XVII
＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊
Lillian found her fingers clamping almost painfully as they twisted into the furs on her lap. Beside her Aëghan was silent, unreadable, yet not unwelcoming.
Almost as if he knew that she needed the silence and the time to compose herself before she began speaking, before she began to tell him about an event that had changed who she had been and still affected her monumentally to that day.
She expelled a steadying breath, casting him a wary glance. All around her, the storm continued to rage on, grating against her nerves. There were details she would not reveal, details that were too difficult to relive aloud as sometimes the past is best left in the past. So she chose her words carefully, selectively, and endeavoured to inject as much calm into them as possible knowing that the astute male beside her would be picking apart her retelling scrupulously.
It was not lost on Lillian that this was the second consecutive night that she had sought comfort and solace from a male that had alternative prerogatives when it came to her... and it was only then that she was beginning to piece together bits of his agenda. Why else would he harbour a fascination with her- the only known being to survive an alternative realm and return to this one? She could not even be sure that what she revealed to him would be of any use, but she decided to speak plainly, eloquently, with him. Without pretense, without prejudice or hidden meaning, and then perhaps she would be able to at least understand him better, as well as her uncontrollable and spiralling fascination with him.
"I only realised that I was no longer in England after I was taken captive," she began slowly, and paused. Aëghan shifted slightly, though she suspected that he was settling himself further into the bed rather than any true reaction to what she had begun saying, so Lillian continued. "I did not know how serious my predicament was at first, and fought against my restraints- the fae had accosted and arrested a human, in my eyes, and I railed against the injustice with an indignation that... did not sit well. It was largely ineffective- none of the fae spoke English. I believe I must have seemed like some sort of useless spy or scout in their eyes at the time, considering the skirmishes and conflict among-"
"Conflict?" Aëghan interrupted, his voice a taut breath, and Lillian glanced at him sharply. His inquisition of that particular topic served to confirm her suspicions of his secretive agenda when it came to her- he was eager to learn of his world, and who better to expunge information than from the source who had firsthand experience?
"Much later, once I had earned my freedom, I began to pick up some of the language- not a lot, but enough to get by and make my way," Lillian explained. "Your courts are distrustful of each other- have been for years, it seems. Even factions within the same kingdoms are at constant conflict. But at present, there is bitter rivalry and distrust between the Court of Dragons- your court, Aëghan- and the three Draëllian courts."
Through the darkness, she saw his brow furrow. "Do you know why?"
"Such things were never discussed with me, and difficult to determine with my limited knowledge of the language," she said tightly. "I can assume it had something to do with The Reveal, but it would be based on my speculation alone. You... you need to realise after my captivity I was treated little better than a slave. I was... tormented, ridiculed, made into a sport-"
"You do not need to speak of it," he said suddenly, the mattress dipping slightly as he sidled onto it further. She watched as his hand slid across the furs and gently coaxed her trembling fingers into his. "If you find it difficult, I will understand."
She shook her head, her gaze locked onto the innocuous action of his hand surrounding hers. Her flesh seemed pale in comparison to his, her wrists so slender the bones were prominent against her pale skin. "Let me tell you of the Lightning Plains, as it was here where I... where I was not certain if I would survive, even if I was to somehow be released from captivity."
"The Lightning Plains," Aëghan repeated, his voice a soft murmur of speculation. "I have not heard of this place."
"I know not of what it is called in your tongue," she admitted. "It is what I call it. If you like... I can recall cartography sketches from my time at the court. It'll be from memory, so the accuracy will not be exact, but I could depict what I remember-"
His fingers squeezed around hers, quelling her words. The lines of his face were hard, calm, yet something shone deep from within his gaze, something she couldn't name. "I will never forget what you have offered," Aëghan said softly, "or what it would cost you to do so, but I will not ask it of you, or allow it, when there are depictions of it that exist already."
His words provoked a memory, stirring within her from one of their very first encounters when he came upon her after she had first acquired the mark- all of three days prior. Had it really been so short a time between now and then, when everything about Aëghan seemed so very ingrained into her that it felt as if she had known him for much longer? "I believe I am indebted to you, and still owe you a favour- for covering the magic of the mark." As if in response, the band about her upper arm gave a painful burn, as if flaring to life.
"Consider what you reveal to me now what is owed." Again, he squeezed her fingers.
His gentleness, his gestures of consolations, were at odds with her initial depiction of the Dravolese, and Lillian found herself frowning for it. There was something unfurling over her heart, warm and enveloping, but she could not acknowledge it.
Would not name it for what it was.
She dragged her gaze away from their interlocked fingers, knowing she should retract from his touch, yet she couldn't- not when a storm raged on about her and the only source of comfort was from the male beside her.
"That is... acceptable." She found his face, his gaze yet unremoved from her. "Thank you."
His smile was devoid of his normal wry humour, and even though it was small, the sincerity of it made her very aware that she was finding him more likable by the minute. She lurched her thoughts away from that disturbing notion, instead focusing on the topic at hand. Immediately, she felt the dread suffuse her limbs, a mild panic root deep within her flesh, exacerbated by the weather, but she grit her teeth against it, refusing to be cowed.
"I was taken to The Lightning Plains after I was captured," she began again, "and lowered into a pit. At first, I was blindfolded so I did not know where I was, or what was around me, but when I was able to remove the blindfold I found myself in a... hole. Some sort of deep cavern, with walls that were polished slate of a black so encompassing it felt depthless and stark. There was a low enclave carved into the bottom which I learnt later was for some protection and sleep. Other than that... there was nothing else in the pit." Her hands began to shake fervently and she clenched them, one knotted around Aëghan's, one into the furs in her lap. She averted her gaze, finding unshed tears begin to prick at the corners. "I was not bound or restrained after being placed in the pit," she went on, her voice carrying a warble now, "and I found that odd, odder when I found a series of carved hand and toe holds that led out to the top of the pit. I did not tarry, believing this to be an easy escape, and I was quick to scale the wall, but... but what I saw-"
She found her voice lodged in her throat, the memory of the starkness so vivid she felt paralysed for it, as if she were thrust back into that pit and had just hauled her torso over the abrasive edge at the top. A dry wind had whipped her hair over her face, bringing with it the stinging bite of grit and a substance that felt like shards of glass as it corroded her heated skin. The plains were flat, and stretched on for what seemed like endless miles, all black and glistening with the unrelenting light and heat of the sun.
"There were other pits like mine," she continued, her voice a dry rasp as Aëghan's room disappeared around her. She couldn't feel the cold any longer, only the choking heat that rose from the slate and burnt her flesh, the dryness that cracked her lips and burned her eyes. Right then, she couldn't hear the storm, only the howl of the wind and the scattering of shards and grit against the smooth black surface of the plane... and the drag of claws against the slate, a continuous and endless pacing. A shiver ran down her spin. "I do not know how many circular holes against the slate that I counted before I noticed them. It was clear why they did not restrain me, or if there were others in the pits why nobody dared venture out even though the holds carved into each side seemed like an obvious escape. I... I called them the sentinels. But they were not fae, or human, or..."
By the time Lillian had noticed the creature, it had almost been too late. It was upon her already with a high-pitched snarl that terrorised her soul and fed her nightmares. It walked upright, long limbs so thin they almost looked emaciated, but at the tips of its hands and feet were deadly black claws. Its leathery skin or flesh was pale, an unhealthy pallor, but Lillian soon discovered that the hours the sentinels spent patrolling about the pits in the excruciating sunlight, feeding on scraps of flesh or the bodies of the deceased from the night before, warranted a thick hide that had adapted to its unforgiving environment. It was eyeless, from what she remembered, with hollowed skin pulled tightly over cavities where the organs should have been, flat-nosed, and a hideous lipless mouth pulled back in a cadaverous sneer to reveal rows of wickedly pointed and rotting teeth.
"I was not so fortunate that first day," she whispered, unconsciously raising her fingers of her free hand and touching the side of her neck. The skin was raised, puckered, from where the creature had lashed out, its claws ripping through her flesh so easily that she had been thrust from her tenuous perch, falling backwards the twelve feet or so to land on her back on the rigid slate floor, winded and bleeding.
A movement beside her pulled her back to the present and Lillian found the mattress dipping as Aëghan shifted again. This time he released her hand and crawled close to her, briefly arranged the pillows behind him and leaned back.
Then he pulled her between his legs and wrapped his arms around her so that her back rested against his chest. At first she stiffened, but then she became aware of how badly she was trembling and how remarkable it felt to be surrounded by him, that she began to relax slightly.
"Just for tonight," he murmured, his chin brushing against the hair by her temple, "just while you are talking."
She nodded, her fingers automatically seeking his where they held her waist.
"The sentinels patrolled during the day, making escape impossible," she went on, and reliving it now felt... better. The constant rise and fall of his chest a warm anchor, the tangibility of the male holding her making it easier for her mind not to delve too deeply into those memories. "At night, the storms... There is something about the mineral in the rock of the plain that generates the lightning. From the moment the sun disappears, the storms begin until it rises again. And when the sun rises, so do the sentinels. There was no reprieve, no escape, and sometimes the storm was so loud I was deaf for it the next day. There was no certainty that the lightning wouldn't strike inside the pit and judging by how the sentinels foraged for remains the following day, I am almost certain it happened. They... they never climbed into the pits. Their limbs were too long and awkward, I believe, but they were able to reach inside, testing and searching for those who did not survive the night."
She felt his arms tighten around her, the steady thrum of his heart against her shoulder comforting enough to divert her troubling memories. She didn't dwell on her recounts when the comfort of his body seemed a more pleasant and compelling place to linger. "There was word of this place, but we did not call it that," he said quietly, the words reverberating through his flesh and against hers, "but it was told that such practises were forbidden, the plains long since abolished as a form of punishment due to the cruel nature of them."
"I assure you, they are not," Lillian muttered bitterly.
He paused, stilling imperceptibly, before dipping his chin to nuzzle behind her ear. "Words cannot express how sorry I am that you had to go through that, Lillian. How long were you... imprisoned for?"
She turned her head to study him then, finding his face angled towards her and so very close she could feel his warm breath against her cheek. However, her voice was flat, cold, when she spoke. "Eight months."
"Eight months?" Disbelief flashed across his face and, if possible, he pulled her tighter against him, the muscles in his forearms flexing spasmodically.
"It... became difficult to keep track of the days that passed. It was almost a monotony of terror, a constant ebb from one horror to the next, but at first being able to keep track of the days helped keep me sane. Every third day just before the storms began, I was tossed down a hunk of bread that was so stale it had hardened almost completely. In the beginning I was intuitive, proactive, and thought that I should ration what they gave me in case a time came where they didn't any more. When I made my escape, I counted just over seventy smaller chunks that I had pulled off and stored in the enclave as my rations, out of the rain water that flooded the bottom of the pit every night to keep mold from growing- though it did not seem to on whatever food they had thrown down to me." She shrugged, dismissing the thought. "At some point I believe I relinquished the idea that I would ever leave that pit, and storing those little bits of bread became an exercise in retaining some of my mental stamina."
"Lillian, I-"
"It is fine, Aëghan." She huffed a sigh, almost entirely relaxed against his body now. "Well, I suppose it isn't because I did not ask to be thrown into that world, but I was, and while I was in that pit I kept asking why it was I and not someone else beholden to this fate? But there is no sense to be made of it. There was no sense to it when my hands started shaking one night while I was drenched and miserable, watching the pit slowly fill up with water so cold I thought I would lose my feet for it, and then they did not stop shaking even after the rains had abated and the sun came up to make that pit almost suffocating with its heat."
Silence ebbed softly after that, the storm continuing around them and the soft rise and fall of his chest so very comforting. Lillian found herself turning into his neck, tucked under his chin, and she couldn't recall the last time she felt so safe even as she spoke of events that had scarred her in more ways than one.
"How did you escape?" Aëghan asked at length, his voice a gentle whisper that made her alert after she realised that she had been lulled into closing her eyes, a numbing lethargy suffusing her.
His question was enough to rouse her however, as the day of her escape was almost the day of her demise. She squeezed her eyes shut briefly, quelling the tempestuous rising of her fear. "I do not wish to admit this," she murmured, "for it makes me seem incredibly weak, but by the time I decided to escape, I had put it in my mind that I was ready for death anyway. I knew that if I stayed in that pit for much longer, I would meet my end just as likely as I would out of it."
"You are not weak," Aëghan said fervently and his lips pressed against her forehead, the shock of sensation from them making her eyes fly open wide as she reared back slightly away from him. "You are not weak," he repeated firmly, scowling. "There has never been word of another returning alive from the plains, Lillian. Not to my knowledge."
"I had help, I think." She shrugged, settling against him again and tucking herself back under his chin. "The last few weeks in my pit I began to notice a short lull between the sentinels doing their paces and the start of the storms. I know not the cause, I do not know if perhaps I simply hadn't noticed it before, but there was not even thirty minutes reprieve where... nothing happened on the plains. I knew I needed to take my chances- mauled by the sentinels, struck by lightning or losing my mind in a pit, one of these three ways was bound to claim my life and I did not wish to wait any longer. So I climbed out of my pit during one of those small reprieves where everything seemed to stagnate on the plains, and ran." She swallowed, hating her own stupidity for what happened next, hating that she didn't account for it to allow herself to be more careful. "At one end of the plains that I appeared closest to was a copse of trees and I headed for that. I did not account for the blackness of the stone, and how difficult it was to spot other pits while I was sprinting across the plains for fear of the storms starting again." And the clouds had begun to roll in as she hurtled and skidded around the obstacles, the thunder and lightning beginning an ominous chant as the massive black clouds churned over every horizon. The slate beneath her bare feet had been so agonizingly hot that the skin of her soles seared and blistered, yet she had pushed on with a desperation borne from her acute terror and need. "Even if I hadn't misjudged one of the pits and stumbled over it, breaking my ankle, I would never have made it in time. It was a losing battle, but at that point I was invested to see it through to the end no matter what the outcome. Somehow I managed to crawl upright and drag myself further... but then the storm."
Behind her, Aëghan swallowed heavily, a ragged breath escaping him as one of his hands settled on her left flank, stroking over the scar tissue there soothingly. "The storms on the plains are invoked through an enchantment," he told her, a pained edge to his voice. "For those who are fae, being struck by the lightning is merely an inhibitor- served to stun, repress and deter. For a human-"
"I knew I wouldn't be able to evade it," Lillian interrupted him. "And it happened so suddenly... it didn't even seem as if there were clouds over me yet to warrant the first strike so close, but as it happened I stumbled and fell. I felt it before it struck then, and made myself as small as possible on my side. There was excruciating pain as I was hit down the left side of my body, and I could feel my blood pooling beneath me, but I was so relieved when I became unconscious- I truly believed I had died then."
His fingers were tracing the patterns of her scars through the fabric of her shirt that she wore and she allowed it, the sensation pleasant. How she was able to endure his caress on a part of her body she couldn't bear to look at, Lillian could not know. But Aëghan didn't make it seem shameful or hideous; there was a reverence and tenderness to his administrations, something that was infinitely soothing to her troubled mind and body.
"But you did not," he said, his lips brushing against her hairline. "You survived."
"When I came to, I found myself in what I later knew as the Court of Dragons," Lillian mumbled bitterly. "Scarred, broken, and a prisoner once more. I was alive, and allowed to heal, but none who tended to me were pleasant. I had no allies during my time at the court- I was an amusing diversion, one who had somehow managed to survive the plains even though it soon became clear I held no magical ability. When they deduced how lacking I was..."
When her words trailed off into nothingness and a bolt of lightning caused her to outwardly wince, Aëghan dropped his chin to the top of her head and expelled an almost thoughtful sigh. "I remember the Court of Dragons," he admitted.
"You do?" She twisted away to look up at him then, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. "Just how old are you?"
"Your impertinence astounds me, madam," he reprimanded lightly, his fingers pinching her flank lightly. "But I remember it as a young boy. I remember my mother, too." A sad smile came over his face then. "She did not... that is to say, most of us were displaced during The Reveal- families torn apart. I was eight years old when I was separated from my mother."
"I am sorry." Lillian's heart ached, envisioning Aëghan as a young, desolate boy. How lonely and lost he must have felt, deprived of his mother's love in a world that did not want him... "What of your father? Brothers and sisters?"
He looked thoughtful then. "No siblings. My father's memory is vague. He was an aloof figure in our lives, yet I remember we lived in comfort, surrounded by wealth."
Lillian considered this and how he surrounded himself with as much luxury as he was able- possibly recreating the world he had lost. "Perhaps you were of some import at court," she remarked.
His smile was small, not quite meeting his eyes. "Perhaps you encountered my family while you were there."
She felt her face drop and shifted so that he did not see the discomfort in her expression. "I would not like to think so." Her memories swirled, visions of the fae illustrious and vivid, yet none came to mind that had similar characteristics to the male holding her so tenderly in his arms right then. Some of the more unpleasant encounters she deliberately chose not to remember, so it would go without saying that she would not be able to place identities easily. "I should not like to think that I came across your relatives and they abhorred me."
He did not respond for a long moment, his fingers stilling against her and encompassing her waist warmly. "Neither do I."
It seemed as if there was no more need for words between them and a quietness settled, broken by the constant hush of the wind, the onslaught of the rain, and the ebb and rush of the storm. And she was content to linger within his arms, the warmth of his body surrounding her, while the weather gradually dissipated.
She did not intend to fall asleep nestled against his chest, tucked under his chin.
And yet Aëghan had made no inclination to release her.
~~~
A/N
See! Told you it would be out soon after the other one :) I wrote this in three different ways before settling on it being told like this... I wanted to show his reaction to her past while she was working through it, instead of just diving into a bit of a memory flashback (one of the ways I tried to convey it, but it lacked intimacy I felt).
Anywho...
So here is my news of the week... totally got married on Monday.
It was a small civil ceremony because paperwork gives me hives and the bureaucracy of trying to marry two people of two different nationalities/cultures/religions whilst living in a country that is not their home country... yikes. I have avoidance tendencies the moment somebody says something needs to be attested or notarised or authenticated, and the use of big official words that I don't understand scare me.
Will have a celebration in our respective home countries come July (covid willing!)
And now I need to take the dog for a walk.