Posey
The sun sets over the mountains when Aris returns. His shadows pierce the bright pink light of the alpine glow, his boots moving across the floor, disrupting the stillness that’s been enveloping me for hours.
I've been sitting in the same position since he left, dressed in the same thin nightgown, holding the mask in my hands. I’ve been in a trance, letting my powers dance in a way they never have while inspecting and investigating every groove and divot, every master’s brush of hot iron and alloys to strengthen the mask.
Whatever I do, I can’t think about my current situation. I’ll fall apart. Falling apart means losing my grip on reality, and if I lose that…
“Posey.”
I look up. My eyes feel dry and scratchy. I’m not sure I’ve blinked since he left… hours ago.
The door is wide open. His shadows dance around the room–which is much emptier than I remember it being, like everything has been cleared out since this morning right from underneath my nose.
We wordlessly weave through the castle. He lets me hold the mask. He doesn’t even move to take it from my hands, which are surprisingly steady. I let my mind wander, let fractured thoughts and memories creep in before banishing them. I wonder what Morgan is up to, what kind of schemes she has planned. I wonder about Roman. I wonder about Willow, and I stop in my tracks. “My phone–”
“Is on a charger in your new quarters,” Aris replies without skipping a beat.
“Aris?”
He slips into the shadows when we round a curve, and when the sconces light, I watch his body move through the dim haze and through the slit of two heavy black velvet curtains.
My stomach dips to my toes, but I follow. I have no choice. It’s not like I’ve ever had a choice.
Becoming a priestess was the only thing I ever decided for myself.
I swallow back my gasp. It rumbles through my lungs and comes out as a strangled whimper.
We’re in one of the spires, at its base, where the rooms are almost circular and covered in narrow, angular windows letting in strips of violet light. Stars are just beginning to flicker to life beyond the glass.
But it’s the room that’s taking up every thought and feeling. Aris comes to a stop in the center of the space, watching me, his arms crossed over his chest and his face cast in shadow of his own making. His power thrums off him. I can feel it in the air between us like an electric current driven by his emotions… primarily anger. Righteous, perfectly placed rage. I don’t blame him. I can’t. I did this to us.
“I had everything moved here, where the floor is stable.” He motions to the floor, which is sturdy, a mix of wood and iron beams running throughout. “I don’t have the ability to make you a forge here, but Blake has it in mind to have you moved to Moonrise.”
“I don’t need a forge,” I whisper, my eyes on the work tables, the shelves, and the tools. It’s mostly bare but won’t be for long. Not if I– “Aris?”
“Yes, Posey?”
I love you. I love you. I love you. “Are you sure?”
“Are you?”
“It kind of sounds like I don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“If you can get into our family vault, you can fix the mask… and other things. You can create necklaces and bracelets to keep our powers safely contained. You can create weapons.”
“I know what I can do.”
I set the mask down on the nearest worktable and turn my back to Aris to scan the crates I’ve already picked through. Everything from that old room is here. I run my fingers over the old tools, however, and recoil when my fingertips trace hints of copper alloy. “I can’t use these.”
“I’ll have new tools ordered. Whatever you need.”
“I can make my own.” I slowly turn back to him, but my eyes are on the ceiling where a spider’s web of rafters funnels upward into the dark heights of the spire. This was my dream once, when I thought I still had a future. Days and nights spent practicing alchemy. Being useful. Being wanted for something.
Now, it feels like a blade in my heart.
I have only days here. That’s it. Unless I somehow throw myself headfirst into alchemy, let it consume me. Eat and breathe metal until there’s nothing left of me but my skill set.
“I need–”
“Herbs for tinctures and tonics, I know. The house has it covered. The kitchen is yours.”
My eyes fall to Aris’s face. Exhaustion lines his eyes, making him look older and harder, all traces of those innocent moments at the hunting cabin lost in the hell I made for us personally. “You’ll have full access to the castle still as it stands, but you’re forbidden from going to the temple and archives until Blake smooths this over and scrubs your history from them.”
“Why would he need to do that?”
“So that no one knows who you are and what you can do. For your own safety.”
I stare at him, trying to read behind the neutral, unaffected expression painting his face in cold shadow.
He steps toward me, tucking his hands behind his back, and begins to pace. “Anything you need is yours. Supplies, tonics, research materials. Ask, and you’ll have it. You’ll be paid for your work, of course. You’ll live here for the time being until Blake and Maeve decide–”
“Why would they get a say? Shadowsyngers and alchemists are, historically, one unit.”
He stops pacing and looks at me over his shoulder, and I swear I see a hint of a smile. “I know. They’re trying to argue their point, that you’re useful to all of us and not just me.”
“The Firestones had their own forges once. They were notoriously wary of alchemists.”
“I’m aware of the history,” he replies, but his voice is lighter, and his silver eyes hold mine as I walk across the room, feeling the resonance of the iron beneath my feet hum against my powers.
“I do not work for the Firestones nor mystics. It’s never been that way. I work for… you. I have to work for you.”
I turn back to him, the distance between us like a great, violent ocean. Shadows shift over his body, and he angles to face me, his hands in his pockets, and asks, “Then you’ll stay?”
“My other option is becoming a priestess.”
“Your only other option is letting your unused powers consume you, like they almost did last night. You’d die eventually from it, you know. It would eat away at you until it grew too much for your body to handle.”
“So this is all I can do,” I whisper, more to myself than to him.
“I don’t know how to fix this for you, Posey.” You won’t let me fix it. You are killing me with every passing second I have to spend in your presence. What did I do wrong?
I blink, looking down at my feet in confusion at what I’m sure were his inner thoughts drifting through my mind in a whisper. I’m imagining things, obviously. I’m going insane.
When I don’t speak for several moments, he says, “I know you’ve felt trapped your entire life. You’ve never had a choice in anything until you choose to become a priestess. If you don’t want to do this, to be this, at any point, I will release you from your duty to me and Veiled Valley, but as long as you’re here, working for me, I will guard you and protect you. In the spring, when the snow clears, I’ll have one of the guest houses cleared out and renovated for you. I’ll build a new workshop so we’re not…” Sharing space. So I don’t have to see you while spending my days with Morgan, or whoever comes next, because I can’t take it. What is wrong with me? What’s wrong with us?
I squeeze my eyes shut and rub my temples.
“Are you all right?”
“Just a headache,” I lie while my body thrums with a sudden knowing. “Did you–did you give me something last night?”
“A healing tonic–”
“No, did you use your powers on me in any way?”
He shakes his head. “No. Is something wrong? Are you hurt?”
I glance at him and then at where I left the mask resting on the worktable. “I think it’s the mask. It’s broken, and my powers are… I’d like to fix it soon so it leaves me alone.”
He takes a single step in my direction, but it’s guarded, like he isn’t sure if he should continue. “What do you need?”
I take a deep breath to settle myself, to let my mind function properly again. “I think I have everything I need already, supply wise. I do need some new tonics for myself, though, because the mask has alloys I don’t recognize, and confirming how it was made and what alloys were used is going to take a tremendous amount of power and strength, and I’m… untrained.”
“You are very powerful, Posey.” His voice is low and level. I steal a glance, my heart skipping a beat when I notice his gaze on my neck, his eyes wan and hooded by shadows. Sad, aching shadows.
I chew my lower lip before replying, “I need a few books from the archives.”
“No.”
“I need to research. It’s not that big of a deal. I need to make the tonics myself because alchemy tonics are very hard to acquire. Roman can attest to that. I made tonics for him and my dad all the time, but what I need is different. I also need some studying material on alloys and nonferrous metals because my resonance is profoundly iron leaning and things like copper–”
“Burn.”
“Yes,” I breathe, feeling more confident. “Exactly. I’ll hurt us both if I’m not totally sure I have everything I need, and I like to research instead of just going for it.” He looks at the mask for several seconds, scanning the same bent and gnarled metal. I step toward him this time, and that ocean between us narrows to a river. “I need to know how this happened, how this kind of damage was done. So much was lost during the Great War. Do you know what happened to the man who wore this mask?”
“No,” Aris admits, his voice low and gravelly. He hangs his head for a moment in thought before adding, “You’re correct. My great-grandfather Westfall was enslaved by King Kane and was a child when Veiled Valley lost its Alpha King, his grandfather. He doesn’t know what happened to his parents. They were young when he was separated from them. He raised my grandpa in Moonrise as a warrior trainee to try to keep him safe, to try to continue to keep Veiled Valley safe, and brought Grandpa Ryatt to the caves for the ascension ceremony. That was the first time the caves called to anyone and the last time they called to anyone until me. Everything before that is a mess. We don’t know what happened.”
“But the spirits of the house do,” I offer, taking another step. He notices, stiffens, then relaxes when I step past him to run my fingertips over the mask. “And Arthur might have something in those archives.”
“You’re not going back down there.”
“You said I couldn’t go without you.”
He grinds his teeth, and I notice the flicker of unease. I arch a brow. “Are you scared of the archives?”
“The depths you’ve gone to? Yes.”
“It’s not that bad if you have a lantern.”
“I can have Arthur fetch anything you need.”
“He won’t go down there either, which is why I went down there myself.”
“Posey–”
We’re close enough now that the river between us is a creek.
“You have to wear the mask while I’m doing the more complicated repairs,” I explain, my voice suddenly tight. “I could hurt you, Aris. I want to make sure I’m doing it right, that I have everything I need so I don’t hurt you.”
“You’ve already–” He cuts himself off abruptly and then turns, giving me his back. His golden hair shines in the moonlight. He runs his fingers through it with a sigh. “We’ll go to the archives tomorrow morning. Whatever you need.” He takes a steadying breath before facing me. “I have to leave in four days for a meeting with my cousins in Moonrise. You’ll have the castle to yourself.”
“What about Morgan?”
He rolls his lower lip between his teeth, and his gaze locks on mine. I shiver under the weight of it, of the movement of his teeth and tongue. “What about her?”
“Are you…. Is she…” I look down at my hands, wringing them. The bandages are still tight, but my skin is warm, reminding me of the heat from the fever I had months ago.
“I’ll do what I have to do for my pack and kingdom,” he says, his voice low and every ounce the Alpha that he’ll be one day. But he reaches out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, and when I meet his eyes again, they’re soft. He pulls away, tucking his hand back in his pocket like touching me burned him.
“Tomorrow morning, then.” With that, he leaves in the shadows, and I turn back to the mask, wondering why the Goddess is punishing me like this. I suppose I already know.