Not again.
Not again.
After everything, he will not lose his children to her again. He vowed never to be a father again. To never place a child at risk of maltreatment and neglect, as Lavinia and Makt had sought before.
This madness dies with him.
He touches his cheek to find tears burning their way to the surface as his mind refuses to form a cohesive thought. His heart is giving out as his body fights against his need to protect his children.
They deserve better than him.
And Aura! She has my Aura! My beautiful fire.
How will he save his family when the corridors change and Lavinia’s dark tendrils infect the goodness of the realm?
Every thought he has drags him further into the spiralled Abyss, and he cannot seem to escape.
“Calder?” Like sunshine on the coldest fjord, Aura’s voice wraps around his mind, melting him. “Calder, I am here!”
Like the vision of an afterlife spirit, she kneels over him, smiling as if she doesn’t know Lavinia took their children.
“Aura?” He chokes. “The children! They took them!”
She tilts her head, her brows knitted together. “We don’t have any children.” Aura grasps his arms. “Inhale the scent of the pines! Can you hear the crunch of the snow beneath your boots? You are in the forest.”
The helplessness of it all weighs him down until he cannot breathe again, and he falls to the stone floor.
She crouches over him, stroking his hair. “Can you feel my touch?”
He nods, leaning into the scent that cuts through everything else.
Sweet Blackwood tree flowers.
Unmistakable and beautiful.
“May I have your hand?”
He lays his hand in hers, and she places his palm on the smooth ground. “What do you feel?”
“Stone.”
She shakes her head and moves his fingers. “Cold snow. Close your eyes and feel.”
He complies, only seeing the frightened faces of his children in his mind.
“Aura, we don’t have time-”
“You and I met barely four months ago. I couldn’t have given you children.”
Logical.“But, Lavinia, she is here-”
“She is in Nightwall Keep. You are in the Forest of Fear. With me. With Edmund. With Argnier.”
Suddenly, his fingers dig into the ground. He can feel the powdery snow give way to dirt beneath his fingernails, and a gasp of relief shudders through his chest.
“That’s it!” She squeals. “Inhale again. What do you smell?”
“Blackwood tree flowers.”
