Chapter One Hundred and Forty Seven: Asserting Dominance
Later that night, after her arm had been healed and the hype had finally died down, Ella decided to head to the bathhouse with Amelia since her head was killing her, but Vordt, Vrael, Sinmir, Gus, and even Xaphile and Adariel decided to go with them, so things became quite hectic.
It became even more hectic once they arrived since there was only one private bath available in the building, which meant that they would be doing mixed bathing together.
It gave Ella the worst sort of anxiety and made even Amelia seem fairly withdrawn and nervous. Everyone ended up getting into the water with their towels on, but the temperature was wondrously pleasant, and it helped Ella relax.
She leaned her throbbing head back and sank down to her chin, letting lose a sigh, but her half-lidded eyes remained fixed on the large, giant mirrors stretching across the walls.
That much glass must be extraordinarily expensive, she silently mused. Beautifully crafted, too. I wonder who the smith was to have made such finery?
She didn't know, nor did she really care all that much since her head was hurting too much to bother thinking.
Closing her eyes, she decided to treat herself to a good long soak, tuning out the boys who were bathing on the other side of the long river-bath. She could hear them chatting, laughing, and conversing about things, and Sinmir's uproarious belly laughter distinctively stood out.
It was often accompanied by Vordt's deep, silky deadpan and Gus's coarse grumble.
"They seem to be enjoying themselves," Amelia suddenly sighed from her spot directly across from her; Ella cracked an eye open to see that the girl was staring at the ceiling.
"Indeed," she agreed.
"It's good to hear," Amelia said. "I'm glad that our worrisome situation hasn't shrouded their minds with unpleasant thoughts."
Ella blinked, then shrugged. "I agree with you on that, too, but the danger is still there. Perhaps it would be best not to forget that."
Amelia was silent for a moment.
"Your hair looks very nice," she suddenly said, as if she were only just now realizing how long it had gotten. "It reminds me of when you were really little, back before..."
She stopped talking abruptly.
"Before my life changed," Ella finished, then took note of Amelia's hair, which had been undone from her usual braids and now hung freely, drifting with the current. "Speaking of hair, you look much older with yours worn down like that."
Amelia straightened and touched her tresses, confused.
"I do? I have always braided my hair because it is easy to maintain during the day, but I have wondered... do you think wearing it loose looks better?"
"I like both styles," Ella said, "though the way you normally wear it might be more practical."
Across the room, the sound of the boys getting out met their ears, and Amelia glanced down, shyly adjusting her towel.
"I might wear it down for the festival tomorrow. I'm not certain yet, though."
"You should," Ella encouraged, closing her eyes. "You always were one of the best dancers whenever a festival took place in Chisago. Are you going to wear your blue festival gown?"
"I... I admit, I intended to..."
"Good," Ella said a little sleepily, listening as the air grew completely devoid of sound; the boys had presumably headed out first. "That dress looks so pretty on you when you dance."
"Thank you, but it sounds like the boys have left," Amelia said, standing up. "I think we should get dressed and join them."
"No, you go on ahead," Ella grumped, flapping a hand. "I'm going to soak a bit longer. I'll meet you back at our room once I'm done."
"If you say so," Amelia said, then smiled. "We're having grilled potatoes tonight!"
"I can't wait."
After she got out, dressed herself, and presumably left the bathhouse to join the others, silence filled the air.
It was soothing.
Ella relaxed for another ten minutes, then decided she'd soaked long enough and got out herself. Her head was killing her, and she had a feeling that the heat wasn't doing anything to help make it better.
Securing the wet towel across her chest, she began walking across the steam-clogged room only to bump into someone's back and nearly give herself a heart attack.
"Pardon me," she said, glancing up. "I wasn't paying atten..."
She trailed off when she realized Xaphile was looking at her over his shoulder, halfway in the process of pulling his underwear on. His face went red and he swallowed, visibly mortified, but she quickly whirled around.
"I... uh, sorry!" she burbled, heat washing across her cheeks. "Um... I thought you left."
"No, I needed to relax a little by myself," he rasped, voice coming out with a faint scratch, like that of a cat's tongue. "The stress of thinking about what I'll need to do to raise Adariel properly is putting me way more on edge than I should be."
"Speaking of which, where is Adariel?" Ella asked, mutely surprised. "Is he still here, too?"
"No, he was so exhausted that he fell asleep while I was washing his hair," he explained. "Vordt's carrying him back. He promised to make sure we wouldn't have repeat of earlier."
"That's good," Ella said, turning; a flash of pain seared through her head and she cringed. "Ugh... don't say a word. I know you felt that too, and I apologize... I'm just tired of them worrying and fretting and blaming themselves for petty mistakes."
After she said it, a strange shift took place in his emotions.
She could feel it happening between their connection.
Xaphile audibly moved slower, the sound of his body moving coming a little jerkier as a cloud of feeling rose out of him, a solid sensation of emotion. And yet, as strange as it was, it didn't fully feel like him... at least, not in the normal sense. She had gotten used to the sensation of him.
But this didn't feel like him.
Something had changed, even if it was only a little.
"Are you all right?" she tentatively asked, not turning around.
"I'm perfectly fine."
He sounded pissed, all of a sudden, and the transition from understanding-but-awkward to angry-and-random made her freeze, muscles going rigid with nerves. She glanced over her shoulder to find him partially dressed and glaring, aquamarine eyes burning like coals.
"You don't sound fine," she noted, glancing at the leather straps binding his wings; her eyes ghosted along his abs, flitting across the water running through the black streak of fur that ran down his belly. "I know that I upset you earlier, okay?"
Instead of answering, he stepped close, eyes going dark with an emotion Ella couldn't name... as well as one she was all too familiar with.
Hunger.
The hunger in his look scared her a little, and even though she didn't know what he was hungry for, she tried to back up on the reflexes of a rabbit fleeing from a wolf.
Xaphile wasn't permitting any forms of escape, however: he latched onto her shoulder and yanked her so they were nose to nose. Her breathing hitched at his proximity and petered out altogether when his free arm snaked around her waist.
This wasn't like him at all.
His eyes were dark with emotion that wasn't from him.
She didn't know how, but his internal emotions were shifting into something unfamiliar.
"What did I tell you?" he quietly asked, eyes dragging across her face before coming to rest on her forehead. "Do you not remember what I said? About not using yourself as a shield? About being careful with yourself and living a long, happy life?"
Her throat felt like it cracked when she spoke.
"I didn't think, I just acted," she rasped. "It was a stupid move on my part, and it was nobody's fault but my own, but I would be lying if I said I regretted it."
Xaphile didn't reply.
He let go of her waist, lifting his hand and cupping her cheek with it, thumb stroking the skin below her eye before travelling upward and pressing lightly against a strange spot on her forehead.
"You're bruised," he told her. "It's red, here."
His hand dipped to stretch around her jaw, though he didn't grab it with force or anything.
She couldn't and didn't resist when he slowly turned her face away from his.
Her eyes fell closed.
"Look," he said, coming close to her ear with his mouth. Hot breath hissed, hairs on the back of her neck rising to attention. "Look at it."
She opened her eyes.
He had turned her face toward the mirror stretching across the wall.
Their image was a provocative one, with the two of them pressed together, Xaphile's mouth lingering next to her ear, his hand touching her face, her eyes wide and his eyes narrowed and smoldering. He was looking at her in the mirror out of the corner of the one facing the reflection, and when they made eye contact, he clenched his jaw.
"Not at me," he said, tightening his grip. "Your skin."
Ella's brow furrowed; what was he talking about?
She couldn't keep focused, he was so close and—
He growled softly, making her shiver. The hand on her jaw let go, crept upward, and cupped her cheek. His fingers pressed against the left side of her forehead, just shy of her temple.
"Look there," he said, and she did.
The pale, ivory skin on her head had turned almost purple. Puffy and swollen, it looked like someone had stuck something unpleasant beneath her skin, but even though it hurt...
"Seeing me wounded angers you?" Ella asked, scowling at him. "Is that why you're upset?"
His fluctuating emotions surged and a flash of powerful feeling momentarily blinded her.
Love.
Pure, unadulterated love, mixed with outrage, passion, desire, possessiveness, fury, and pain... it smashed into her with the force of a weight that left her powerless to move.
His irises rippled, and she gawked, watching as his face shifted into an unfamiliar mask.
They stared at one another in the mirror, silent.
Him with that strange, unfamiliar expression, almost as if he were seeing her for the first time in a very, very long time, and her with confused anxiety.
Ella felt a bead of water detach itself from her hair and trickle down her chest, rolling between her breasts like a bead of sweat.
Xaphile's glinting irises dropped to the water on her skin, tracing its path in the reflection with that sharp gaze. The hand holding her arm raised, an invisible claw tracing the line of her collarbone before she followed the droplet's shiny path and dipped near the hem of the towel.
He caught the drop with his claw.
Ella watched, shocked, as the the droplet came up, hovered on nothing in front of his lips... and then he licked the water off, white fangs flashing between his parted lips. The gesture made her heart palpitate and her toes curl, and the hand holding her cheek turned her away from the mirror and back toward him, sliding down to curl under her chin and tilt her face toward his.
The look in his eyes, however, was unfamiliar.
She didn't recognize it, nor did she understand his emotions.
They were strange to her.
Mostly because... his misery and anguish and self-doubt had faded into a mere speck, and his heart had become confident, almost airy, and it radiated strong pride.
His soul felt light.
Too light, like the embodiment of joy, and lust for life, and power...
And even love.
Pure, raw love, love that burned brightly, with passion and desire, the same kind of love she'd felt when she'd gone through his memories... but this was all wrong, he wasn't supposed to be sure of his feelings, and this love didn't make sense, nor did the joy, so... what was happening?
She felt herself go oddly cold.
Even though deep down she relished in feeling such things from him, it was wrong.
This was wrong.
Something about him was all wrong.
It was almost like...
Like it wasn't really Xaphile, but someone else.
Who is this person that looks at me with such warm eyes? she wondered, dazed. This isn't... the Xaphile I know. This isn't him. I don't know how, but it isn't him.
Her train of thought cut off when he licked his lips and gave her an unfamiliar smile, a smile that looked foreign on his face, handsome and regal, no trace of shyness or awkwardness.
Just simple, clear devotion, transparent emotion, and an unfathomable adoration.
His eyes were not his own.
His smile, that look, those feelings, they weren't her Xaphile's, and even as she realized it, her ability to grasp his emotions began to fade.
When their connection to each other dwindled and began to flicker, like a candle going out, she saw a momentary shred of worry and torn unhappiness shred across Xaphile's face.
But he wiped it away.
"The water tastes of you," he murmured, leaning close to her with glinting eyes. "I have longed for you dearly, all this time. I am afraid, although I know it is yet too soon... that I can no longer hold myself back, no matter the consequences. Forgive me."
Ella's heart palpitated when he leaned down, as if he were going to kiss her.
This isn't Xaphile, she realized, heart flying up her throat. HE'S NOT XAPHILE!
She was shoving away from him before realizing why, but when he reached for her again she swung her arm between them like a shield. She growled, fueled by her inner rage before the reasons for its existence reached her conscious mind, and when those reasons did surface...
"You aren't him, are you?" she asked suspiciously; a look of wide-eyed shock and... and was that hurt? had crossed his features. "Your emotions... your words... the fading connection.... something is strange. "
He looked at her, face falling, but he closed his eyes.
"It was too soon," he murmured. "This is maddening. Utterly maddening."
"Explain!" Ella snapped.
"Even now, it is not truly me you desire," he murmured. "So be it. If merging is the only way you'll have me, I leave it all to him."
"Come to your senses!" Ella snapped. "Xaphile, wake up!"
With a flash, the connection tying them together sparked and flared back up. She basked in the sensation of his presence growing strong again, and a strange amount of relief flooded through her. For a moment, their bond had felt like it had been about to go out, but then his eyes opened and he looked at her, eyes full of hazy remnants of his earlier emotions.
Like a zombie, he raised his arms, trying to touch her face, but she batted his hand aside.
Then she saw his eyes.
The eyes she recognized... the eyes that always reminded her of a sad, abandoned kitten.
"You've returned to normal," she said, glaring at him. "Care to tell me what that was all about?"
Xaphile had no idea what she meant if his confused expression signaled what she thought it did.
"What do you mean?" he began to say, then his face went slack; teal flashed with the fire of recognition. "Oh... oh, shit... what the hell did I just do?! "
Ella gaped when he looked away, face turning bright red.
"What were you thinking?" she asked once she got over the shock of it all. "You had no reason to act like that! It was completely unlike you! Almost like... like you weren't even yourself for a moment!"
"I have no fucking idea," he whispered, casting her a strangely manic look. "I don't know what the fuck just came over me. Seriously. I lost control of myself, but not... not like I normally do."
Ella frowned, puzzled, but before she could ask what he meant he began to walk away.
"Hey! Where are you going?!" she snapped. "Don't you dare walk away!"
"I... I'll explain what I think just happened after I chat with Vordt," he said, pausing for a moment. "Something didn't feel right with me while I was acting like that. This isn't your fault so don't be upset, but until I talk with him, try to keep your distance."
When he dragged his shirt on, Ella threw her towel off and flew through the process of getting dressed.
"Oh, no you don't," she snapped, pulling on her underwear, stockings, dress, boots, cloak, and weapons with a flurry of activity. "You aren't getting away with the mystery act this time."
"Ella, seriously, back off for a bit," he warned, stalking out of the bathhouse. "I mean it."
"HOLD IT!" she barked, flying out the door after him with her wet hair bouncing. "Don't you dare try to just walk away! I'm tired of no communication! Tell me what you think happened to you! Our emotional bond faded for a few moments, Xaphile! That worries me!"
"Leave it alone for the time being," he muttered, stalking past everyone who turned to stare and making his way outside. "It's none of your business."
"I beg to differ," she said, but when he turned around and started to protest she just held up a hand. "It is my business since you put your hands on me in a very unfamiliar way! You tell me to not worry and live a long, happy life, so why is it that you do things that worry me!"
"I'm not even sure myself!" he snapped, clenching his fists. "I have no idea what the fuck just happened to me!"
"Then explain what you think happened!" Ella cried, throwing her hands in the air.
His eyes flashed, and he fumed for a second before he gave in, letting loose an exhausted sigh.
"I don't think all of what I did was only me," he said dully. "I don't know how to explain it, but I think the memories of who I used to be might be waking up, little by little. I've been feeling it more and more after I met Adariel, strange fits of nostalgia, and... and... weird feelings."
Ella froze, eyes widening when he looked at her bleakly.
"I think the other me," he finished, filling the silence of the dark street with his voice, "is still alive inside me. Separate, as of right now, but still there."
"What?" Ella whispered. "How could you think that?!"
"The dream with the mirror," he muttered. "That's how."
"That's mad! Believing in a dream is folly!"
"Is it?" he scoffed, scowling. "I've had dreams about Adariel since before I knew he existed, and... and from what I remember of them, I think the other me was in love with you... maybe even in the same way that I was in love with Ella Richardson."
She felt her brain go blank.
"Xaphile," she said tentatively, "I don't understand—"
"And neither do I, dammit!" he grumpily interrupted. "I told you the truth, okay? Don't ask me questions that I can't answer yet! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go chat with my uncle!"
He whirled around and walked away.
"Why are you so worried?" Ella growled, following him down the street at a very close proximity until they made it to the tavern. "We've all known for a long time that your memories could come back at any moment, but you're still you, I felt it through the mark, and—"
"I'll worry about that later, okay?" he growled, storming up the stairs. "Seriously, stop."
By then they had reached their room; the door was open, and Amelia had poked out her head at the sound of their raised voices. She glanced between Ella and Xaphile suspiciously, but she didn't say anything.
"Stop what?" Ella scoffed. "Asking serious questions?!"
"No! Stop pestering me with questions you know I can't answer! I don't know, okay?!"
Before she could form a retort, he had gone into the room, dragged Amelia inside with a squeak, and slammed the door in her face, cutting her off just as she tried to follow him inside.
Her jaw dropped and she blinked at the door, but then her fury came on full throttle.
"The nerve you have!" she screeched at the door. "The nerve!"
The door came open again and Amelia poked her head back out.
"What happened between you two?" she asked, dragging Ella inside. "That caught me off guard."
Xaphile was checking up on Adariel, but Vordt was looking at each of them with faint curiosity.
Amelia cautiously tried to put an arm around Ella's shoulders, but she shrugged the girl off and flopped onto her bed, burying her face in her pillow so she could let out a therapeutic bellow.
Amelia sat next to her and rubbed her back to calm her down, but the tactic didn't work.
She was worried and bothered on top of having a headache.
This would not be an easy night for her.