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“You weren’t there,” I grind out, my fingers curling around the neck of my bottle. “Heston captured me and planned to use me against my father. The only way Arluin could save me was by earning his father’s trust. And to do that, he had to resort to using necromancy. If he hadn’t made those choices, the entire city would have likely fallen.”
“You’re right, I wasn’t there. But how did he know how to wield dark magic?”
“His father taught him,” I say, picking at the decorative label of my bottle. I don’t look up at her as I speak. I fear what I’ll see in her expression.
But I hear the betrayal in her words all the same. “You knew about it?”
“He only admitted it after promising to marry me.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about his father teaching him necromancy.”
I hate the hurt in her voice. “It was Arluin’s secret to tell, not mine.”
“But you’re my best friend.”
“If anyone else had found out, Arluin would have been exiled. Or killed.”
“You didn’t trust me?”
“No, I just didn’t want to burden you with such a terrible secret. And he only told me a few days before everything happened.”
Eliya gives me a stiff nod. She doesn’t press the issue any further and sips on her wine.
I stare down at my bottle instead of drinking from it.
Would things be any different if I had told her Arluin’s secret? If I’d told my father?
I shake my head. Telling anyone wouldn’t have stopped Heston’s attack. It wouldn’t have stopped him from murdering my mother. All that would have changed is Arluin being unable to rescue me. Then I probably would be dead, along with my mother. And I don’t want to even imagine what Nolderan’s current state would be.
“Anyway,” Eliya says, “I guess it makes sense.”
“What makes sense?”
“Why you’ve been so down lately. There’s a part of you that’s wondering whether he will come back, isn’t there?”
My shoulders sag. “Is it wrong of me to hope that he will? Even though he is a necromancer? Even though it will mean certain death for him?”
Eliya shifts closer and pulls me into a fierce hug. “It isn’t wrong of you to want that,” she whispers. “You still love him. And you’ve loved him for a very long time. But he can’t come back. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” I mutter.
We stay like that for some time. The waves crash into the rocks far below, and the frigid wind howls. With the warmth radiating from us both, we don’t feel the chill. Snowflakes powder our hair.
“Come on then,” Eliya finally says, releasing me from her embrace. “Let’s go home.”
The crescent moon has drifted far through the sky, still shrouded by the heavy clouds. I’m uncertain what time it is, but I know it must be late for Eliya to suggest returning. Or maybe she suggested it because I’m such awful company tonight.
I gaze at the unopened wine bottles scattered all around us. “What should we do with these? If I take them home, my father will be suspicious as to where I got them from. As will yours.”
“We can bury them here,” she replies, tapping her chin in thought. “And then after we pass our final Mage Trial, the Trial of Magic, we can come back here to celebrate.”
“All right,” I say and stagger up onto my feet. The world sways around me. While sitting down, I didn’t realize how tipsy I was. But now that I’m standing, I notice the full extent of all the wine I drank this evening.
“Tera,” Eliya mutters, and green light swirls in her fingers. She directs it to the grass, and her magic carves out a hole. The layers of mud float a few feet above, surrounded by a vivid green glow.
I’m grateful Eliya took charge of digging the hole. If I tried, I would probably carve through the entire cliff. Wine makes magic far less precise. Especially if you slur the spell-words and your magic thinks you mean something else.
While Eliya collects the unopened bottles and deposits them inside the hole, I gather the empty ones and murmurventrez, blowing the evidence off the cliff. I take care to say the spell-word with as much clarity as I can. Thankfully, nothing unexpected happens.
