When we lay together at the lakeside
I kissed your hand and then
I realised it was mine
Sean
Elodie is twitching so violently I fear she might fall. I lay her on the ground as quickly as I can. She keeps screaming at the top of her voice, screams that go through me and make me want to cover my ears and block them out.
“You’ve killed them all!” she cries. “And now she’s dead too!”
“Who is dead, Elodie? What’s happening? What do you see?” I plead with her. “Sarah . . . could this be a vision?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never dreamt like this. It must be what Nicholas did to her,” Sarah replies, her voice icy, her face composed, but she’s trembling.
“You killed her like you killed my mother!” Elodie screams again; this time her voice breaks on the last word, fading into a rasp. Her eyes are open, but they don’t focus on anything. They seem to be looking beyond us, beyond now.
A sob escapes Nicholas’ lips. “I’m sorry. It was the only way.”
Elodie takes her head in her hands and curls up like a child. “It hurts. Please don’t do this to me,” she whimpers, and I echo her cry.
“What are you doing to her!” I shout, moving towards Nicholas and taking him by the collar.
“Nothing. I’m doing nothing. It’s not happening. It’s a memory,” he says. His skin is grey, his eyes as unfocused as Elodie’s. My hatred for him knows no bounds. In one quick movement, I’m behind him with my arm wrapped around his neck. He’s strong, but it would take me only a moment to break his neck.
I hear Sarah’s voice from somewhere far away. “Don’t kill him! We still need him! Let him go.”
“Make it stop,” I hiss in his ear.
“I can’t.”
“Sean. Let him go,” Sarah repeats, her hands up, palms out, as if to calm me and contain me – and I know she’s right. I release him, but as Elodie whimpers again red mist descends on me and I hit him. I feel something crunch under my knuckles, and my hand is wet. He doesn’t retaliate. He falls on his knees, towering over Elodie’s shuddering form, and I’m ready to hit him again. Niall and Alvise grab me and hold me back.
“Sean, stop!” cries someone – Niall, Sarah – and strong arms restrain me.
“Stop! Please stop!” Elodie echoes their words in her delirium.
“What’s happening to her?” I growl. “The truth!”
“I told you the truth. She’s processing my memories. Now she’s remembering the brain fury,” Nicholas says, blood streaming from his nose.
He must be lying. He must be. “This makes no sense . . . How . . .”
“Through my blood. This is the only cure to the Azasti, the blood of a half man, half Surari. And only one exists: me. But this is the price to pay.”
“I can’t take this any more! Sean, please kill me!” Elodie whispers, curled up on the ground. She looks at me, and I see her eyes are focused. Suddenly, she’s lucid.
“Elodie, what’s happening? Who’s doing this to you? Is it Nicholas?”
Elodie clasps her hands on her forehead and sobs some more. “It’s not Nicholas. It’s the King of Shadows. Just kill me!” she screams, and her eyes lose focus again as her body doubles over.
“There must be a way to help her. Please, Nicholas!” Sarah pleads with him.
“There isn’t. Do you think if there was I wouldn’t try? We can only wait. If she survives . . .”
“If?” I shout, lunging for him, and again Alvise and Niall restrain me. “You knew! You knew this would happen!”
“I did, yes. What choice did I have?” he whispers. “It was this or immediate death. And you know it, Sean.”
Elodie is murmuring under her breath, still delirious. “Stop . . . Father, please no . . .”
“You always wanted us dead,” Sarah hisses. “You’re getting what you want, aren’t you? One by one, we’ll all go. You found this way with Elodie. A knife in the heart would have been kinder.”
“I never wanted Elodie dead,” Nicholas says, and his voice is so pained I don’t know what to believe.
Elodie is moaning and shuddering, her head still in her hands. If Nicholas is telling the truth, this is a memory. The memory of a terrible pain. Will it kill her? Or, like Nicholas, will it blind her? I look around me. Sarah, Micol and Niall are near tears. Alvise is leaning his forehead against a tree. None of us can do anything.
“Elodie,” I call helplessly. For a moment I want to take out my sgian-dubh and run its blade over my own arm, to share her pain.
Elodie screams once more, a long piercing scream that breaks my heart in two. I let myself fall on the ground beside her, on the other side from Nicholas, and call her name several times. She opens her eyes, gazing up at something only she can see. Her lips part. “Nicholas,” she whispers, and I can’t quite believe she’s called his name.
“I’m here. I’m here,” he says, and feels for her hands. He clasps them in his.
“Nicholas,” she calls once more, and then her body collapses. I think she’s dead.
“No!” someone sobs, and that someone is me. My hands are on her face, on her shoulders, on her arms, and I shake her, I call her name. But she’s dead. She can’t hear us.
All of a sudden, there’s a slight movement under my hands. A breath.
“She’s breathing! She’s alive!” Nicholas says suddenly, taking hold of her wrist. “Her heart is beating!” He lifts Elodie onto his knees, her head lolling against his chest. They’re like the Tao, white and black, folded together.
“Elodie? Can you hear me?” I call.
She blinks a couple of times, and then she opens her eyes. Gone are their warm, chocolate brown. They’re black, like obsidian. I try to take her from Nicholas, but she moans, and holds on to him. She calls his name once again, and wraps her arms around his neck like she never wants to be apart from him, never again.
I know at once that we have lost her.