Page 19 of The Rebel and the Rose
On his little bedroll between them, Pippin was wide awake, his shaggy head cocked in concern.
Sera waited for the sparks in her hands to wink out. When her magic quietened, she leaned over to scratch behind his ears. ‘It’s all right, Pip,’ she whispered. ‘It was just a nightmare.’
She should have been used to them by now. But this one wasnew… Her breath rattled in the yawning silence, as though that cloying wet earth still clung to the insides of her lungs.
She rolled out of bed and shrugged on her dressing gown. In the kitchen, she fetched a glass of water and gulped it down, but her heart was still beating wildly. Air. She needed air. She crept outside into the back garden and stood on the wooden deck, silently begging the midnight wind to tug her back to herself. Looking up at the spill of silver peaks, she let herself feel small and insignificant.
Seraphine. Just Seraphine.
Spitfire.
Fragments of her nightmare floated at the edges of her mind. It hadn’t been all bad. There had been a moment when she’d felt Ransom’s hands on her, the nearness of his lips like a promise that still ached somewhere deep inside her. She had wanted that kiss, those breathy words in her ear. If she was honest with herself, she wanted them even now.
Her cheeks warmed at the memory – false and fleeting as it was. If he ever saw her again, he’d likely throttle her. If she didn’t throttle him first. Her hands tingled.
Maker, whispered her magic. Soft and keening.Please.
‘Please,what?’ she hissed at herself.Saints, she was exhausted, and the last thing she needed was thisthinginside pulling at her. Slumping onto the wooden steps, she picked up a rough grey stone. Closing her eyes, she held the stone in her fist, letting it ground her as she stilled her mind.
That insistent tug found her again, born of this strange other force that now lived inside her. She was pulled inwards, through the addled maze of her own worries. Down, down,down, she tunnelled, through pain and grief and loss and hope as delicate as a bee’s wing. She reached beyond it all, searching for a whisper of the magic that slumbered in her soul.
Where are you?she called into the unending dark.What are you?
As if in answer, memories crowded in on her. That night on the Aurore replayed itself in sharp, searing clarity. She smelled the rain on the wind, glimpsed the lightning streaking above the tower, then the menacing glint of Lark’s teeth as he bore down on her. She felt the pulse of her hand against his chest, thepushof something else moving between them. Death.Magic. That strange heat in her bones, cradling her as she fell…
The memories washed over her like a tide of shadows. And there, in the darkness of all that pain, she sensed a gossamer thread of light. Tugging on it, she followed it down, and down again. Deeper than she’d ever gone before. Lost to the world far above her, she tiptoed around the edges of her own soul. There was a door here. And in front of it, a little girl, sitting with her knees tucked into her chest. Blonde hair and scrawny limbs, eyes as blue as the sky, save for a fleck of bronze. Sera peered down at her younger self, recognizing all too well the fear shining in those wide, bright eyes.
The door behind her was ajar, magic streaming through a crack there.
Look and learn, it purred.Let me out.
Sera reached for the handle, imagined herself shoving it open, but the little girl shot to her feet, slamming it shut.
Frustration hissed from deep within.
‘No, no, no’, cried the girl. ‘It’s too much. Too soon.’
Sera made to try again.
‘I can’t—’ pleaded the girl. ‘We can’t.’
The girl was weeping now, and the sound was so gut-wrenchingly familiar, Sera drew back from it. Into the winding dark of her childhood, where her parents’ screams echoed in the stillness. There was grief here, and it was clawing at her.
She was afraid now. Scared of the world that once bowed to her father. Frightened of a world without her mother, and the weight of what Sera was destined to become in her absence. Something so much more than what she once was. Something even Mama had never dreamed of.
Butwhat?
Andhow?
That door inside her was bolted shut now, the little girl pressed against it like a starfish. Her fear was a fog between them. Sera lost herself to it. Shebecameit.
Too much.
Too soon.
Back-pedalling now, she turned from the search, and the cloying shadows of her own mind, and reached up, up, up, to the cool kiss of the midnight wind and the scent of pine trees, the night call of the loon and the hardness of the wood under her bare feet.
She was gasping when she opened her eyes, her cheeks damp as the great bowl of the stars poured their silvered light over her. Good light. Safe light. Starlight.
