Chained Soul by Eva Chase
16
Talia
The first of the new kind of fit hits me when I’m walking across the wintry plain between the border castle and the palace of Heart’s Cadence, meaning to have a quick visit with Charles and Beth in the kitchen. I haven’t spoken to them in ages. Even with everything going on around me—and inside me—I have to hold on to a few pieces of normalcy.
But I’ve only made it about halfway there when pain spikes between my lungs. My legs buckle beneath me, and Corwin, who was walking with me, catches me just before my knees smack into the icy terrain.
“Talia,” he says, his voice tight with the strain of the agony I’m too wrapped up in to shield him from. “Focus on me. Ignore it as well as you can. I’ll get you back to your room.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Zelpha asks, hovering behind him. My mates have continued to insist that at least two trusted protectors are with me any time I venture outside one of our castles.
Corwin scoops me up into his arms with a ragged breath. “We haven’t found any spells that do much to dull the pain. At least I can bring her to where she’ll be most comfortable.”
Before he’s taken two steps toward the border, though, the searing sensation that tore through my chest subsides. I gasp and tuck myself closer against him, shaken. Can it really be over already?
Corwin pauses, looking down at me, registering the change at the same time as me. “It hasn’t let up anywhere near that quickly before, has it?”
I shake my head. “Maybe—maybe something we’ve tried has worked to weaken the curse after all?”
A flicker of hope crosses his face—and in the same instant, another vicious blade of pain slices through me, as if I’m being carved open from the inside out.
I cough and sputter, my muscles clenching up. A shudder runs through my body. Corwin hugs me close, his emotions as agonized as my body is. I know how much he wants to shield me from this pain and how deeply it wrenches at him that he can’t.
“The pattern has shifted,” he says to Zelpha. “Get Sylas—he should be at Hearth-by-the-Heart. Have him meet us in the border castle.”
I don’t see Zelpha’s response, only feel the waft of air as she flaps away as a raven. Corwin extends his own wings in their larger form, the rest of him remaining a man as he soars across the frozen terrain the fastest way he’s capable of.
As he lands on the doorstep of the winter entrance, the pain eases again. I don’t trust the reprieve this time. I take shallow breaths, testing my lungs, still huddled in my soul-twined mate’s embrace.
“You can endure this,” he murmurs to me, sounding a little choked. “You’re stronger than any Murk king’s magic.”
Maybe I am, but that doesn’t mean it’s any joy living through it.
Halfway down the hall, the next attack seizes me, with a slamming sensation as if not one but several knives are plunging between my ribs. I can’t help crying out.
Corwin swallows thickly and hustles up the stairs toward my bedroom. The knives keep digging in until a moment before he’s laying me on the bed covers.
I pant, my whole body aching in a duller but still distressing way. Every time the pain comes on me, I tense up, and the back and forth is wearing me out faster than if I were riding out a continuing wave. You’d think getting breaks would make it easier, but I can’t appreciate them when I’m tangled up in the apprehension of wondering how long I’ll get before it happens again.
How will I know for sure when this fit is even really over? Will it ever be over, or is this the new normal: switching between relief and pain over and over every couple of minutes?
Don’t think like that, Corwin says through our bond, but I can tell he’s worried about the exact same thing.
Sylas pushes past the door a moment later with Whitt close at his heels. “What—” he starts.
And then the pain is in me again, blaring through my awareness, drowning out every other sensation. I hug myself, pressing the side of my head into the pillow.
I can get through this. I am stronger. But oh God, I wish I didn’t have to.
When I come back to myself, Corwin and Sylas are speaking in hushed, urgent voices. Corwin has walled off some of his impressions so I can’t read them or hear what they’re saying through his ears.
They’re arguing about something… I can’t tell what. Corwin seems worried. Sylas’s jaw is tight with resolve.
Whitt catches my eye, his own expression fraught with concern. “I think we should let Talia decide,” he says abruptly.
Despite the horrible state I’m in, a swell of love for him fills my chest. I even manage to smile.
“Let me decide what?” I ask in a croak.
Then I’m gone. The pain somehow spreads and shrinks at the same time—not several knives but dozens of piercing needles. My lungs are going to puncture and deflate like dying balloons.
I return to reality with tears stinging the corners of my eyes and a sob caught in my throat. Corwin sinks onto the edge of the bed next to me and swipes the moisture away. He looks at Sylas. “How can we put her through that stress when she’s already suffering like this?”
Sylas frowns. “How can we not try when there’s a possibility he could help? You know what she’d say—you heard her yesterday.”
It takes me a second to gather myself enough to use my voice. “Whatever it is, I—”
Another searing wave, another spell of disorientation. After that, I give up on trying to have any kind of conversation, and I think my mates do too. Corwin murmurs soft words over me, conjuring a cool tingle that distracts from the pain the tiniest bit. Whitt sits down by the head of the bed and strokes my hair.
“If I could take this on for you, mite, you know I would,” he says.
Sylas paces. In one clear moment, I think he’s going to leave, but he doesn’t. When a break in the fits lasts long enough that I start to relax into the mattress, he’s still there.
My hair is sticking to my forehead with sweat. Whitt brushes it aside too. Corwin grips my hand. We wait, all of us anticipating another round…
But it doesn’t come. The minutes tick by, and the memory of the agony fades. There’s nothing left but the prickle behind my breastbone.
A laugh sputters out of me. “It’s over.”
For now. Until the next time.
Whitt gives Sylas a pointed look, and the Seelie arch-lord gazes down at me, his mouth twisting.
“Madoc has returned,” he says.
I jerk upright, and Corwin tightens his grip on my hand. I sway with momentary dizziness before refocusing on Sylas. “What? When? What’s he said?”
“A few hours ago,” Whitt admits. “We wanted to question him thoroughly before we proceeded any further.”
Before they told me he was here, they mean. I grimace.
Before I can complain about their secrecy, Sylas goes on. “I’m not sure he meant to engage with us any more than the first time he came. August and a few of our pack-kin caught him lurking in the woods near the castle. He says he was waiting for the chance to speak to you directly, that he doesn’t want to deal with the rest of us.”
“And how can we trust him if that’s how he’s approaching the situation?” Corwin demands, all protective ire.
Whitt shakes his head. “You haven’t seen him. He’s clearly furious with us because he thinks we ruined the parlay.”
“Or maybe he’s angry because his attempt at betraying us didn’t work as well as he’d hoped.”
Whitt raises his eyebrows at the Unseelie man. “I’ll admit that using one’s actual emotions in a deception can be an excellent tactic, and putting your opponent on the defensive is one as well. But he tried to avoid speaking to us at all. And he’s brought several items that show no harmful properties that he says he gathered back in the human world—remedies the Murk use for various ailments. He simply wanted to give them to Talia.”
“Which doesn’t mean we should necessarily let him anywhere near our mate,” Sylas puts in. “But we could bring what he’s offered and see whether it helps her at all.”
Corwin frowns. “Before anything of his comes near her, I’d like to—"
“Stop!” I break in. My chest is wrenching in a totally different way at the thought of the treatment Madoc must have gone through in the past few hours without my knowing. “I want to see him. What can he do to me that’s worse than what I’m already going through anyway? Do you think Orion needs to send someone to double-curse me?”
I narrow my eyes at all three of the men around me. “If Madoc was trying to manipulate you, he wouldn’t be antagonizing you. So stop antagonizing him and each other, and let’s get on with seeing what he brought.”
Whitt’s mouth twitches into a tight smile. “She does know her own mind,” he says to Sylas.
“She does.” The Seelie arch-lord turns to Corwin.
I squeeze my soul-twined mate’s hand, and he sighs before pressing a kiss to my temple. “All right. I don’t like it, but… it’s true that I can’t see what he’d gain by specifically speaking to Talia.” He pauses. “I’m not sure we want him having access to this castle, though. Talia, are you well enough to come down?”
I test my feet on the floor and nod. “I’ll be fine.”
Sylas and Whitt go ahead to collect Madoc from wherever August is watching over him. Corwin stays with me for the trek down to the entrance. My legs do hold me just fine, but partway down the steps, a whiff of broiled fish reaches my noise from the kitchen, and my stomach starts churning. Most food hasn’t bothered me so far, but every now and then some odor brings out a rush of queasiness.
“There’s nothing you can do to get rid of the smell fast enough for it to help,” I tell Corwin. “Let’s just get out of here quickly.”
The scent is thicker in the hallway below. My jaw clamps tight against my rising nausea. The effort isn’t quite successful, though. I’ve just made it out the door, about to take my first deep breath of fresh summer air, when my gut twists and I find myself vomiting what’s left of my breakfast into the grass at the base of the wall.
Footsteps come hustling over, and I look up to see my Seelie mates, Astrid, and a couple of other guards hurrying toward me with Madoc in their midst. So wonderful to have an audience for this.
I swipe at my mouth, the lingering nausea subsiding, as Corwin rubs my back and intones a quick spell to remove the mess. Refusing to let the embarrassment hold me back, I step forward to meet the coming entourage.
“Has it gotten worse?” Madoc asks the second he’s close enough for me to hear him, worry clouding his eyes. It doesn’t look as if the guards who caught him hurt him, thank goodness. “If it’s progressed to your stomach—”
I hold up my hand to stop him. Weirdly, the sight of his crookedly handsome face soothes my spirits even more. I can tell just looking at him, at the way he’s looking at me, that I was right to argue on his behalf. I have the unexpected urge to try to hug him again, to feel those well-muscled arms wrap around me like when he hid me on our way out of the Refuge, to—
I jerk my mind away from those rambling thoughts, squashing down the flash of heat that came with them, and focus on his questions. “I think that was being pregnant, not the curse. A much happier reason to be sick but not great having both in combination.”
The Murk man pauses, and I realize I hadn’t told him that particular piece of news. It hadn’t seemed relevant.
His gaze darts to Whitt and then back to me. “I wondered, after certain questions—” He doesn’t seem to know how to go on. Finally, he settles on, “I’m sorry Orion’s managed to ruin even more happiness than he could have intended.”
“It isn’t totally ruined yet,” I say. “And it’s the curse that matters. I hear that you’ve brought back some things that might help?”
“Yes, some medicines we use and a couple of charms… None of it’s specifically for a curse like this, but they’re at least different from what you’ll have already tried. We combine a lot of human products with our healing creations, so maybe they’ll have a stronger effect on you.” He hesitates again, studying me. “You’re going to accept them, just like that? Not run me through another round of questions about how the parlay went to hell?”
He sounds so uncertain of my reaction that something twists in my chest. Without letting myself second-guess the impulse, I step across the short distance between us. Corwin makes a sharp noise in his throat, but Sylas motions for the guards to stay where they are.
It’s probably better if I don’t actually hug Madoc, considering every time I even think about it, other emotions stir that I shouldn’t be feeling. But I can offer at least this much. I touch his forearm, giving it a light squeeze as I gaze up into his eyes. He stares back at me, the storminess in his gaze simmering down into something warmer, and the feelings I hadn’t meant to provoke flutter inside me anyway.
I have to focus on the matter at hand. “Did you want the parlay to go to hell?” I ask.
Madoc frowns. “Of course not,” he says, his eyes flashing as they dart toward the men around us again. “I didn’t want the Murk attacking your people. But although this fact is apparently a problem for some of them, I also didn’t want them attacking any of the Murk there.”
“Which none of us did until we were attacked first,” Sylas says evenly.
“What counts as an ‘attack’ is obviously debatable,” Madoc mutters, and turns back to me. “They don’t trust me, and I don’t trust them, and it seems that’s just how it is. So I won’t arrange any more parlays. But even if they all want to be dicks about it, that doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon you.”
And there’s the passionate defiance that allowed him to shake off his loyalty to his king on our behalf before. Always trying to do what’s right for the people he cares about, even though it must be harder than ever for him to tell right now what that is.
I can’t help thinking I’m lucky to have become one of those people.
I pull myself back a step, dropping my hand, before the conflicted sensations inside me rise up too far. He’s an ally and maybe even a friend, but I definitely shouldn’t feel any inclinations beyond that.
Even if I set aside my instinct to believe the man in front of me and look at the signs more logically, I have to agree with Whitt’s assessment that Madoc doesn’t appear to be trying to win any points or pull the wool over our eyes. His anger actually sounds more genuine than the restrained wariness he let show around the other fae before when he was trying to keep some kind of peace.
“That’s good enough for me,” I say, and glance around at my mates. “And that means it’s going to be good enough for all of you too.”
