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A week later, Cal watched as Maggie unloaded various items from her backpack and set them on a nearby table. “I can’t actually believe you have that with you.” She shifted on Maggie’s bed.
“Aren’t you glad I do? Otherwise, we’d have no way to recharge our stuff. Without my trusty solar battery chargers and rechargeable batteries, our cell phones wouldn’t work. I always knew they’d come in handy sometime.” Maggie sent her a smug smile.
“Our phones don’t work here. At least I don’t think so. I never saw the point in trying.”
“Nope, I tried. They don’t. But that’s just the reception part. We don’t need a signal to enjoy some of the other stuff like the games and music we’ve already downloaded.”
“I never thought I’d see the day when your predilection for carrying around junk and trying to be ‘green’ would come in so useful.”
Maggie’s grin covered her face. “Don’t need to worry about that, at least not until the batteries won’t hold a charge any longer.”
“Maybe we’ll be back for a visit before that happens.” Hesitancy laced her tone, though she tried to ignore it. Lately, it seemed that doubts about Relian, about their bonding, had been creeping in. “They might want that medical equipment, after all.”
Her friend stopped fiddling with the gadgets, skepticism painted on her features. “Well, they’re being close-mouthed again. It’s been half a month, and it’s not like they bring it up. I’ve asked.”
“Avoidance is their best tactic. I think they hope if they don’t mention it, we won’t bring it up. It’s like they’re hiding something.” But Relian promised he wouldn’t. Not anymore.
A thread of worry bubbled through her. She trusted him, didn’t she?
“They sure ignore us when we ask them about it. Whether you ultimately stay with Relian or not, we can’t be forced to remain here in Eria forever.”
Cal winced at that reminder. “You know how tight-lipped they are. It’s hard to tell when they’re being shady and when they’re not.” Relian had been shut up tighter than Fort Knox lately. Oh, he shared his desire for her, but his other emotions, he kept under wraps.
“So make some demands, like we want to start making plans to go home at the one-year mark. We now speak the language and still don’t know that much.” Maggie threw her hands up in the air. “Patience! They tell us to have patience. That’s their answer to everything.”
Cal nodded resolutely, standing. “We do need to start making plans, no matter what happens—or doesn’t happen—between Relian and me.”
Maggie deflated like a balloon deprived of air and flopped down next to her. “That’s all well and true. I’m starting to miss home. This is no longer the great adventure it first seemed.”
Cal placed an arm around Maggie’s shoulder. “I know. Even with all that’s going on with Relian, I find the thought of home, of my family, creeping up more often.”
“I miss my family. God, I never thought I’d say that. But there’s familiarity in their dysfunction.”
“I know. Me, too. It’s been over six months.” They sat, both consumed by their thoughts, until Cal released a chuckle.
“What?” Maggie threw Cal a look, apparently disturbed she’d make such a sound.
“I wonder if our parents tried to send out the cavalry?”
Maggie smiled. “Even though our disappearance isn’t really funny, I bet it led to some pretty wacky behavior.”
“You have to admit it’s an amusing idea—your parents working with mine.” Cal’s lips quirked up at the corners at the thought of her conservative parents joining with Maggie’s outrageous ones for anything of importance. Maggie’s parents were divorced while hers were still together—and relatively sane-acting. Truthfully, Maggie’s dad was a bit of a horny old dog, and her mother was the queen of neurotics.
Maggie shuddered. “A scarily amusing one. They hate being in the same zip code, let alone in the same room.”
“Exactly.”
Maggie’s face shadowed. “I wonder what they’ll do as time goes on without any word or trace of us. Have they already given up?”
Cal gripped her friend’s arm. “Time?” That word echoed in her mind. “Has anybody mentioned how time works here and how it correlates to our own? Did we even ask?”
Maggie gazed at her, realization seeping over her face, along with the hope and doubt Cal knew warred on her own.
***
Cal brushed a damp tendril from her forehead while she eyed the door of the king’s private study and the elves on either side of it. She and Maggie would be barging in, but they couldn’t be concerned with that right now. They needed some answers.
She and Maggie had bombarded a servant with questions about the location of the king or Relian. The poor elf—wringing his hands in the face of so much human emotion—had led them to the door where two sentries stood. As the guards and the servant discussed the new, pressing human problem, she and Maggie nodded at each other before lunging at the handle of the door.
They tumbled into the room, evading the sentries who sprang after them. Both froze when they saw half a dozen gazes or so glued on them. Oops. Definitely in a meeting. Guess neither of them had heard or understood that part.
Cal’s face flooded with warmth, and she couldn’t glance too long at any of the elves watching her. She was faintly aware that the king dismissed the lurking sentries, who apparently hadn’t wanted to grab either her or Maggie in the royal presence of father and son.
Relian stood up and strode toward her. “Lady Calantha, is something wrong?”
Cal gazed dumbly at him as his worry slammed into her. What’d she come in here for again? She must’ve looked dazed because he led her over to a trio of chairs that rested in one corner of the room. Maggie followed, accompanied not by Kenhel as she supposed but by Lord Ennin—that nice elf from the garden.
Aware she should respond to Relian and the other elves as they voiced similar inquiries, she looked at Relian as he stood above her. Words floundered in her mind, but none of them seemed right. “I...I’m fine. It’s just that Maggie and I... Well, we wanted to ask about the time.”
Relian’s concerned expression gave way to one of skepticism. “You’re fine, yet you ran in here to ask about the time?” he asked slowly as if he were speaking to a recalcitrant child.
Which was what she probably was to him right now—nothing but a child in his eyes. How could she have deluded herself into thinking a relationship between them was possible? Cal twisted her hands in her lap, threatening to mangle the appendages until he knelt before her and grasped them.
“My lady, what’s wrong?” Concern colored his voice.
She closed her eyes, trying to steady her emotions. So what if she’d crashed a meeting of royal advisors? “I’m sorry for the interruption.”
“Same here,” Maggie added.
Once Cal settled her nerves, she took note of the other elves in the room. Kenhel and Sardon were there, along with an elf Cal didn’t remember meeting, though she may have in the great hall on that morning so long ago.
“My lady, you haven’t informed me of your reason for your extreme behavior.”
Relian’s soft voice drew a shiver from her. Now she felt nothing from him.
The underlying steel in his tone warned her that he wouldn’t brook any verbal evasion. Though she tried not to show the jolt his words caused, she was taken aback. She’d forgotten this Relian—the Relian of her earlier days. His iciness drove home the fact she didn’t know him, not really. This reminder served to renew that sense of foreignness—so inhuman in its quality—that radiated off these people in direct contrast to her humanity. She thought she’d been making peace with this indelible fact, but had she only been sweeping it under the cover of her subconscious?
Cal fought the urge to look at Maggie, knowing she wouldn’t get much help on that front. The only one Maggie tussled with verbally was the king, and he’d been known to make Maggie fidget in her slippers until hotheadedness overcame common sense.
Relian knelt before her, but his presence loomed, not soothed. She squirmed. An answer was expected. That meant talking. Talking. Cal grasped onto that as the natural sequence of things. Unless she spoke, they wouldn’t know why she and Maggie were there.
“Time.” Her Elvish started to fail her. “That’s what we came about.”
Seeing Relian’s brow furrow, she elaborated, and the words flowed easier now. “We’re concerned about how time passes in this realm as compared to back home. We both have families who’ll worry, that are worrying right now.” She looked at the faces surrounding her with beseeching eyes. “We weren’t exactly planning for this trip, so everyone will think we’ve vanished. For them, we’ve been missing for over six months.”
Relian sighed, and a bit of his rigid posture deserted him. “We’ve indeed been lax in considering the worry to both you and your families. It wasn’t our intention to have you suffer in silence. Please don’t think you have to keep doubts such as these private until you can no longer contain them. We don’t always have the forethought to bring up pertinent subjects before they become a concern. On this matter, we can assure you there’s no cause for worry. It’s not that time flows differently between the two realms but rather that traveling through the veil can distort time, alter it if you will. While we don’t know the exact mechanics, when you go back—as you likely will at some point—it’ll take you to the time in which you need to be.”
What! She shook her head furiously, anger kindling in her gut. “No one ever mentioned this before. Why didn’t you tell me this? I’ve talked about missing home and my family. About missing my life there. You promised honesty, and I feel as if I’ve gotten so little of it.”
Relian shifted uneasily. “We believed that only the barest of facts would serve you well at the beginning. We didn’t know how you’d react.”
Cal glowered. He left the “and us” unsaid, for it was blatantly obvious it’d been for the elves’ benefit. “How can I even trust you? Have you lied about everything? About us being free to go after a year?”
A flare of panic and guilt not her own launched itself into her chest. “You lied?”
“I needed you to stay. It’s true that the effects of the binding become worse if not fulfilled, but there is no traditional period of a year.”
Betrayal punched her hard. “So it was merely a ruse to get us to stay for that long? What about the veil? Did you even try to summon it?”
The shame on his face—and the one echoed through the bond—told her all she needed to know. “You didn’t. You bastard!”
With all her might, she pushed him as she shot off her seat. He toppled back onto his butt.
She narrowed her eyes at him as the implications of his words sunk in. “So you could have sent us home this entire time?” Cal asked lowly.
She clenched her hands, dreaming it was his neck instead.
He hesitated. “In theory, I could have tried, but I doubt it would’ve worked. The veil wants you here.”
“But you conveniently didn’t try,” she said, her voice rising with each word.
He winced. Oh, did that hurt his sensitive ears? Too bad.
“I thought elves were more honorable than this.”
He stood deftly and held out a placating hand. “We are. Please, there were extenuating circumstances.”
“And I suppose you want to tell me about them now.” She sneered. “I really don’t care what they are. The time for that has passed.”
The sound of a throat clearing broke into her spiraling thoughts. “This is a private matter,” said Talion. “Let us retire and give them time to talk.”
Cal closed her eyes, having forgotten their audience. She only hoped this argument wouldn’t be all over Eria by this evening. But then, maybe it would be better if it was. Then everybody would know exactly why there would be no bonding.
Maggie made no protest at leaving, as Cal feared she might. What did Maggie think of Relian now, hmm? She glanced at her friend.
Her friend leaned close and whispered, “They thrive on secrecy to the point of stupidity. I don’t like it any more than you do, but just listen to him, okay? Then do what you want.”
Well, that answered her question of approval. Maggie would support her either way. She nodded mutely.
Maggie reached over and squeezed her hand. “We suspected they were hiding something major. Really, I guess this latest bombshell wasn’t too surprising. Just find out what it is and then decide.”
Cal blinked. Maggie could astound her with her level-headedness at the most unexpected of times.
She watched as Lord Avrin, his sleek brown head bent solicitously, escorted her friend out. After contemplating them for a moment, she gave herself a little shake. How could she think about matchmaking at a time like this?
Suddenly, she was tired, bone-tired. After a few steps, she slouched down in a chair.
As the door shut on the last person out, Relian took up the seat next to her and gazed steadily ahead. She didn’t know how long they sat in silence, but her anger started to slip away like sand through a sieve. She would’ve preferred it to the forlornness overtaking her, so she desperately gathered the remaining grains of ire.
“Why?” The weary sound of her voice surprised her.
He finally turned to her, and she almost gasped at the bleakness in his eyes. “It wasn’t as though I’d planned any of this. I wish I could offer you the freedom you so crave, but I’m as much a victim of circumstance as you. Yes, I won’t deny I knew more of the situation, but knowledge doesn’t necessarily equate to power of choice. Believe it or not, we don’t hold the key to all answers.”
“What are you gabbing about? Why all the half-truths and lies? The omissions?”
He shook his head, seemingly talking to himself. “I didn’t want to burden you with more knowledge. Didn’t want to scare you away. The knowledge that you had no choice in the end.”
“Scare me away to where? It’s not like I could go anywhere.”
“I needed you to fall in love with me.”
“Really?” She gave a bitter smile. “Congratulations, you were so close, and you destroyed it.”
“I know,” he whispered, devastation flashing across his face. It also flowed from him in potent waves that nearly made her gasp. Was he such a good actor that he could fool the bond?
“Why did you do all this? It makes no sense. I get that you want to see the darkindred restored, but you didn’t even know about the prophecy when this all started.” A horrible thought intruded. “Did you?”
“No,” he said emphatically before he stared down at his clasped hands. “Quite simply, the magic of this world is disappearing.”
“What?” She reared back. Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that.
“The veil...it seems to be seeking a resolution to a problem that we don’t know the cause of or solution to. Well, other than it has something to do with your dimension, something to do with you. The fading of our magic will impact both our worlds, both our dimensions.”
“My dimension? Me?” she said, her voice doubtful. “And you never thought to tell me this tidbit of information before?” Ire and disappointment churned in her stomach like a poisonous cocktail.
“I didn’t want to put this knowledge on your shoulders. Not right away, at least. I wanted you eased into it and bonded with me first.”
“You mean stuck. In love with you and then you drop this weight on my shoulders.”
He hesitated.“Yes, but I truly was seeking to make it as painless as possible.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make! You had a responsibility to inform me of what was really going on instead of treating me like a child.”
He dipped his head. “I see that now.”
“Do you? Or are you just telling what I want to hear?”
He didn’t say anything. Wise choice. He wasn’t completely stupid after all.
“Okay, tell me about the fading magic. It’s apparently so important as to make you lie to me about nearly everything.”
“Not everything,” he protested weakly.
She glared at him. “Really, you want to challenge me over semantics now?”
He sighed. “Our two realities are interconnected. One cannot be without the other, for they both sprang from the same reality.”
She wrestled her mind back into some semblance of order so she could actually think. “Basically, our worlds exist in symbiosis because they used to be one and the same?”
“Yes.”
She slowly drew out her words. “So the veil is trying to save itself and your world’s magic?”
“Not just those but our very worlds themselves.”
She shot out of her seat. “What!” He’d said the loss of magic impacted their worlds, not that it would lead to total annihilation. Big difference.
“In the end, it will threaten both our worlds if we can’t resolve the issue. The balance between our worlds has been upset. We believe the veil is seeking an equalizing influence before either can be irreparably damaged.”
“What’s causing the imbalance?”
He shrugged. “We don’t know.”
She gave him an owlish look. “That’s comforting. So what’s the effect of this instability?”
“Your world moving at an ever-increasing pace and your people forgetting about magic and nature, leaving humanity to burn itself out. Our world stagnates, leaving us incapable of sustaining growth, of sustaining magic. Magic is what binds us so closely with nature, makes us who and what we are. Already, our magic is a pale imitation of what it used to be. In essence, both our worlds are leading to the same end through different routes.”
She blanched. “That’s not good.”
His face set in somber lines. “It’s not.”
“But what does all this have to do with you and me?”
“Since the veil brought you here, it’s believed you are needed here for some reason.” Seeing her prodding motion, he shook his head. “You’re not going to like this.”
A humorless smile touched her lips. “I don’t expect to. Nothing I’ve learned has been any different up to this point, so try me. I promise to not fall into hysterics.”
“A solution. You’re seen as part of the solution or a missing piece of the puzzle. We both are. Unfortunately, no one knows where to find the rest of the puzzle.”
She swallowed, her mouth dry. He was right about not liking the news. How could she be a missing piece to anything? She was normal, not a woman with even one extraordinary power. To have that much pressure thrust upon her... How could she bond with him after all his deceptions?
How could she not if their worlds were truly in danger? She was well and truly trapped in a way she hadn’t been before.
“So you wanted me to fall in love with you because you felt compelled to do your duty? That it would make it easier for you to do what you must?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds so cold-blooded. I meant to make the experience more palatable for you. I did mean to keep you here until you bonded with me willingly. But none of that is working out the way I’d envisioned,” he finished lamely.
“You think?” Her tiredness and numbness were leaving, and rage was replacing it all. “You sought to give yourself as some sort of prize.”
He shook his head. “No, the bond is real. The binding is real. None of that was fake nor the accompanying feelings you brought out in me.”
“So now you’re pretending to feel something for me?” she asked hotly.
“There is no pretending. We’ve been connected in some way since you were born into your world. That we have to bond for the safety of our worlds was an occurrence I never saw. Please don’t make this so hard.”
Some of his calm was slipping. Suddenly, she wanted to push him all the way over the edge. “Make this so hard? On you? I wanted to believe the best of you, but I knew. Like a fool, I knew something was up and tried to convince myself otherwise!”
Relian didn’t reply.
Frustration exploded through her chest, made all the more potent by the possibility of his affections being nothing but a fricking charade. Home seemed farther away than ever, torn away from her by secrets and word games.
She stood abruptly, but he grabbed her arm.
“Sit down, please,” he said slowly, rising to his feet.
“Right now, I don’t want to be anywhere near you.” Not now. Maybe not ever. She ignored how he loomed over her. No matter how she pulled at her arm, he didn’t release her.
“We need to talk.”
She aimed a glare at him. “Talk? You want to talk now? You had over half a year to tell me this crap. Half a year!”
He flinched.
A cold wave of satisfaction hit. “You never stopped treating me like a child. That or you think I’m a fragile half-wit who can’t handle the truth.” With a tug, she yanked her arm. He held fast to her.
“I never said you were either of those things.” His glowing, heated eyes said otherwise.
“You didn’t have to. You don’t trust me in some manner. What else am I to think? You hold all the knowledge and only grudgingly part with little bits of it.” Her anger rose, usurping the frustration. “Is that why humans and elves didn’t get along? You gave us enough tidbits to paint a partially correct yet confusing picture, and we tired of your mind games? Lord knows you’re all so infuriating.”
His face grew progressively darker during her tirade. So he didn’t like what she had to say? Good! Her words were true.
“No,” he grated out. “We would’ve never...that is not why we left.”
“Then why?” The heat of her demand coursed through her veins like liquid fire, making her voice tremble. She wanted a straight answer for once.
His face tightened as bitterness fell like a shroud around him. “Humans were fragile, fickle things and still are. That’s why they—you—can’t be trusted with sensitive information. You break like a child’s toy and are filled with just as much maturity.”
His words not only staggered and enraged her, but it also hit too close to her past. As a teen she’d felt broken and fragile because of him and the veil. Those same emotions were echoing through her right now.
What a sanctimonious pig. He wanted to go down that road, did he? Not a wise choice. Well, she’d be happy to oblige him, but she wouldn’t be the one coming out the fool.
After balling her free hand into a fist, she punched at his arm until he let go. So what if it hurt her hand more than it probably hurt his arm?
She forced herself to speak in a level tone, all previous trembling hidden away by the cold rage that suffused her. “Oh, so elf-kind cannot be so?”
Relian took a deep breath. An icy mask descended over his face. “Many temper such tendencies with age. We live our lives with more stoicism than you ever could.” His voice rang with conviction and assurance.
She growled at him. What he said had some truth to it, but the extreme years involved in such “tempering” couldn’t be overlooked. How dare he judge her people by the same standards to which he held his own? Humans had to pack as much living as possible into a score of years while elves had next to forever. Elves had a slower pace of life, thanks to their long lives, and that heavily influenced their mindsets. And, imagine, it still didn’t stop them from being liars.
“Well, after several millennia or more, I’d hope so.” It was her turn to take a deep breath to reign in her temper. “Whoever said humans never learn such control? Admittedly, we’ve not perfected it to your level, as we have only the short years given us. Is it fair we have eighty years or so, if we are lucky, to learn everything you deem necessary or proper that took you hundreds of years or even millennia? In fact, it’s something I believe you’re still honing down to a fine nothingness. Oh wait, unless it’s displeasure, superiority, horniness, or murderous tendencies that make an appearance. The other socially proscribed emotions!”
She stood rooted to the spot, her heart pounding in her head. She wanted to sit, wanted to explode, but all she could do was look at him. Stare into the eyes that had grown so wide before he shuttered all expression. Yes, he was closed off. She was so done with him, with the whole situation. “What a crock. I may have to stay here, but I sure as hell don’t have to spend ‘here’ with you. You’ve ruined what should’ve been the best years of my young life. No more. Go find yourself another guinea pig or whatever it is you’re looking for.”
Cal swung around to leave. As her hand fumbled for the doorknob, he slammed the door shut. She froze. Rough hands spun her around before his body pressed her against the door. Looking up into wild eyes, all she could think was, Oh crap, as his mouth crashed down on hers. He ravished her lips until he gained access to the inner reaches within. The surprise that held her immobile melted away, and she struggled against arms that were banded like steel around her. With a sob, she softened under his onslaught and responded to his kisses. She hated and wanted him in equal measures. Tears ran down into her mouth and mingled with the spicy taste that was uniquely Relian.
He uttered a muffled curse, pulling away and staring at her with an inscrutable face. Then he stalked to a side door. The sound of it slamming closed echoed through the room. She winced. As the adrenaline left, her body shook like jelly, and her knees gave out. She slid down the door and buried her head in her hands, not moving for a long time.