Falling Skies

Fourty Four

Yet besides the bed the room is empty. Just marbled floors, a quartz chandelier of sorts, and the same colossal windows as most of the castle's rooms. The door opens and December's focus breaks, head turning towards the sound of creaking wood as Jax and Ryder enter the puzzling bedroom.

Ryder scans the room as his hand falls from the handle, eyes squinting slightly at the sight of the empty bedroom. There's merely a bed and four walls. Nothing else.

"How are you feeling?" Jax questions from his place beside the smaller boy in the doorframe. He walks into the room without fear, body falling onto the plush bed with a popping stretch.

"I feel fine?" Ryder answers, following Jax's lead and crawling beneath the cream canopy. It's too empty here... The sensation begins to settle into his bones, eyes scanning the empty walls to no avail. Yet there's a presence that seems to seep through, a sensation of being watched as he turns towards the empty wall once more.

Ryder shakes away the sensation, hand rustling his black hair as he blows air through his puffed-up cheeks. "Crazy that this is the nerve wracking part but I've been stressed all day." He scoffs, one knee curling into his chest as he rests his chin upon it.

Jax sits up from his spot sprawled across the bed, body propping itself up by the elbows as his head falls towards Ryder with a warm smile. "This is the last part. We just have to make it through this and we're done. Plus," he adds with a cock of the head and beaming grin. "Elchanan helped us plan for this part to make it as easy as possible. We have nothi-"

He's cut off by the sound of a door, black locks flying as his head whips to the other side. A black veiled servant enters the room, an object hidden in her grasp as she steps to the side, Wren following behind the woman. She's much taller than he is, her body having to bend to gather all the robe that trails behind his body. She wraps the material around her arm as he walks towards the bed, the fae coming to a pause directly in front of the two boy.

Though Ryder gifts a subtle smile, Wren doesn't respond, his gaze burning into the night visible through the ceiling-high window. The veiled woman lowers to the floor and bustles the robe to Wren, his thin body stumbling backwards from the added weight pooling at the small of his back. The handmaiden pays no attention, merely pulling a large crystal bowl from beneath the bed. From somewhere far off she retrieves a jug of water, pouring its contents into the smooth bowl before stepping back from her work.

As the woman moves to her designated position behind the headboard of the bed, a stone of nerves drops in Ryder's gut, lips curling back into his teeth as he eyes the boy standing before him.

Wren finally cracks, dark eyes falling upon the two before they switch places as instructed, Ryder finding a seat on the cool marble floor with Jax at his side. There's no words exchanged as the three begin the ritual, Ryder's hand wrapping around the golden bracelet locked around Wren's ankle. The fae doesn't react to his touch, doesn't move as Ryder places the small foot in the crystal bowl of water.

A part of Ryder worries about the lack of a reaction, Wren too still as they wash the water across his feet. It's cold enough that their fingers run numb yet he still doesn't react. The fae blind to the feel of their hands grazing his flesh and the cloth that wraps around each foot as they finish. Wren doesn't move as the handmaiden drops an object in Ryder's hand, eyes distant and glassy as Ryder pulls him from the bed and forces him to stand.

Brown stares into burgundy, earth into fire yet there's no reaction, no dart of the eye or widening of the pupil. There's only an emptiness that stares into Ryder's soul as he stands directly before the boy. Traces the golden lines on his cheeks and brushes away the diamond tassels that graze his nose. His hand cups the face of the fae, thumb swiping across the chill skin of his cheek as his other hand grasps the hardened object held tight at his side.