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Hopefully, the gift, accompanied by my apology, would be enough to earn her forgiveness.
My knuckles rasped against the plank door. The bottom was broken and cracked to the extent that I could fit my shoe underneath it in some places.
The door swung open.
An elderly woman—Mrs. Chesterfield, the owner of the property—peered up at me like a vulture sizing up a chunk of meat. I had seen her before, but usually she was on the other side of the door—nearly beating it down as she demanded the Westfords pay their monthly rent. She’d kicked the door a few times, which certainly didn’t help its poor, dilapidated state. In fact, that might be the very reason it was in such poor condition.
“What do you want?” she grouched at me—sprigs of gray hair shooting out from underneath her bonnet.
“Is Adelina here?” I asked, eyes shifting beyond her, into the house. I didn’t see Adelina, nor her mother or her three siblings. And when I took a deep breath, all I smelled was the summer air—not a whiff of savory, cooked chicken.
“Who?” she asked, turning her ear towards me.
“Adelina Westford,” I said, much louder, remembering that she was hard of hearing.
The woman’s eyes flared wide and then she spat on the ground. “How dare you mention that Cursed trash. She’ll get what she deserves if she hasn’t already.”
“What?” I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
“Yesterday, I found the witch trying to grow magical plants in the backyard, so I reported her. Not too long ago, the soldiers dragged her out and took her to the pyre to be Cleansed. Filthy, vile creature that girl. And living under my roof. Would you imagine that.” She spat on the ground again. “I’ll be kicking the rest of her disgusting family out when they return from the Cleansing. One can never be too sure how many more of them might be Cur—”
I didn’t hear another word as I took off towards the village square, my heart leaping into my ears. I had to hope that I could make it to the pyre before they did. That I could save my friend.
But when I arrived, all that I found was the king’s blood-colored banners flickering under the gaze of the sun and a small mound of smoldering ash.
Sage
Von was alive.
Those three words were my unraveling.
Like a string pulled from a constrictive corset, my lungs suddenly filled with air. My first real breath in weeks—in months. I breathed again, fearful that this newfound capacity might escape me. Fearful that I had found myself in another dream, waiting for it to turn into a nightmare where everyone I loved was ripped away from me. Because that was where I had been these past few weeks—caught in a nightmare.
Except that nightmarewasmy reality.
“But I saw him take his final breath,” I whispered to Kaleb, who was kneeling in front of me—returned to me from the Spirit Realm. “I felt him . . .” I looked down at my hands, thememory of him disintegrating into ash replaying in my mind. The phantom corset returned, and the air fled from my lungs. “I felt him fade from existence,” I choked out.
Kaleb took my hands in his, cradling them gently as he spoke. “What you felt was real—hewasfading, but he did not go . . . not completely.”
My brows pinched. “What do you mean?”
“When he returned to the Spirit Realm, he was not himself—it was like the life was being leached out of him. After he saw to the destruction of the Crown of Thorns, he entered a sleep-like state.” Kaleb paused. “He remains that way to this day.”
“I have to go to him.” I shot off the bed and turned towards Kaleb, desperation carved into my voice. “You must take me to him.”
Kaleb stood, his expression as flat as the stone walls of this room Arkyn had imprisoned me in, here, in Clearwell Castle, home to the horrible King of Edenvale. Despite the warm, crackling fireplace and ornate matching furniture—all made from white rosewood—this room had felt like a cold, empty dungeon to me over the past few weeks.
It was a world without color.
But now? Now that I knew Von wasn’t truly gone, the color was starting to return.
Slowly, Kaleb said, “I can’t take you to the Spirit Realm, Sage.”
“Why not?” I asked, pacing back and forth, the lace hem of my nightgown sweeping the floor.
“I cannot transport thelivingto the Spirit Realm.”
“That seems like something we can easily remedy,” I countered a little too easily—being locked up in a room against your will could have that effect on a person. Add on everything else that had transpired over the past month and I had probably lost more than just afewmarbles.
