“You, worried about me?” Vhalla laughed. “I doubt it.”
“Not about you.” Elecia shook her head haughtily. “About your failing and what it’d mean for our prince.”
Vhalla smiled faintly. First Baldair and now a fondness for Elecia; what was happening to her?
“Excuse me, everyone, I am stealing away my friend,” Fritz announced as he linked his arm with hers.
Arm in arm, Vhalla entered the camp of the Black Legion for the first time. She’d avoided it while under the guise of Serien. People Vhalla didn’t know—and was fairly certain she’d never met before—recognized her. She could only guess it was due to her proximity to Fritz or Elecia or both, and that the soldiers had spread the word like wildfire. Most seemed shocked, and mildly offended, that she’d been in the camp for weeks and had yet to seek out the Black Legion. The few majors she had worked with alongside Jax had a deeper level of shock. But it was a welcome sort of offense, one that stemmed from caring about her wellbeing and not from formalities or falsehood.
“You two are staying together?” Vhalla blinked at the single tent in surprise.
“This one here couldn’t handle being alone.” Elecia rolled her eyes, but her words lacked bite, clearly only pretending to be put out.
“I was worried,” Fritz said for a second time, sitting heavily. “I thought I was going to lose you too and be alone.”
The words were more chilling than a dagger made of ice, and Vhalla moved quickly next to her friend, her side flush up against his. “I’m sorry.”
“I still can’t believe you made it.” Fritz shook his head and, with it, cast aside his worry. “You’re amazing, Vhal.”
“What happened after I left?” Vhalla braved the question, thinking once more on the Emperor’s actions upon seeing her.
“The Emperor made it out that he had sent you.” That much Vhalla had already been told, but there was a heaviness to Elecia’s words that didn’t sit well with her. “But he knew someone in the Black Legion had orchestrated your escape, and there was an accident.”
“An accident?” Vhalla glanced at Fritz, who hardly moved. “Major Reale was killed.” Elecia didn’t have to say any more—neither of them did.
Vhalla hadn’t known the major for long, but she had known Reale to be a tough-as-nails woman who exemplified what it meant to be a soldier. From Elecia’s tone, Vhalla knew the major hadn’t gone out in the blaze of glory she’d deserved. There was a time that the guilt of the major’s death would’ve crushed Vhalla. But now it only added force behind the winds that were beginning to howl for blood in the back of her mind.
“The Emperor ...” Elecia glanced at the open tent flap, searching for anyone who may be within earshot. “Vhalla, I would be very careful. He’s suspicious of even me and has been obviously cutting me out of meetings,” she huffed. “And I’m kin to the crown prince. He has no reason to even pretend to care for you.”
Vhalla leaned back on her palms. “He’s already taken everything he could from me.”
“No, he hasn’t.” Elecia knocked Vhalla’s arrogance right off her face with her words. “The man owns the world. There will always be something he can take from you.”
Vhalla looked away rather than arguing. Any protest would serve no purpose; the woman was clearly convinced. “How is Aldrik?” she asked about the only thing that was a balm to the rage within her.
“He healed well,” Elecia reported. “But ... I still fear for his mind. He hasn’t woken.”
“Not once?” Vhalla frowned. Elecia shook her head.
“What can we do?”
“The clerics and I have already tried everything. He can live until the natural end of his days as he is, but ...” Elecia’s face was as pained as Vhalla felt.
“There must be something else.” They had come so far. Vhalla wasn’t about to give up now.
“There is nothing else.” Pain made Elecia short-tempered. “So you’re giving up on him?” Vhalla snarled, letting out some of her own frustration. “How dare you!”
“There is something else.” Fritz placed a hand on each of the women’s shoulders.
“What?” both snapped in unison.
“There is something else that hasn’t been tried,” Fritz repeated.
“Fritz, you know I’ve done all I could.” Elecia was honestly offended that he could even suggest she hadn’t.
“You have, I know,” Fritz agreed. “But that’s not everything that could be tried ...” He turned to Vhalla, and she instantly knew where his mind was.
Vhalla’s heart betrayed her at the idea. It pulsed with a hope, a hope that was ignorant of all the flaws to the plan. It was a beam of light cutting through the darkness that had been slowly suffocating her.
“You mean their Joining.” Elecia fearlessly gave words to what Vhalla was still chewing over. “Absolutely not. It’s far too risky.”,
“We’ve already Joined,” Vhalla reminded.
“Every time is a risk,” Elecia insisted. “His mind isn’t strong. You could get lost in that void or—I don’t even know what. A Joining is dangerous in the best of conditions.”
Vhalla brought her hands together. She wondered why she was even debating. The moment Fritz suggested it, she had known it would be the only course of action.
“Why do you think it would work?” Vhalla turned to Fritz. “You can’t be serious,” Elecia balked.
“It’s only a theory.” Fritz suddenly seemed insecure, glancing between the two women. “But a Joining is essentially a merger of two minds, right? I thought that, perhaps, you could go into his mind and bring him back.”
“I’ll try,” Vhalla resolved before Elecia could get in another objection.
The woman was clearly not to be easily dissuaded. She gripped Vhalla’s shoulder. “Are you even listening?”
“There’s nothing more the clerics can do; you said it yourself.” Vhalla was not backing down, not until she’d tried. “If not this, then what? We let him spend forever locked away in the prison of his mind? We watch him waste away into nothing, sustained by potions and your magic?”
Elecia dropped her gaze, her hand going limp. Vhalla pulled away, rising to her knees.
“Where are you going?” Fritz asked.
“To try.” Vhalla turned.
“Do you think the Emperor will let you anywhere near him ever again?” Elecia frowned.
“Do you think he’ll stop me?” Vhalla peered over her shoulder at Elecia. She’d never had any intention of asking the Emperor for his permission to see Aldrik.
“How are you getting in?” Elecia countered.
“Don’t worry about that.” Vhalla shook her head. “Elecia, if something goes awry, I trust you to take care of him.”
“If I can ...”
Vhalla’s eyes landed on Fritz. He had a sorrowful acceptance about her decision, despite being the one who suggested it. Vhalla sighed and pulled him in for a tight embrace. “When this is over, Fritz—when it’s all over—we’ll work together in the Tower again.”
He laughed weakly. “Of course we will, if your recklessness doesn’t kill me with worry first.” The Southerner sniffled loudly. “When did the library apprentice become so wild?”
“Who knows,” Vhalla said. She kissed his cheek lightly, her lips sealing in the truth. She hadn’t studied and trained to be the woman she had become; it had been carved into her by the world’s demands.
Vhalla had learned the camp and avoided the main roads through it. She kept her head down and her pace just fast enough to be heading somewhere with a purpose, but not too fast that she’d raise suspicion. She rounded the camp palace, swinging wide to the back hall. The tents stopped a moderate distance away, and the full moon was unkind to her intentions.
Thinking quickly, Vhalla walked around a different wall, grabbing some spare planks of lumber that had been stacked. As nonchalantly as possible, she leaned them against the building near Aldrik’s window. Most of the soldiers slept on, an
d the few who were awake didn’t notice or didn’t question the confident woman going about her business.
Two boards were enough to shield her from prying eyes and Vhalla squatted down against the wall in the small triangle of space they made. She held her breath, closed her eyes, and listened. With her Channel open, she became the wind’s confidant, listening to its secrets. Delicate pulses along it, pushing outward and pulling back to her, told her that there were three people sleeping in the camp palace.
Vhalla glanced at the camp, looking for anyone who was awake and paying attention. Finding no one, she crept from her hiding place, pulling open one of the slatted shutters over the low window. Vhalla sat on the ledge of the window and swung her feet inside, pulling the shutter closed behind her.
The room was plunged into near darkness, the shutters mostly thwarting the silvery light of the moon. It was a familiar space to Vhalla after the days she’d spent curled in the bed. But this time, the bed was occupied.
Five shaky steps and she was at his side. All strength left her, and Vhalla collapsed onto the edge of the bed, her hand to her mouth. Her shoulders lurched as she brought her forehead to his chest. She felt his breathing, much steadier than the last time, and she turned her eyes back to him only when she was certain she could control herself enough not to cry aloud and alert everyone to her presence.
The relief was overwhelming. There was still a bandage around his head, but it no longer appeared to be oozing blood. Most of the other bandages, including on his arms, had been removed. His face had returned to a mostly normal color, and the swelling had gone down. He wore a stubble on his cheeks that she’d never seen before; Vhalla couldn’t prevent herself from touching it, from touching him.
“Oh, Aldrik,” she whimpered into the humid night air. “Aldrik ...” Her fingertips ghosted over his face, and Vhalla inched closer to him. “My love.”
Vhalla felt exposed and naked, raw to the world. She pressed her quivering lips to his, delighting in the unique lightening his skin could spark across the storm clouds of chaos that brewed within her. He was the start and end of her world, the glue holding together her fragile sanity. He was everything, and without him she was lost.
Vhalla straightened, looking down at him. He was all that to her. So she had to be the same and more for him. She absorbed every inch of his face, of the exposed collarbone and chest just above the blanket. He needed her to be strong, he needed her in a way he would never need anyone else.
She shifted her fingers to his temples, pressing lightly into his hot flesh. Vhalla closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. It was like Projecting; she wanted to push herself outward, but not into the open air, into him, into them.
Their breathing echoed in perfect time; their heartbeats drummed a knowing rhythm of two people who had become so linked that even death itself couldn’t separate them. Vhalla lost herself in the symphony of their essence, allowing herself to mingle with him. She felt her body slip away and entered a place that only they knew.
For a moment, Vhalla lost all sense of purpose. The missing piece was found; the hollow void that had been consuming her was filled. That satisfactory wholeness put all other desires to shame. Why would she want to escape? Why would she want to take him from this place of warmth and love into the harsh world waiting beyond?
But she didn’t let herself indulge too much. She was here for a reason. As much as she wanted to run from the world and retreat into him, the world still needed its prince. It needed the heir, the wonderful man she had come to love.
Aldrik, her thoughts ripped through the world that existed only between them. You need to wake up now.
Somewhere on the horizon of her perception, a hot wind swept up toward her. Fire followed, setting the world ablaze around her: a mental defense.
Enough of this! she called, not allowing the childish protest to overwhelm her. Don’t fight me.
He was here. Vhalla’s heart—their heart—began to race and, with it, her metaphysical feet took flight. She ran through the flames that did not burn her. Through the darkness that spun into light.
In those flames, she saw the flickering outlines of figures. She saw a man she knew well and the boy he had grown from. Shadows of Aldrik’s past danced beyond her reach, too hazy to decipher, the glittering specters trying to distract her from her mission.
Aldrik! Vhalla cried once more. She was losing all sense of time. Seconds or days could have passed in the real world and she would not have known it. Vhalla raised her hand to her shoulder, sweeping it across her chest.
The wind scattered the flames, pushing them away. Vhalla turned and repeated the process, snuffing the burning memories. She rotated, banishing the horrors he worked so hard to keep confined within the dark corners of his mind. Vhalla removed everything, until all that was left was him.
There was nothing around them; they had no real bodies, but the illusion of Aldrik sat curled in on himself, his face hidden against his knees. Vhalla stepped forward slowly, or perhaps she willed the world to move around her. Either way, she reached her destination.
Dropping to her knees behind him, Vhalla wrapped her arms around the hunched man’s shoulders.
Aldrik, she whispered his name as soft as a lover’s caress. Come back with me. Please come back.
The world rippled around her in protest.
I know. I know, it’s awful out there. But you can’t stay here. Everyone needs you. Vhalla felt their heartbeat slowing. I need you.
The ground, which was not really ground, began to grow hazy. It steamed like hot stones after a short summer shower. He resisted their Joining or she was losing her magical strength to maintain it. Either way, she was running out of time.
Please, wake up. Come back with me, she urged. Vhalla knew she had to withdraw; if she didn’t now, she’d really be lost with him. Aldrik, I love you.
Her physical eyes fluttered open and her head swam. Vhalla swayed, her hands falling on either side of his head, gripping the pillow for support. She gulped down air, wondering if her physical body had even been breathing the entire time. Returning from a Joining that deep was cold and empty.
“Don’t make me do this alone,” she murmured. Aldrik was still, the moonlight freezing his face in time. “Aldrik, don’t do this to me.”
Vhalla dropped her forehead onto his chest. What a fool she’d been for thinking it’d work. For thinking she could bring him back. She had long accepted that she was a bringer of death.
Tears fell freely. Vhalla didn’t even try to stop them. Her lips curled and her breaths ran ragged as she tried to mourn with her entire soul while not making a sound.
He twitched.
Her eyes shot open, and Vhalla shot upright again. Aldrik remained motionless. Was it her exhaustion playing tricks on her? She gripped his fingers so tightly she might break them again.
His hand tensed under hers.
“Aldrik,” she breathed. Vhalla watched his face with avid interest, but there was nothing more. “Aldrik,” Vhalla demanded firmly. The Gods would give her this. They would give him back to her. “Damn it, open your eyes!” her voice rose to a near cry.
The door on the other side of the hall opened. Vhalla’s head snapped in the direction of the sound.
“What?” a weak voice muttered from the bed.
Vhalla turned back to Aldrik in bewilderment, her prince. Rough-faced with the makings of a newly-grown beard, greasy-haired, and eyes that were exhausted despite his sleep, he looked positively awful.
He looked perfect.
The door to the room swung open without a word; another slammed against the wall on the opposite end of the hall. Vhalla met Baldair’s eyes as he stood, candle in hand, so shocked that he didn’t notice the wax running over his fingers. Vhalla spun off the bed, darting for the window.
“What is going on?” the Emperor called from the hall.
She closed the shutter and shrunk against the wall behind the boards she’d placed earlier. Vhalla gripped
her shirt over her racing heart, praying it did not give her location away. She tilted her head back against the wood of the building and listened to the wind for the first time in weeks. It sang such a beautiful hymn of joy that harmonized with her heaving breaths and silent tears.
Her prince had returned.
“Aldrik, you ...” Baldair eloquently ended what Vhalla presumed to be a staring contest between the three men. She could hear them without problem through the slats of the shutter.
“It is good to see you, son,” the Emperor said, having more control of his thoughts.
“Where are we?” Aldrik asked weakly.
“We are at Soricium,” the Emperor responded. His tone was gentler than Vhalla had ever heard it and, for all the anger she harbored for Emperor Solaris, she was relieved to hear a glimpse of his soul that love for his first born son could bring forward.
“Soricium?” Aldrik mumbled. “No, we were ... I was just ... Were we not at the Crossroads?”
Vhalla turned toward the shutters. Elecia had said they wouldn’t know the state of Aldrik’s mind. What if he had forgotten their time together?
“We haven’t been at the Crossroads for months, brother,” Baldair said delicately.
“No, we were ... We were ...” Aldrik sounded lost.
“There is no point in taxing yourself,” the Emperor soothed. “The events of the Crossroads and after are inconsequential.”
Vhalla wanted to scream in objection. The Crossroads had formed her and Aldrik’s shifting feelings, after which they had shared what had been the best night of her life.
“No,” Aldrik breathed. Vhalla heard his protest upon the evening breeze, echoing from his heart to hers. “No, the Crossroads, and then ... Then you took Vhalla from me.”
“Son.” The Emperor’s voice had completely changed.
“And we, the Pass ... I ...” There was a sudden commotion from within the room. “Where is she?” Aldrik demanded.
“Lie down. No, Aldrik, do not try to stand.” Baldair fell into the role of the cleric.
“Where is she? Is she all right? Baldair, you swore to me you would protect her!” Aldrik’s words sounded half mad with worry.