Awaken Part 4

The thought of Myrina, round and happy, bearing another man's child, was so painful Ryllio thought he might die, but he held on to the anguish, trying to find strength, more convinced than ever of the need to let her go. Yes, she found pleasure in his company, but Ryllio knew the goodness of her heart. What truly brought her back, night after night, was not just the pa.s.sion, but sympathy. Craven as he was, desperate as he was for even a moment of her time, he loved her too much to allow these trysts to continue.

Autumn was swiftly moving toward winter, the days growing shorter, cooler. Once, when the Faeries came often to frolic in the glade, it had always been springtime. The winter snows stopped at the edge of the trees, held at bay by their spells. Now they had ceased to visit, the enchantment seemed no more to work, and Ryllio saw the changing of the gra.s.s from green to brown and the dying of the flowers as an omen.

Perhaps without their magic the elements would begin to wear his stone away, reducing him to naught but dust over time.

And soon the journey through the woods would become all but impossible. Even on a day like today, so grey and drear, he worried about Myrina's health as she came to him through the misty damp. Tonight, he would tell her not to return, would make her promise to stay away, no matter what it took to do so.

As though mocking his resolution, the clouds pa.s.sed and the sun came out to light the final hours of the day, bringing the illusion of springtime and hope.

Chapter Seven

The moon was waning, but Myrina ran, sure-footed, through the darkened woods. Each footfall seemed to echo, as though another person or spirit kept pace behind her, and such was her mood she was glad of that phantom company. Events of the day had left her feeling confused, alone.

Her mother's health was in an ever swifter decline, and Gottreb's story naming Ryllio the prince who disappeared by turns made her angry and sad, bringing forth a sense of betrayal. It shouldn't matter that Ryllio chose not to tell her who he was, but it did. Irrespective of the fact he was a prince without a throne, an immobile statue, withholding such an important piece of information made Myrina feel very lowly indeed.

Now, the time spent asking her questions seemed almost mockery on his part. There was nothing special about what she had done or seen. She had no stories of grand events or travels to share. Had he laughed to hear the mundane details of her life, to realise she, a villager of no account or address, was falling in love with a prince?

Yet fall in love she had, and even with these thoughts churning within, Myrina could no more resist his lure than become one of the Fey. Laugh at her he might, but she would be by his side as often and as much as she could. The thought of him, alone, lonely except for the company of birds and beasts, was too much to bear. And the thought of being without him was so painful she refused to even contemplate it.

The overcast day had turned to a beautiful night. Stars danced in the velvet-dark sky, the moon hovering near the tops of the trees. A light wind carried with it the sharp tang of pine, a touch of wood smoke and the first premonition of icy days to come. Already the last of the crops had been gathered, and the villagers made ready for winter. Goodwife Harbottle had suggested Myrina and her mother move to the Harbottle farm, which was closer to the village and would afford Myrina some help as her mother's health failed. It was a goodhearted suggestion, and a sensible one as well, but Myrina hadn't said yes as she knew she should.

It was too far from the glade where Ryllio lay entrapped.

Closer now to that place, his presence became so strong Myrina's heart leapt. She couldn't explain it, this instant sense of coming home, of stepping into herself in a new, exciting way each time he was near. Perhaps that was why she loved him-not because of the pleasure he guided her to and led her through, but for the way he made her feel about the person she was. Even now, unsure of his motives, certain of the futility of her love, as she stepped out of the trees it was with a straight back, a firm step and smile on her lips. Entering the glade always made her want to dance, to sing.

"Myrina." His voice sounded strange, distant. His voice sounded strange, distant. "I didn't expect you on a night such as this." "I didn't expect you on a night such as this."

Undeterred, she stepped closer until the bracken brushed the front of her cloak. "Why do you say that? It is a beautiful night."

"But getting colder. Soon the snow will make it impossible for you to come."

He spoke as though whether she came or not made no difference to him, and Myrina's heart faltered.

"I can manage. A little snow will not stop me."

For a long time only the rustle of wind broke the silence, and Myrina found her fingers gripping the edges of her cloak so tightly it was almost surprising the wool did not tear.

"There is no need for you to brave the elements for me. Promise me you will not."

Kind enough words, but said in a voice edged with ice, sharp enough to slice through her heart. Speaking slowly, trying to keep each word even and clear, she asked, "Are you telling me not to return?"

"There is no need for you to do so," he said again. he said again. "I am never awake for long, and soon Mab's spell will cast me once more into slumber. The time we share must come to an end, and when better than in the season when the earth dies away beneath the snow? Come spring you can look for a lover, since you have learned all I can show you." "I am never awake for long, and soon Mab's spell will cast me once more into slumber. The time we share must come to an end, and when better than in the season when the earth dies away beneath the snow? Come spring you can look for a lover, since you have learned all I can show you."

It struck like a blow, and Myrina stepped back, lifting her hands to cover what felt like a gaping wound in her chest. The urge to run away was overwhelming, but pride and spark of anger kept her in place.

When she finally found her voice, had mastered it into submission, she replied, "Am I dismissed so easily then?"

"It is not a dismissal, Myrina." There was something new in his tone, although it sounded almost the same. There was something new in his tone, although it sounded almost the same. "Just a matter of being sensible." "Just a matter of being sensible."

"Sensible?" She had never felt less inclined to wisdom in her life. How could he turn her away after all they had shared, all they had felt? "Have you no feelings for me at all?"

The sound he made held nothing but sinister amus.e.m.e.nt and desire, hard and cruelty-touched. "Do you mean will I miss doing this?" "Do you mean will I miss doing this?"

Without warning he was there, a vision behind her eyes-darkly handsome, subtly mocking, kneeling before her on the gra.s.s, his face upturned to watch hers as his hands slid beneath her cloak and shift.

No, she tried to say, but already her traitorous body had betrayed her, flowering open, wet and ready. It was just a fantasy, an illusion, but in her heart she knew it was more real than anything felt beyond this wooded glade. Knowing it could be the last time they shared this strange, intimate connection, she would not gainsay him, even as her heart broke asunder within.

Could she feel him trembling? Ryllio wondered, unable to stop himself from taking this one last journey into desire with her. Myrina's pain as he told her not to come back was a palpable thing, and he knew if he let himself relent he would cast aside his resolution, beg her not to leave. Easier to make her believe his interest was built purely on l.u.s.t, for next to having her for eternity, being once more a part of her pa.s.sion was his greatest wish.

It took all his concentration not to bend forward in his fantasy, rest his cheek against the soft curve of her stomach, encircle her with his arms and hold her as close as he could. Instead he traced the warm quivering lines of her legs, teasing his fingers over the satiny flesh. Fantasy overlaid reality, and he could see Myrina's hands following the path of his dream hands with her own. As he lifted the edge of her shift, she did the same, revealing knees and thighs and belly, pearlescent in the moonlight.

Ryllio could not hold back his moan of yearning, borne on a rush of pa.s.sion so all-encompa.s.sing his heart felt close to bursting. No matter how many times they came together in this magical fashion, each time it felt new, wilder, stronger. The slip of her skin beneath his palms, the enticing musk of her excitement, were as real as the stony prison holding him fast.

Dipping his head, he parted her softly with his tongue, circling the hardened c.l.i.toris, dipping lower to touch and explore the slick, plump interior, drink deep of her most intimate essence.

She was quivering, sighing, hips pushing forward in demand, hands gripping his head, holding him tight to the juncture of her thighs.

His excitement rose with hers-but the need to give her pleasure was the only thing that mattered. Committed to bringing her to release, Ryllio flicked his tongue higher, curled it around the sensitive peak.

"No."

Both in his fantasy and in reality, Myrina stepped away, breaking the connection between them. Surprised and then heartbroken, Ryllio retreated, waiting for her anger or for her to leave.

Instead she murmured, "Like this."

An image pushed into his mind and, for a moment, disoriented, Ryllio didn't understand. Never before had the fantasy flowed from Myrina to him, but somehow, incredibly, this time it was. Gasping, feeling desire incinerate all but instinct, Ryllio grasped her thighs where they straddled his head and pulled her down to his seeking mouth.

Now, swirling visions and reality overlapped, expanded, wavered in the intensity of their heated coupling. Ryllio could see her standing in the hollow before him, shift held up on one arm, her hand recreating the sensation of his mouth on her cunny. But she was also crouched above him, facing his feet, hips moving in a rhythm wild and sweet as his tongue and lips sought every secret to bring her pleasure to fruition. And he could see them both, as though from a slight distance, locked together in a timeless, lovely dance of pleasure. Ryllio shuddered, cried out against her quivering flesh, as Myrina bent forward, beautiful lips parting to engulf his desperate erection.

He felt it-the wet heat of her mouth, every flick and flutter of her tongue-felt it as though their bodies truly were locked together. So intense was the sensation, so utterly overwhelming, Ryllio believed for one fractured second he had somehow been transformed into flesh corporeal once more.

Arching into the wild suction of Myrina's mouth, he forgot everything-the past, his plight, the sorrow of their imminent parting-in the idyllic pleasure of the moment. Reaching up, he covered her cunny with his mouth once more, pouring all the love and longing in his soul into her. Myrina cried out around his c.o.c.k, her hips writhing, jerking in time to the uncontrolled flaying of his tongue.

He couldn't stop the heat rising from his ballocks-didn't want to stop it, for it had been too long since he felt the incipient power of o.r.g.a.s.m. Catching her c.l.i.toris between his lips, Ryllio caught the beat of her plunging mouth and joined it, pulling her into the rush of his o.r.g.a.s.m, holding back until she shuddered, releasing him as she cried out in bliss.

Then, only then, did he let go, allowing himself to be transported by the pulsating relief, hoa.r.s.e cries of delight and love breaking from his throat. Caught in the sensation, shocked, bewildered, Ryllio felt suddenly lost, adrift-straddling the veil-neither alive nor bespelled.

Coming back to himself was difficult, for his heart rebelled against what his body had to admit first by its continued immobility. Everything he had just experienced had been fantasy. The lingering sensations of Myrina on his hands and lips and body were not real.

Grief stricken, he looked to where Myrina stood, swaying slightly amidst the last of the wildflowers. The moon was directly overhead, its rays illuminating the sweet beauty of her face, the soft tilt of her smile. Once more wrapped in her cloak, her body was only a shadowy outline, but he knew every curve and dip, every soft and secret place. Never before had he cared for anyone, loved anyone, as he did her, and the impossibility of that love once more fell on him like a blow.

In the far recesses of his heart there had been a kernel of hope that Myrina and his love for her would set him free. Now, after sharing intimacy beyond anything he had ever imagined, he knew if she could not save him, he was beyond redemption. And the mourning he had experienced before became no more than the pa.s.sing of a brief storm in comparison to the everlasting maelstrom of sorrow now waiting.

"Ryllio-"

The softness of her voice cut through his agony, but he could not reply. The pain was too deep, too fresh. It filled him with cold, as though the outer stone had finally completed its incursion into his heart and soul, turning him into marble through-and-through.

Again she called to him, and again, but he made no answer. Hardening his breaking heart, he closed himself away, shutting her out of his mind. Better this way, he thought, as he watched her joy turn first to concern, then anger. And when she turned away and ran from the glade, the sounds of her sobs drove through him like blades of ice.

In the silence of the forest, Ryllio sat, slowly releasing the last vestiges of humanity, praying for the moment the marble overtook him completely, erasing the grinding, heart-wrenching torture of lost love.

Chapter Eight

Winter howled into the village like a ravenous wolf, sending stinging ice-clad snow fleeing before a vicious wind. Everyone huddled inside, going out only to tend the animals or complete necessary ch.o.r.es. Myrina at last accepted Goodwife Harbottle's invitation and, closing up her parents' house, moved her mother to the Harbottle farm.

The goodwife was one of her mother's oldest friends and immediately took over the ailing woman's care. That was for the best, Myrina realised, for although she tried to act as normal, numbness surrounded her like an impenetrable globe, disconnecting her from everything and everyone. Not even the knowledge her mother was slipping away seemed able to penetrate fully into her heart. It simply added further distance between her and the rest of the world.

There were decisions she needed to make regarding her future, but the strength of mind necessary to consider them eluded her. The farmer who leased her father's fields was pressing to buy them, demanding a decision before the following spring. In the past she recalled having strong views on keeping the land, but couldn't remember why it had seemed so important.

In truth, Myrina acknowledged, nothing mattered anymore. When she ate, it was because the food lay before her-if she drank it was by rote, her body taking what it needed to survive without asking leave of her mind. There was nothing she wanted or craved-nothing that could move her to more than the slightest smile, the merest frown. After sitting by her sleeping mother's side for hours on end, she would rise and not be able to recall even one pa.s.sing thought while she was there.

The one thing she could not think on at all was the glade and what lay there. On occasion something would bring it to mind-the scent of wild sage clinging to Farmer Harbottle's coat, a glimpse of the moon, full and glowing, outside the window. At those times Myrina became aware of pain lurking just beyond consciousness, waiting to burst free and devour her. Even as it made her gasp, her mind shied desperately away, hiding once more in the clouds fogging her head.

She had no memory of her dreams, and for that she was grateful. Some mornings her pillow was wet from a storm of tears pa.s.sing in the night. At other times she drifted up from sleep with a hollow, tender ache deep inside, as though in the unremembered reaches of the night something precious lay within her grasp, which the rising sun caused to melt away.

"I wish she would cry, Mam, or get angry." Elawen's voice, filled with annoyance, one day drifted to where Myrina stood outside the kitchen. "Anything would be better than seeing her drift about like a ghost."

Not waiting to hear the goodwife's reply, Myrina continued on her way to her mother's bedside. Indeed she felt as insubstantial as a spirit-or a vessel spun from crystal threads, awaiting the blow that would cause it to shatter.

Her mother was awake, awareness gleaming in pain-filled eyes, and Myrina forced her lips into the shadow of a smile, knowing it was not what it should be, unable to do any better.

"Can I get you anything, Mama?"

"Do you have my ring, darling?" Her mother's voice was thin, an audible representation of her hold on life. "I miss it."

Slipping the simple golden band from her own finger, Myrina placed it back on her mother's, where it belonged. The skeletal hand closed tight to keep it in place, and a smile of contentment brightened her mother's face. Placing her other hand protectively over the ring, she closed her eyes once more and slept.

The trembling began at Myrina's toes, rising to turn her legs to jelly, her stomach to a writhing ma.s.s of pain. When she reached out to grasp the nearby chair, it was with a hand as palsied as that of a woman twice, thrice her age.

Agony clasped her in unrelenting arms, stopping her breathing. Nausea churned, threatening to bear her down to her knees.

All her life she had seen the love between her parents-never overt or demonstrative, but subtle-in the sharing of a glance, a pa.s.sing touch, a small thoughtful gesture. The simple motion of her mother's hand, guarding the symbol of their life together, revealed the essential, eternal connection between them-something her daughter craved beyond all desire and would now never know.

Lowering her body to sit, Myrina finally faced the extent of her loss, and it was all she could do not to wail, to howl like a dying beast. When her father died, taking with him the security and safety of her world, she had been too busy to mourn. Perhaps in time she would have done so, but then her mother became ill and it was all she could do to cope, hold their lives together as best she could. There had been no one to share her pain, no time to truly feel the sorrow growing stronger and stronger each day.

In Ryllio she had sought and found solace, understanding, belonging. That fleeting taste of love had lifted her beyond the present pain, giving a teasing foretaste of what could be. To have known him-his pa.s.sion and tenderness-to have been accepted, desired, needed, just as she was, and then to feel him fade once more to stone was more than she could stand.

Covering her eyes with shaking hands, tears seeping out between her fingers, she rocked back and forth against the onslaught of anguish. All the losses in her life were too much to bear-the torment tearing at her heart would surely lead to madness or death.

"Come with me, little one." Myrina only dimly heard the goodwife's soft voice in her ear, hardly felt the gentle hands urging her to rise. "Come away where you can cry in peace."

And wrapped in the goodwife's tender care, Myrina cried and cried until she felt there were no more tears left in the world.

"I was wondering when this would happen," the older woman murmured, stroking Myrina's hair. "Even the strongest of us must give in to the tears sometime, and you have more reason than most to cry."

"I want to die too." She hadn't meant to say it aloud, but the words burst from her throat, bringing a fresh paroxysm of weeping.

"I know," Goodwife Harbottle soothed. "Everyone feels that way when they see everything they hold dear falling apart before their eyes. But you have the strength to go on, Myrina. Life is a hard road, no doubt about it. Each time we think it has smoothed out for a pace, another mountain rises ahead. 'Tis just the way of the world, sweetling. All we can do is struggle on, do our best, and hope 'tis enough."

Exhausted, Myrina made no effort to protest when the goodwife tucked her into bed, although it was the middle of the day, and she drifted to sleep in moments...

...and found herself in the glade, wind-whipped snow thrashing her face and arms with an icy sting, biting and stabbing at her exposed skin.

"Ryllio," she shouted, trying to see him, go to him, but the swirling flakes created a veil of whiteness, and the buffeting wind held her in place.

"Why do you call to him, Myrina Traihune?" A mocking voice came to her and, turning her head, squinting against the flying crystals, she saw a golden-haired man standing in distant sunlight. "You never truly cared for him. If you had, he would be free."

"What do you mean?" she cried, fear clawing at her heart, more chilling than the winter's cold. "Was there some way I could have freed him, something I didn't do that I should? Tell me, please, and it shall be done."

The golden-haired faery shrugged, his lips tilted in a mocking smile. "I have no spell to rule the dictates of a human heart, the conscience of a human soul. It is too late, anyway, for the prince is almost completely stone now, by his own doing. Once there was a chance for him, but now he will never again awake."

"No!" Myrina struggled again the icy bonds restricting her movement, the torturous agony of his words. "That cannot be true. He but sleeps awhile, as Mab dictates, and will awaken once more at her whim."

With a sardonic lift of his brows, the faery replied, "The spark of life that once beat within the stone is all but gone. So it is when a man loses all he holds dear-especially hope."

"No! Ryllio," she cried again, "Ryllio, please, don't go. Help him." She turned once more to the faery, holding out her hands in appeal. "Help him, please."

"There is nothing more I can do, Myrina Traihune." He began to fade from sight, taking the sparkle of sunlight with him, leaving her in an icy grey miasma. "Except to wish you peace."

She awoke, sitting up, arms still outstretched, heart pounding in fear and sorrow. Around her, the farmhouse slumbered. Outside the wind moaned and sighed in perfect harmony with her soul.

It was just a dream-vivid, realistic and terrifying-she told herself, even as she was swinging her feet over the edge of the bed. She had not been visited by Kestor, the golden faery Ryllio spoke of, but had simply created him and his words from her own imagination. Yet, driven by a compulsion too strong to resist, she pulled on her stockings and tied them in place and dressed in a warm wool petticoat and overdress.

There was no room for thought, only action, although everything around her seemed suddenly bright and sharp despite the darkness. Instinct guided her to her mother's bedside, where she placed a kiss on the paper-dry cheek before quietly going downstairs. Farmer Harbottle's hound lifted its head as she pa.s.sed through the kitchen, tail thumping on the wooden floor as it watched her lace her boots. Swinging her cloak over her shoulders, she bade the hound stay as she opened the door and slipped out into the night.

Cold connected with her face like a slap, stealing her breath. The snow lay in huge drifted heaps against the building, having blown off the clean-swept fields. For a moment she faltered, wondering if it were even possible to find her way to Ryllio without his call, but determination pushed the thought aside, and she began to trudge as fast as she could toward the trees.

Time lost all meaning as she fought her way through the forest, slipping and falling in the snow, coming back upon her own footprints and striking off in another direction. The cold was intense, made bearable only by the fire of her resolve. On and on she went, until the sky above her began to lighten with the dawn and, shivering, she began to despair.

"Please," she whispered to the wind. "Please, help me find him."

A golden glow lit the trees ahead of her, and Myrina stumbled toward it, but then came abruptly to a halt, a cry of distress breaking from her lips.