Into The Dark (The One Saga Book 2) by Annaliese Plowright

Author:Annaliese Plowright [Plowright, Annaliese]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-05-15T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

I woke up with the knowledge: he’s gone. There was no moment of wondering if it was all a terrible dream and then the crashing realisation that it was not. I knew it had really happened, because the cold never left me while I was unconscious—not for a moment.

I could hear Rosmerta and Bran discussing me in strained, hushed tones, unaware that I had woken, and I stared numbly at the ceiling of the bedroom I had shared with Arwan at Avallon House. My entire body trembled and ached, especially my forehead, which I vaguely recollected smashing down on the rowan tree.

‘It’s not right that she’s so cold; her incessant shivering kills me,’ Bran whispered to Rosmerta.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she replied. ‘We have to try and help her live with it somehow.’ Unbeknownst to Rosmerta, her words conjured a tiny plan in my mind, a choice I still had at my disposal. I stored my plan away for later. There were things I needed to understand first. I had to be certain I couldn’t bring him back.

‘Where is he?’ I asked and heard my new voice for the first time, my barren wasteland of a voice. It was a struggle to sit up, I was weighted down with so many blankets, but I managed it. Despite the heat of the room, and all the coverings, I still shivered within a shroud of cold, my new constant companion.

I directed my gaze to Bran and Rosmerta in the far left corner of the room, carefully avoiding looking at the paintings of Arwan and me hung on the wall directly opposite the bed. He had told me he’d painted them for me, a gift when I had been an immortal.

I was unaware of how empty my gaze looked to them as their own faces, lined with worry, spun to face me. I felt a flutter of sadness that I could do nothing to ease them. I didn’t have it in me to even try.

Bran was right; Rosmerta looked no worse for her run-in with the Vampler. She appeared fully healed, good as new, as did Bran, though as far as I remembered, he hadn’t made it into the ground. My mind had been in chaos, and it still was; I couldn’t be sure of anything after Arwan fell.

Rosmerta ran to my bedside and hugged me close to her, muttering a string of comfort words I couldn’t listen to. I managed to drape an arm round her back because I knew I should, but despite my effort, the gesture held no strength. She pulled gently apart from me, looking into my eyes, struggling to conceal her own worry.

‘Bran carried him here. He rests in the room next to you,’ she said softly, registering my wince at the word ‘rests.’ I watched as her green eyes welled with tears she couldn’t fight back. I peeled back the blankets and began to slide off the bed past her. Bran was suddenly at my other side, taking my weight, and I didn’t object.

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