Chapter twenty-two
“Be reasonable, Elanor.”
Derek repeated with a sharp tone that forbade further argument.
But she wasn’t listening to the warning; her own barely bridled anger threatening. Shock of the knowledge that the volcano had already erupted nearly undid Elanor. Her mood and temper had steered into almost uncontrollable rage since.
“Take me back to Port NewLlyn! There may still be time!” Fury thinning her lips and flaring her nostrils. She said the words but now they sounded hallow to her as well. She just didn’t know how else to battle with him at this point.
He let out an exasperated breath.
“I will send word when we’re legally married…”
“No! You’re not listening. You haven’t since you stole my father’s ship!” Elanor shook her head, crossing her arms. “I need to be the one to go North. You can take me back to Port NewLlyn and I’ll get passage from there again. Meagan has been taught-”
“That’s absurd, you’re not going by yourself again! Stop sulking.”
“I’m am not sulking!”
“You’ve been sulking since we made the harbor.”
“I think you mistake sulking for anger and disbelief that you’re really this bullheaded. First you tell me that you’ve gotten word that the volcano erupted yet no such word has been sent to my family about me yet! Then, this idea of legally keeping me prisoner to-” She took a step back in reaction to his body turning so swiftly at her comment he nearly knocked her over.
“You know that’s not why I want to marry you. And it’s not a prison sentence. It’s what we planned all along. This is how the seeker world works. You know that. A man and woman marry and the woman obeys because she knows her husband knows better!” His voice raising with each word. “Can you honestly stand there and tell me that you don’t want to be with me?” His anger changing to a jagged expression of pain and it brought such heaviness to her chest that she could hardly breath.
“Can you? Are you going to say that we weren’t meant to be together forever? Did we not commit to one another already?”
His blunt personal questions came like physical blows to her reckless mind. She nearly stumbled backwards again. She lifted her hands defensively as though to ward off his questions. Derek’s hard demanding stare made her look down away from him. She couldn’t think. To believe they could be happy. No, to believe that they should be happy? It wouldn’t be fair if they found happiness after what she did. Not when her mother would never… and her sisters may never… find the same kind of happiness ever again.
If she told him how much she wished she could just stay with him, that he’d reminded her of what they’d had between them- he would never let her leave. Even the smallest light of hope he’d seize on and never send word to her Father. And she knew that was wrong.
“We were young and-” She turned slightly away. He crossed the short distance to grab her shoulders while his gray eyes stared through her. It felt as though he could see into her soul.
His words dangerously soft.
“It is perfectly simple to answer. And I expect one now. Tell me, yes or no.”
If she told him she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with him, it would be a lie. She’d loved him for as long as she could remember. But then her mind ebbed back to would they just blissfully lives together? She’d already failed her family and she couldn’t bear to do it again. Elanor couldn’t tell him how she really felt. It wasn’t perfectly simple. And though she knew deep in her soul that if she said no right at this moment he’d release her, she couldn’t say it.
“Why don’t we just go on as we had before I left?” She pleaded, searching for words. “When you come back to Port NewLlyn on your sailing trips, I’ll be waiting for you? And maybe sometime in the future I would even visit the island again. After…well, after.”
He stared disbelievingly at her.
“You did not just offer to be my Mistress. You couldn’t possibly have.”
Hot tears pricked her eyes and streamed down her cheeks.
“Don’t make it sound like that.” A shaking hand swiped at the dampness. “We never treated our relationship like that before. Not like the seekers. There’s nothing shameful about it.”
“That’s because we knew that we were going to be committed to one another.” He yelled.
“But we are! I thought you understood what that meant!”
“What the hell is going on in there, Elanor?” She felt his fingers brush the side of her face, touching her head. “You don’t mean that.We’ve been away from each other for too long now. Don’t you think we’ve been punished enough?” The tears slid faster down her cheeks, big hopeless drops. She pulled back from him, but like always he only moved closer. “Tell me Ela. It’s time… long past. Tell me what’s really happening here. What are you trying to do?”
“You just can’t… I can’t…” She finally replied in a small voice, “I don’t know how to make you understand. I’ve tried.” Never had she felt more vulnerable. She didn’t know how to tell him as powerful as she could be, that she should have been there to help when the man attacked.
The deep guilt nearly made her knees buckle.
How could she make him understand the weight of what happened that night upon her mind?
Her heart hammered in her chest, roaring in her ears.
Leaving him years ago had at least given her the false sense that she would be freezing the way they felt in time. Letting him go instead of the other way around. No rejection.
Sensible. Sound. Safe.
Safe because she would never let him go in her heart and he would never would have known her deepest secret fears. A terrified flutter banged against her rib cage threatening to burst out. He wanted real answers now though. As she searched for words, he guided her towards the table and chairs in the cabin. He pushed maps and papers out of his way on the desk, pulling himself up onto it to sit after helping her into a chair.
“Start with the carriage accident. I know there was more to it. Tell me what happened.” He prompted.
A tight knot in her throat demanded release. She would have to give into him one way or another. The magic was too much to hold back with the erratic of her emotions. With him pressing and prodding for answers, he’d soon get one in the way of a magic melt down. She willed the energy to bottle down deep while she searched for words.
“My Mother and sisters…….when the horses were startled by the Witch hunter, the carriage started down the road out of control. My father realized that if the carriage didn’t stop soon, they’d be in real trouble. So my sisters tried to use their magic and it only made things worse. The horses were wildly running when the carriage finally broke free and rolled. Then…” A quiver of her lower lip and chin. She just couldn’t push the words out.
“Then your mother and Araminta were pinned beneath it while Teagan and Meagan were tossed out. Your father had some head injuries as well…” His voice gentle now. She couldn’t push the direct words out of her mouth. Her tongue laying heavy between teeth. Elanor stared for a long time trying. Her mind went into another direction trying to protect her from the grief again.
“I killed a goat once trying to practice my elemental magic. It was standing near the pond I was practicing at.” She admitted to his surprise. Elanor had wanted to learn the old ways so badly that she had thrown caution to the wind in those first weeks living at Sweetlace.
“You can’t be serious!” Derek said leaning forward going with it. “You wouldn’t talk to me for three days once because I trapped a rabbit in the woods. How did you kill a goat?”
“You don’t like the taste of rabbit.” She said accusingly. “And it wasn’t like that. I didn’t intentionally…I…” She wasn’t explaining well. She held her silence a moment trying to think of how to go about it.
“What is it?”
She let out a long held breath. Elanor didn’t finish how she’d killed the goat; it wouldn’t make sense to him why that was such a significant thing that had happened. That she’d given up practicing since there wasn’t any hope of her understanding it. She hadn’t really thought about it how long it had been since casting. She didn’t practice any kind of magic after that. In fact, the first time in two years had been with Derek. And it had come to her like a flowing stream at times then a raging river at others. She still didn’t have a good understanding of it- but she’d gotten better in such a short time.
“I guess the best way is to show you.” She closed her eyes and centered her mind and body. It would only take a small amount of energy to do the task she wanted. Elanor didn’t want to shock him, just show him a bit of what she meant. When she’d channeled enough, she opened her eyes focusing on the door lock and the moisture in the air. Once gaining enough of it, a flicking her hand up and then down made the latch bounce without uttering a word from her lips.
“Not now.” Derek called to the door, pushing off the desk. She watched him confused, then realized when he pulled the door open that he thought someone from the other side had done it. She sighed in frustration when he closed the door.
“Must have wandered off.” He said going back to sitting on the desk.
“No, I did that.”
“You did what?”
“I moved the lock.” She explained, watching his reaction.
“Oh I thought I saw it jiggle just now. You locked it before?” This was how gifted elemental Witches had managed to hide their skills and abilities for centuries. Why witch hunters were so bad at finding the right ones to wipe off the earth. So many innocent lives were lost over the centuries. All because of fear. And fear kept Elemental casters from letting people know their gifts. Their great gifts. After the magic realms had been created and star veils popping up all over the world, the ways of elemental witches had been lost to the past. No one left to teach them. Elanor was making it up as she went.
Now that she was trying to actually reveal her secret to him; she was at a loss. She got up, looking around the cabin for anything she could do that would show him.
Wind? There hadn’t been much of it lately, the air still. So if she invoked the moisture in the wind to blow, he would understand. Channeling, she worked up a nice breeze that lifted the papers off his desk, they floated gently to the floor with small dots of moisture. Derek frowned looking at the window.
“I think a storm is coming.” He said getting up to push the window down. She growled in frustration now. Too many things were easily explained away. A blessing usually but now it annoyed her. He regarded her. “Elanor. If you still can’t tell me-”
“I’m trying!”
A glass with water sat just behind him on the desk. She wrapped her fingers around its base, she lifted it up; after a moment it began twirling in the glass creating a funnel. The water glisten freely from the glass soon, hovering over it’s rim. She made it change in cycle, spin in a new direction and then gently splash back into the glass. Manipulating the small amount of water had been the only real elemental magic she’d mastered in her life. It seemed so small and meaningless compared to stories she’d heard about other elemental casters.
Each person learned from within. The magic came to them as they practiced.
“How are you doing that?” He said taking the glass from her. The spinning continued, the funnel growing up the sides of the glass before it started slashing out the sides flicking water to his face.
“I’m just… telling it to.”
“Without spells? Without words?”
“I can feel water everywhere and channel it.”
Shock crashed over his face finally. In a stunned breath he asked, “You’re able to just… think it?”
“Yes.” She said.
Taking a shaking breath she took strength in the fact that he wasn’t disoriented or shocked, yet. “You already know that every five generations of casters there are five siblings born. Each gifted with the five elements. It’s how nature replenishes itself in a way. Or did. But we could do things with our minds. Great things. But we’re not like the other generations. No one knows what we’re meant to do… if anything. Magic has adjusted to the new world and we have to, too. But there’s no signs of paths to take or things to accomplish. So Mother and Father decided to just let us live our lives as we would. But…” His expression started to change from surprise to realization. The quickness of her heart thundered in her ears.
He spoke then, “That carriage accident was caused by someone looking for-”
“Yes.” She spit the word out. “He’d somehow found out about us and… my parents tried to fend him off, as I said with some magic but the horses got spooked and that’s why the carriage turned over.”
“It wasn’t an accident? The hunter was trying to kill your family?” He asked. Elanor shook her head pressing her lips together before speaking. “Yes and no. He wasn’t trying to kill us. He was trying to take us. My Mother tried to protect Maegan with a spell when he got close to her. Maegan disappeared into the woods nearby and the hunter…” She took a ragged breath, “With my mother and Araminta stuck under the carriage, my father didn’t know who to help first,” She felt her voice growing smaller, soft sad sounds accompanied her words. “Araminta was losing the baby and bleeding as badly as Mother. Teagan had been knocked out and the driver of the carriage, you know his fate.” Elanor felt the prick of hot tears sliding down her cheeks. Her mind had brought her fully back to that night, experiencing it all as though she were there with them. But she hadn’t been. She’d been with Derek.
“The driver died later. I remember your father gave a plot of land to his wife and children.” She could only nod, words were now pain filled barbs to her insides.
“When you left NewLlyn, where did you go?” He had moved closer to her, easing his arms cautiously around her to hug her body to him. She let him give comfort, needing the shielding embrace and laid her head on his shoulder before answering.
“You know that Nain is a high Priestess of her coven and she’s been fighting with Mother for years for us to live with her… Father decided that maybe it were best we went to Sweetlace after all.”
“Sweetlace is protected by magic?”
“Yes, I… many families live on it, protected by the harnessed star light.” A tense moment passed before he spoke again.
“But you left there to find Maegan. Why?”
He’d led her to this point and she did feel compelled to say more since he’d taken all the new information better than she’d expected. Elanor had expected shock, anger, something should be coming from him. He was entirely too calm for what she’d just told him. The way she’s failed her family.
“I could have healed them! I could have done something if I were there, Derek!”
His hands cupped the sides of her face, tilting it towards him. He gently brushed his thumb pads across her wet cheeks. “That’s not true. You’ve said yourself, you didn’t know your powers fully, Ela.”
A rap on the door made her jump. Derek called out in frustration, “What!”
“Just got word. He’s ready when you are.” Caspin answered. Derek stood, his eyes focused on the floor for a good long moment as though he were thinking. It wasn’t fair the feeling that squeezed her heart. She knew he was deciding whether to go through with the lawful marriage. For her, they’d been long ‘married’ since the first moment she realized she loved him. From the moment her Grandmother had performed the ceremony. The same night the hunter had killed her Mother.
It had been the best and worse day of her life.
She’d been caught up in the fairy tale that she could love a person who wasn’t part of her world like her Mother had.
Lifting his eyes to level with hers again, the gray sparkling in the sunlight.
“What?” Confused she regarded him with his odd stare. She didn’t want him to make light of any of this. Would he understand that she should have been there that night? That she should have helped? Instead of running off with him? When she told him the last of it, the reason for her heavy guilt and why she should have been there… maybe he’d finally see.
“You know, your Father clearly didn‘t have the same beliefs as your Mother. They did just fine.” He said.
She blinked at him. “What do you mean! My Mother is dead! My sisters and I are not just casters, we’re able to channel elemental forces. My Mother had talents in the garden but nothing… like…”
“Just because some lunatic did find some like your family doesn’t mean anything Ela. Look at how many were accused and were innocent. They’ve stopped that now, all over the world.” He tilted his head looking at her. “They weren’t very good at finding true casters in any case. We both know that William wasn’t clever enough to do what you just did.” Elanor sadly agreed to that. So many deaths. Derek’s mention of a servant of one of their neighbors being accused of dark magic. How easy it had been for a miffed employer to make such an accusation that would end a life.
“There you see? And I’ve know you since we were children and I didn’t know that you could do that. Though I did have some idea things were odd with you at times.” He gestured with a light motion of his hand. “As for others? They’d be hard pressed to notice it. Look what it took for you to show me. And they’d have to get through me first.”
“You’re not afraid at all?” She pressed.
“Well, we both know as angry as I have made you, if you wanted to do me real harm, you would have.” His smile grew into a cocky grin. He touched her face again, brushing his fingers lightly over the skin. “There is only one thing that has ever scared me. And I intend to never let that happen again, Elanor.” She took a step to lean into him, to lay her head on his chest again, letting herself just have a moment.
Just a moment. The cocoon of warm gentle peace wrapped around her.
His hands slid from her back to either side of her face, tilting it up towards his. He leaned forward, causing her breath to hitch.
“We belong together. Always.”
The smell of him, the taste of him suddenly became enriched. She felt an upsurge of needing him to be closer; her mouth lifting the rest of the way to press against his. She dared to let hope stay for just a little while longer. Maybe it could work out that she could help her family and still have the man she loved? Maybe they could both atone for the past.
“Would you go with me then?” His arms tighten possessively around her, pulling her into his warmth. It was the first time she’d considered his help. She’d wanted to atone on her own but maybe… “Would you go with me to Istland? To find Meagan?”
“Yes, but order of events.” Derek said without hesitation. “We will get married,” He said kissing her after each word. “We will stay on our island until the winds change and I promise, we’ll go North and send word to your father.”
“Why not now? The longer we wait the harder it will be to sort through the volcano aftermath.”
“Wind. After it blows right way, I’ll take you.”
She still wasn’t sure. But Elanor wouldn’t argue it any longer. How could she deny their belonging together? She nodded her head after a moment. “Alright- I think… that’s all reasonable.”
“Then you will marry me?”
Despite the fear and anxiety nagging at the back of her thoughts; the thrill of him wanting to be with her over powered it for now. He accepted her for all she was. If the accident hadn’t happened, she’d have been with him without time apart. There was still a piece of the deep sadness she felt left unsaid. But the yearning for the life he had built and his loving expression had crumbled some of her resolve. Through the turmoil of thoughts her conscience was only eased by the fact that it wouldn’t change anything. They were already matched for life. A piece of paper from the seeker world would only change her surname. And if it convinced him to go back North with her…then she would still be helping Meagan. And maybe- that would be enough?
“Yes.” She said.
“Get your dress on and I’ll come collect you when you’re done.” His lips pressed against hers in one last lingering kiss before he headed for the door. The knot dropped from her throat to her stomach, lying there heavily. Her heart jumped in rhythm when Derek stopped at the door. He seemed to be pondering something, making her body tense ready for it.
He glanced over his shoulder. “And Ela, from now on, when we make our bets swimming… It’s going to be standard knowledge that you’re not allowed to use your magic skills.” She shook her head at him though laughing because she knew he was serious. Elanor’s laughter faded as the knowledge came to her that she’d have to do whatever she could still to find a way back.
Even leaving him again if it came to that.