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The ancient creature smirked, revealing several stark-white, pointed teeth. “I know nothing.” Sirus’s eyes narrowed, and Rath looked as if he’d expected him to react so. “I let the mage try her magicks knowing they were unlikely to succeed. When she failed and giving you blood was suggested, I refused. There was no reason to taint your honorable death with futile gestures.”
A jolt of pain spread through Sirus’s stomach near his wound as his whole body tensed. It would have been an honorable death. He’d closed his eyes and fallen into the darkness at peace. Only the pain and fear in Gwendolyn’s eyes as he’d drifted away had given him pause. He could still remember the soft scent of lilies. It was the very last thing he’d recognized. The memory made his chest grow tight.
“She pleaded,” Rath recalled without a hint of feeling, drawing Sirus back. “You were nearly gone, yet I saw it in her eyes. She was desperate to save you. Even if it came to nothing.” Levian had told Sirus that she wished he could have seen Gwendolyn’s face—that she had willed him back to life. She had, in a sense. He’d not known she’d pleaded. “I didn’t believe it would work,” Rath went on. “I let her try because she needed to.”
Sirus shifted in his skin. Skin that no longer felt wholly his, but in part hers. He struggled to understand how Gwendolyn’s magicks had done so much. How a mortal who was herself struggling to recover could have saved him. A hollowness had begun to open up inside him after she’d stormed away this morning. She regretted their encounter in Abigail’s garden. Their kiss. He regretted how he’d treated her, but he didn’t regret their embrace. The mere memory of it still haunted him.
Their time together had shaken him. The ease of it. The openness of their conversation. The way she’d so easily forgiven him. Sirus had brought her into the forest planning to pledge himself to her. He’d not expected her to confess what she had. He believed what she’d told him. That she’d manipulated time. It still agitated him to think he’d failed her the first time. That she’d nearly been lost to that vile, cursed creature. Sirus struggled with his shame at realizing how often he’d failed her. She’d saved herself, and him, and he knew she couldn’t see the truth of it. She was strength itself.
She’d caught him entirely off guard asking about the kiss. Sirus had known she still felt some kind of attraction toward him, as shocking as it was, but she’d made it clear she had no interest in repeating their encounter. It had been a mistake. A mistake. Those words were not new to him, but hearing them from her lips had cut to the bone. Sirus knew well that desire and rational sense did not always align. Gwendolyn might desire him, but she did not want him. She was the same as every other woman in that regard.
It was a mistake.
“Levian mentioned the Celestial Stars,” he admitted to Rath, focusing back on their conversation, hoping the ancient creature would have some insight into what Gwendolyn was. His focus was still to help her and find out all that he could. “That Gwendolyn might be touched by one of them.”
Rath tapped his claws on the arm of his chair in rhythm. “I believe her magicks are likely not of this world,” he divulged. “I’m far from the only creature to come to this realm from another. Perhaps she is one such creature, or simply a vessel for such magicks. I cannot say if she is touched by a Star.”
Sirus shifted to look into the fire, contemplating Rath’s words. He could not fathom that she was from another plane entirely, but he knew there was a touch of something to the idea that she might be a vessel. It gave voice to a fear he’d long held.
“She managed to manipulate time,” he confessed. “She claims that she was able to go back just before she was taken into the mirror. That she was able to take me with her only after she’d come back.” He turned to meet Rath’s gaze when he did not answer right away. The gul’s face was unreadable, but Sirus already knew it did not bode well.
“Such magicks do exist,” he replied carefully. “There are creatures with the ability to take small steps forward or back, though I don’t suspect Gwendolyn has such a gift. Powerful magick wielders can learn such tricks with great study but those with the innate ability to distort time cannot hide it well. Their essences are distorted from shifting in time.” Rath took a long breath before he continued, “The Dökk hunted such beings for a time when I was with them. They were eager to unlock the secrets of their gifts in order to use them.”
The very notion of their dark makers possessing such power made Sirus shudder. “How could Gwendolyn accomplish such a thing?” he pressed, not entirely following Rath’s thinking.
Rath tapped one long, clawed finger on his chair. “Time is a strange thing, Sirus. What she perceived might not be the truth.”
Sirus tilted his head slightly. “Explain.”
Rath braced his elbows on his chair and folded his long fingers together in front of his chest. “Time can be an illusion of sorts. It works differently depending on the plane of existence. Even in the Shadow Dark, time is not as it is here. Our plane moves more slowly than your own. In the Abyss, time is nothing. Perhaps she reversed time, or perhaps she merely saw a glimpse into an unfolding future and changed her fate.”
Sirus shifted in his seat at the notion. “You believe she could have merely seen the future and altered it?”
Rath tapped his index claws together contemplatively. “I cannot say for certain. There are many possibilities. Though I believe that to be the most likely, especially given her history of foresight.”
Sirus let out a deep breath and glared back down into the fire. It seemed with each passing day they only managed to uncover more questions than answers about Gwendolyn’s magicks. Knowing that Aldor might know more about her than Sirus grated beyond reason.
“If she is a vessel,” he pressed on, “how would that affect her as a mortal?”
Rath made a light rumbling noise that sent the little hairs on Sirus’s skin standing up at once. He met the gul’s eye. “Even if she is a powerful conduit, using too much magick could break her apart.” Every bone in Sirus’s body went rigid. Rath held his gaze. “If she is a vessel, the power within her will seep out if she does not use it. She will need to learn how to control and release it so it doesn’t simply find its own path.”
Sirus only realized he was gripping the arm of his chair when his knuckles began to ache.
If…
There were too many ifs for Sirus’s liking. They needed answers. Soon.
“Levian has written to the dryads,” he admitted.
“To see if they will accept her into the Veil?” Rath deduced. “Interesting. And you would let her go?”
Sirus bristled. “Yes.” Of course he would. She was not his to keep. “I will see this finished,” he added.
Gwendolyn was safe within Volkov for now, but the castle was not impenetrable. Beyond that, Sirus knew she would be happy in the Veil. She would be safe there. Once accepted, the dryads would take her in as one of their own. They would nurture and nourish her. She would undoubtedly have her pick of suitors as well. Sirus imagined her soft body wrapped in white linen, her belly round with child, a wood fae male with his arm wrapped lovingly around her. The image made an involuntary growl seep out of him, and he realized his nails were now digging into the wood trim.
“I see,” Rath replied with a strange inflection, his expression entirely bland.
Sirus cut him a look but had little time to ponder the reply before he heard footsteps approaching. He looked up the moment Niah stormed through the open door of his study. He’d not seen his sister since that night with the mirrors. She looked harried and quite angry.
