her; she missed being able to kiss her. A hatred towards the princess burned in her for taking this intimacy away from them.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about the night of the Harvest Ball.”
Cress turned to her, a sly glint her eye. “Oh?” The heat in her gaze warmed Teagan down to her very soul; her fingers itched to caress and cradle Cress in her arms.
“That was a good night, love,” Cress murmured. Teagan knew these reminisces were dangerous right now with that look in Cress’s eyes; it was so hard to ignore the sparks between them. Teagan hoped they would never dim.
“What do your lost dreams sound like?” Teagan wondered aloud.
Cress cocked her head and the slant of her face took Teagan’s breath away, had always taken Teagan’s breath away ever since the first time they met. Back in Tyras, she’d wondered how someone like Cress could fall for her, wondered why she wanted anything to do with her. She still wondered that, sometimes. Cress shrugged, bringing her back to the present moment. “I haven’t paid much attention to them.”
“But what if they were your truest dreams in life?”
“This sky can’t know everything that’s in my heart, Teagan. It can’t know what I truly want.”
“The Princess knows.”
“She knows nothing,” Cress spat angrily. “She thinks she understands humans after so many years, but what she doesn’t get is that we’re all different. She can’t look at one of us and decide that she knows what we desire. She doesn’t know who you are any more than she knows who I am. And she doesn’t know what love is. You hear that, Princess?” She stood and yelled that last bit at the sky, raging at the Princess who’d surely hear her words. Teagan almost moved to stop her, but she understood the anger. Because underneath it was the very same pain that’d brought both of them to this realm in the first place.
Cress continued her tirade. “Wystira’s own Goddess, a young woman like yourself, fought back the darkness you brought into all the world and saved us from you. She’s kept us safe all these years, and she’s the only reason you can’t spread your magic like a poison. You’re shallow and deceitful and you gave it all up, for what? Death is your companion, always and forever. Those people in your city! They’re only staying with you because they have nowhere else to go, because you took it all away from them! How does that make you feel, Amalaris, to know that all you’ve left this world is despair!” Cress was breathing heavily, and she kicked at the sand that’d spilled onto the brick path. In her anger, she stubbed her toe. She cursed.
“Are you okay?” Teagan asked after a moment. It was always best to let Cress get out everything she needed to.
“I’m fine,” she bit out. “It’s not going to kill me.” Cress sat back down heavily, rubbing her foot.
“The sky showed me my mother, alive,” Teagan said after a while. “It showed me doing what I’ve always dreamed of doing.”
Cress softened. “Oh Teagan.”
“And it makes me so mad that I won’t get either of those things.” Teagan pressed a fist to her chest, felt the poison running through her veins. Even when she was sitting and resting, it still clouded her breathing and made her feel tired and achy. “It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not. And I’m angry about it too. So, so angry I can hardly breathe sometimes.” And Teagan understood that now, better than she had these last few weeks. The Shadow Realm might have been doing all it could to kill them, but it’d also brought the two of them closer together, forced them to confront their feelings and share them with each other.
All they’d done since they met, all they’d done since they fell in love, was put each other before themselves. Teagan understood, finally, that Cress left not because she didn’t believe in Teagan or because she’d wanted to ignore her wishes, but because she’d been so desperate not to lose her. And wasn’t that how Teagan had felt, when she’d found Cress gone from their bed and when she’d fought so hard to follow her? They should always have done this together.
“We should keep going, love,” Cress said.
“How much time do we have left?”
Cress looked at her watch, and then at Teagan with wide eyes. “We have one day.”
One day left. They quickly packed their things and got back up.
On the last stretch of desert, Teagan fell to her knees as a bolt of fiery pain swept through her chest. The stick clattered to the ground beside her, echoing in the silence.
Cress dropped down quickly and started to reach out, when Teagan gasped, “The rules.”
“I don’t care about the rules!”
“We have no choice, Cress. If we don’t follow them, we’re both dead.” I’m dead anyway, she thought. She was running out of time. The best thing she could do was make sure Cress lived. And that meant moving again.
But Teagan couldn’t seem to make her legs work, and the pain intensified, expanding into her ribs and around to her back. Her mouth opened in a silent scream; even her voice failed her.
“Teagan, I don’t know how to help you.” Cress’s voice was shaky and uneven.
Teagan closed her eyes and tears leaked out of their corners. She curled onto her side in pain. She felt something else in their presence. Was it a lost dream? As her body got weaker and her soul grew thinner, she heard the call of death, of the Shadow Princess reaching for her through the encroaching darkness. She had been watching them; she’d been waiting for this moment. As if she sensed this too, Cress shouted, “No, you can’t have her! Goddess, help us.” But their Goddess couldn’t reach this realm.
A light rushed through her body, tearing through the agony that had overtaken her. She slowly regained consciousness, and when she managed to open her eyes, Cress was above her, eyes closed and muttering under her breath. She appeared so pale, so much paler than Teagan, as if she was dissolving. The full force of what Cress had done hit her, and she tried to sit up but her limbs felt so heavy.
“Cress. Stop.” Cress continued her spell, though; she was so lost in the magic. “Cressidae!” Cress opened her eyes and gasped, and then she collapsed. She struck the stone with a sickly sound.
“Cress!” She wanted to gather her in her arms, but that rule. It was all they had left. “Please, Cress, wake up.” Tears streaked her face, until darkness claimed her again. Her last thought echoed through her mind. Please Goddess, do not let me lose her as well.