The images filled her with understanding and hope.
She dropped to her knees and brought the Ellcrys seed close against her breast.
And gave herself over to its power.
On the other side of the doorway to the Bloodfire chamber, Aphen sat with Cymrian on a large rock, eyes fixed on the thin sheet of water that separated her from her sister. It felt like hours had passed.
“She should be back by now.”
Cymrian shook his head. “You can’t know that. We have to be patient.”
“I don’t want to be patient.”
“I don’t blame you. You don’t even want to be here. None of us does. This whole business is terrifying.”
“Perhaps she isn’t the right one. Perhaps someone else is. Perhaps there’s been a mistake.”
“Perhaps.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“Arling doesn’t think so. And that’s what matters.”
They went silent again, waiting. Aphen found her thoughts straying to other times—to when the girls were young and played together every day, when life was simpler and less threatening and the world was a better place. She couldn’t help herself. She knew it was pointless to wish for something that was gone. It was pointless even to think about it. She was going to lose her sister and she would never get her back.
Arling would never see twenty. She would never take a lover. She would never bond and have children. She would never see even as much of life as Aphen had.
She would never return to her home. Aphen would have to be the one to tell their mother what had happened. Whatever that turned out to be.
“I don’t feel as if this is enough to change what is happening with the demonkind. I don’t sense that this will do what we think. Something is wrong, Cymrian.”
The Elven Hunter nodded. “Everything is wrong. That’s the problem. Nothing feels right.”
“It shouldn’t be like this.”
He looked over at her. “I thought that once about you and me, back before you agreed to accept me as your protector. I loved you, and you didn’t know it, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. But I always believed that one day everything would change. Now, maybe, it has. Because we love each other and things feel right again. Do you see what I’m saying? Sometimes we just have to trust that time and fate will bring us back to where we are supposed to be. Sometimes patience and belief are all we have.”
She stared at him. “I couldn’t have done this without you. You have made all the difference. You kept me from falling apart.”
“I think we did that for each other. I think maybe we always will.”
She smiled. “I hope that, too.” She paused. “But I don’t know. I don’t know about anything now.”
They were silent again after that, eyes fixed once more on the waterfall entry, watching and listening. The minutes passed, and nothing happened. All around them, the gloom hovered like a specter’s cloak spread wide. They had kept their diapson-powered torches turned on, but the slender beams did barely enough to illuminate a narrow span of the cavern’s blackness and nothing to brighten the whole.
Somewhere behind them, back the way they had come, water was dripping in the stillness.
Abruptly, Aphen stirred. “I’ve waited long enough. I’m going in after her.”
But it was Arlingfant Elessedil who came to her instead, emerging through the screen of water like a ghost, thin and wan in the gloom and damp, somehow less substantial than before—so diminished that it seemed as if the light from their hastily redirected torches shone right through her.
“Aphen?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.
Aphenglow was on her feet instantly, racing toward her sister until she had her firmly gripped in her arms and held close. She was shocked at the other’s lightness. Arling seemed like a rag doll, her bones gone and her body emptied out. She hung on Aphen, clung to her like it was all she could do to remain upright.
Cymrian rushed over to help. “What’s happened?” he demanded, lifting the girl into the cradle of his arms.
Arling’s eyes found his. The formerly dark orbs were blood red and glistening. “The fire …,” she began, and then her eyes closed, and she was unconscious.
“Let’s get her out of here,” Aphen said at once.
Cymrian nodded and turned back the way they had come. “Wait,” he said, stopping. “Where is the seed?”
But Aphen only shook her head and motioned him on. “Doesn’t matter. She’s done whatever she could. That’s enough.”
In truth, she didn’t know if she could bear to find out where the seed had gone. It wasn’t in her sister’s open hands, but she was certain Arling had done whatever was required to quicken it.
Yet when they had reached the far side of the cavern and were about to enter the short passageway leading back into the chamber formed of stone blocks and columns, Aphen grabbed Cymrian’s arm and brought him to a halt.