Page 31 of What Whispers in the Dark
The Savage Prince cried out to his darkness for salvation, but it did not answer. Not in the way he needed.
That pressure cupping his forehead lifted before the male twisted two rings on his fingers. “I’m sorry, brother,” he said. Then, with one final squeeze, denied Garrik’s last breath, and said?—
He woketo dancing shadows cast in solitary torchlight and something smelling like salt and brine of the sea.
And … he was sitting upright, as far as he could determine. His back reclined on something hard and unforgiving as his body swayed up and down.
He did not have the strength to stand up. Could only blink his bobbing, heavy eyelids. Could only make out a few images, like walls forged of thick iron bars bolted to the wooden floor and ceiling. And beyond them … an iron-barred door, twenty paces away, was closed in front of a wooden staircase. Beside it …
“Where are we this time?” Garrik rasped to Thalon, who sat on the floor with his knees bent in front of him. His marked forearms draped on top.
“Aiden’s brig,” was all he said, separated by prison bars.
Garrik dropped his head against the cell wall. Nodded, opened his eyes, and studied the grain on the boards of the ceiling.The shield? He sliced his eyes back to his brother. The one around camp. Everyone would have felt it fall. Would now be unguarded, vulnerable to attacks and wandering eyes.
Thalon’s gaze flickered to the rings on his tattooed fingers in answer.
The shield stood then. That one and all the rest. The hundreds.
Garrik deepened a breath, grateful for Thalon’s perilous actions. For using those rings.
That was also how they were there, on a ship, below the sea in one of his mother’s pocket worlds. Only a few had access granted to his powers, found encased in those rings. Thalon had opened the door with his and portaled them inside. And if Thalon was forced to enact such measures, then Garrik had been too far gone to be coaxed back to sanity. Thalon’s sole recourse had been to quiet his mind.
He did not fault Thalon for it. But himself…? He was a fucking fool—should never have allowed such astounding idiocy. Should have dawned Thalon away.
Nothing but the salty aroma and sounds of the sea surrounded them. Garrik half-wondered if Thalon was still there when his voice, silent as his mother’s decayed gardens, cautiously muttered along the moldering floorboards, “I don’t know what in Firekeeper-filled-hell you went through these past days, but can’t you see that I’m trying to help you?” The words lingered.
“I will not hear this again.” Shadows gathered by the stairwell’s door and opened it with a screech of the hinges. Clinging to the iron bars. Waiting like a hand ushering someone through. But too quickly, Garrik realized his silent command would remain ignored. He tightened his jaw at Thalon’s rebellion, and ordered, “Leave me.”
Thalon scoffed. “I’m not leaving until you get out whatever’s tormenting you. I can’t watch you fall from another portal,half-dead, while I hold your body, only for you alone to deal with the reasons why after.I can’t.” Eyes glassy, defeated, he cleared his throat and shook his head. “If you need to fight your demons, fight me. Because I’mdonewatching you break alone.”
Garrik’s rising anger was barely restrained as he gritted out, “I am not breaking.”
Neither one of them believed it.
His Guardian rose and walked to the cell door before he unlocked and swung it wide open. With holy fire simmering in his eyes, Thalon called a portal, and Garrik’s tent lay in ruination beyond it as he growled, “Prove it.”
He waited for it. Waited for the moment this would all fade to black. To reveal itself as a dream. His birthdays had never been so peaceful. Ending on a hillside under a bursting night sky. Illuminated by prisms of magic exploding and stars twinkling. Lying on his back, safe for a few moments, with Alora beside him.
But he did not wake up.
The inevitable nightmares did not chase Alora’s every word. His every breath.
And when she touched his skin to point out every shape in the midnight sky, he felt warmth, not the damning chill of serpent hands.
In this cozyextension of Chapter Forty-six, Garrik is reminded of the events of his birthday, starting with Alora waking on his shoulder in a glade, to his birthday gift she presented him on the hill. Bonfires burned, Mystic magic exploded in the sky, and our High Prince couldn’t take his attention from Alora’s eyes.
The hillside was cloaked in starlight. Calm and near tranquil in the absence of bursting magic, which had earlier been exploding with bright colors, igniting the night horizon and forming shapes and patterns until their embers rained onto his birthday celebrations below.
Every sound from the meadow had died to a low hum now. Most of his Dragons had retired to their tents, but a fewremained crowded around the dying fires that glowed with the colored magic his Mystics ignited them with.
Alora lay beside him, head cushioned by her fingers interlaced behind. On her back, stretched across the blanket he had dawned them.
Smiling as stars reflected in her eyes. He had just made a pathetic attempt at tracing constellations. Following a perceived path to resemble a unicorn, but Alora discovered his foolery. It appearednothinglike the majestic beasts. Yet, she humored him, followed by a quick roll of her eyes when heinsistedon its resemblance.
“A unicorn?Really?It couldn’t even pass as Ghost.” Alora snorted, shaking her head in disbelief before she rotated it, disturbing her white hair before meeting his eyes. “You’re actually worse than Rowlen.”
With Garrik’s amused grunt, the blue of her irises softened. It wasn’t until they flickered to his lips and paused that he realized why.
