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Annabell
Elfriede’s Castle, Das Unbekannte
Communicating with Stella had gone much smoother, but it still drained a lot of my energy. I hoped she trusted me because if she didn’t, there was no doubt all chaos would break loose once Cole made his move. For a moment, I thought I should contact her again to remind her that fighting was a bad idea, but I did not have the energy. All I could do was hope she would assess the situation, see that I was right, and contain herself and the other hunters.
I stood and stretched, then crossed the room to the bed. Jack and Hayden were asleep, so I covered them with another blanket and made my way downstairs to the gardens. I needed time to process, and the cold weather would help me cleanse my mind.
I had only taken one step into the garden when I saw Cole’s shadow. I’d know it anywhere, the way it moved and melded with the darkness, how it morphed from one shape to another, and how the light seemed to shy away from it. I needed to speak with him, if only to confirm our agreement that he would not harm anyone in his attempt to retrieve the Seven Sworn.
I trudged through the new-fallen snow, now calf-deep. When I approached, his hand moved swiftly across his face, and he stood with his back to me.
“Cole?”
He turned to face me, but it was too dark to see his face clearly. Even so, his ragged breathing and his constant swiping said all that need be said. Cole’s tears hit me hard, like a thousand-pound boulder that crushed my heart until there was nothing recognizable that remained. One would think it impossible for anything to cause such pain for an instrument of death and destruction, yet it seemed I always found a way to break him. I was his only weakness, and I hated it.
“I will take the Seven when day breaks. I thought you should know,” he said curtly.
“And you will honor our agreement?” I asked.
He snickered. “Yes, I will honor our agreement. It is the only thing you truly care for, after all.”
“That’s not true, Cole,” I said. I sat on the bench he’d just vacated and stared into the night. All I could see were stars, but I felt his presence not only beside me but deep in my heart and in my soul.
“I wish you had never found me back then. Maybe then my life wouldn’t seem so meaningless, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much now,” he admitted.
I grasped his hand and pulled him to sit beside me. “No, then the darkness would have taken you completely. This is your redemption, Cole, this ability to care about what you must do. I know you must do it and that some part of you enjoys it, but I also know that there is another part that despises all you are. That part loves me, and that you are capable of love is the reason you deserve so much more than life has given you.”
“I cannot have more. I can never have more,” he said, finally relaxing on the bench beside me. “I cannot even refuse the evil if I wanted to, and as such, I will always be what I am.”
“You are sure there is no other way?” I asked, testing one last time to see if there was something I had forgotten.
“No. I cannot let the Darkness win. If I am to take back my control, then I must have the power necessary to harness the evil I absorb. The Seven will make me stronger so that I will regain my stability and then some. It’s coming, and I can only pray I will be strong enough to take in the vast amount I intend to—”
“What? Cole, what are you talking about? What is coming?”
His hand squeezed mine. “Ellie... Have you truly forgotten everything? Can you remember nothing more than you and me from your first life?”
“There was no one else, Cole. Why do you do this? Why do you test my mind and try to push me to the brink of insanity?”
“That is not what I am trying to do, my love. I only want you to...” He sighed and sat nearer to me. “I wish that you would remember so you might not hate me so much for what I must do. I have accepted that you adore those abomin... those people with all your heart and do not wish to reclaim your land, but I cannot bear the thought of you hating me for what I must do. Something is coming, Ellie. Someone. And she is closer to you than you realize. I had hoped you were playing a long game, so to speak, but now it is clear to me that you do not remember your past, not enough.”
“So, tell me!” I squealed, my voice choked as tears threatened to spill.
“Why? So that you can tell me I am lying to you? So you can deny it and hate me more than you already do? No. I’d rather do what I must to destroy what’s coming to ensure your safety than to have you attempt to stop me.”
My head ached as I tried to decipher his words. It was clear he would not tell me the truth, but if I could push myself to remember, would it matter? Would it change what he had to do?
“Enough of this. I only wanted to inform you of my plan to take the Seven, as we agreed. I will harm no one else, as promised.” He made a motion to stand, but I held tight to his hand. He might not be willing to tell me the truth, but our conversation was not finished.
I swallowed, choosing the truth over the lies. If he were to die, then I wanted him to have something, anything that might bring happiness to the small part of him that deserved more than the life he was born into. That little light might be his only thread to a happier afterlife.
“I do love you, Cole. Even with everything that has happened between us, I loved you then, and I still do now.”
“You love him more,” he whispered. “And you should. He is everything I cannot be for you. I saw it in your eyes the night he died. Your light died alongside him, and it killed me.”
“My love for him does not change what I felt for you or what I feel now.” I snickered. “I wish it did in some way, but truly, I cannot say I do not love you because it would be a lie.”
“They say love and hate can feel the same.” I knew he turned his head to look at me, though I could hardly see him. The moon glistened in his eyes and cast a slight glow over his nose and cheeks, but nothing more.
His hand was still in mine, so I pressed it against my chest just over my heart. “I want you to feel my heartbeat so that you will know I tell you the truth. I wish, with all my heart, that I could find some way to change your fate. You were the only person who ever cared about me back then, and I have not forgotten that. I do love you. I do. If anyone had told me it was possible to love two people so powerfully, I would have thought them crazy. But I do. The only difference between you and Wil is my ability to save you. I can save him, but you...”
He squeezed my free hand in his and leaned his forehead against mine. “You didn’t mean what you said before, did you? That you would stay if I promised not to hurt those you love?”
My heart started to race, betraying me. I shook my head slightly. “No, not then, but... but if there is some way... if there is something that I can do to change this for you... Surely, there must be some way to—”
“There is not, Ellie. I am what I am, and that cannot change. What is coming will come no matter what you do, and I must be what I was born to be.” I felt his nose brush against mine and the warmth of his breath over my lips. “You will kill me, won’t you?”
I choked on a sob, not even realizing how close the tears were. “I do not want to. With all my heart, I want to change this, but... if I cannot, then I must, Cole.”
“You can’t kill an immortal being,” he whispered.
“I must try, though it will be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.” Tears fell over my cheeks and onto his hand.
He closed the last centimeters and kissed me as delicately as one might a fragile flower. An aching spread through my chest, a longing for something I could never have with the one person who had seen me at both my best and worst and loved me all the same. I tried to remind myself of all the horrible things he had done, how unforgivable it all was, but all I could see was the man he wanted to be. It was a curse, and it was killing me slowly.
He released me and cupped my cheeks in his palms. “I will not harm anyone you love, save those Seven. If you should choose to follow through with your plan to kill me, I will not fight you. I haven’t the will to.”
Cole stood and released my cheeks. “I know who all Seven are. When next we meet, it will be on separate sides of this war. I love you, Ellie, and I will until the last moment.”
A breeze tousled my hair, and he was gone.