Celeste lay on her back for several long moments that felt like an eternity as she stared up at the warm wooden ceiling, a cool breeze dancing gently through the balmy room. Her body still quaked as her senses reoriented themselves from impending doom to casual laziness, the soft carpet beneath her an oddity amidst the reel of emotions. Nearby the song of crickets hummed away loudly.
They'd been minutes, moments away from a harsh and painful death at the hands of the walking dead, not a hope in sight, their very heartbeats and breaths numbered.
Then he'd winnowed them out.
WINNOWED.
Something he'd somehow managed to neglect to mention he could do to her during any of the frantic terror-soaked moments that had assaulted them as they'd raced out of that damned tomb with death at their heels. Something that he had failed to remember as wights had come after them in hoards, rising from the depths of the earth eager to sink their ancient blades into living flesh.
Celeste could smell the decay and rot on her, feel it seeping into her once new and lovely leather boots, the sweat still tracing down her face and body. Her senses were finally calming, her focus returning as her heart slowed from its gallop.
He had winnowed.
An eerie silence filtered through Celeste's mind, a soothing, calm, sharp clarity racing through her.
"OH by the Mother," she heard Gandriel mutter, his labored, panicked breathing the only sound bouncing off the walls of the small room. She heard him lift himself, hissing from where he'd collided none too gently with that poor unsuspecting table, "Thank the Cauldron and the stars-"
She glanced towards him. His sweat-soaked hair hung limply, plastered to his cheeks and neck as he lay on his stomach on top of the broken table, his arms holding him up as a quaking tremor raced down his body.
She sat up.
"Gandriel," she began quietly, her voice ice as the energy in the room pulled taut, tension strumming through the space like a bowstring pulled tight, silencing the crickets outside. His attention snapped to her immediately. "When did you intend to mention you could winnow."
He looked up at her, eyes wide, the arrogant mask absent, "Winnow?" His eyebrows knotted at the center of his forehead. "What in the hell is winnowing? How did you pop us back here?" He glanced around, his face softening at what Celeste assumed was a familiar environment, ". . . And to my apartment no less."
Celeste couldn't winnow, had never been able to.
Only the strongest fae could winnow. So very few were gifted with the ability, Celeste recalled, as a memory tinkering at the back of her mind of a blue-eyed boy who could do the same came to life.
"Gandriel," she tried again, her voice lingering on the last syllable as she fixed him with a pinning stare, her nostrils flaring, "Why didn't you tell me you could winnow?"
"I didn't!" he hissed at her, "You must have done it, I can't do that!" He locked gazes with her flat, penetrating stare, eyes widening slightly. ". . . Can I?"
He swallowed nervously, not breaking eye contact for even a moment and Celeste saw, for once, that his face hid nothing. He truly did not realize that he'd sent them flying through the world with nothing but a thought.
A sudden look of horror flashed across his face as he dropped his head, hair brushing against the carpet, fists knotting beneath him.
"Mamá . . ." Gandriel muttered, his voice slipping into a lilting accent Celeste was not familar with, as he began murmuring, more to himself than her, in a foreign language. The syllables rolled off his tongue in smooth waves, some internal conflict prominent on his face.
The male shook his head before he fixed his attention back on Celeste, "I've never even heard of winnowing, much less have I ever done it. But if I did that . . ." He rolled over onto his back, his large palms covering his face, "Oh Mother above."
The idiot literally had no idea that he could winnow, it had been pure chance, pure luck driven by his terror that had saved them.
Something inside Celeste snapped.
She rose swiftly and silently onto her feet before stalking towards Gandriel, her hands hanging loosely at her sides. Before he had the chance to scramble away Celeste knotted her hands in the back of his shirt, and with a strength surprising of even a fae, threw him from the floor into the couch across the room.
He landed with a less than impressive thud, toppling over backwards and taking the couch with him.
"You," she seethed, the temperature in the room plummeting as she stalked towards him, her boots squishing uncomfortably beneath her feet as blood seeped out onto the cream carpet, a reminder of what they had just survived. "What in the living fuck were you thinking?" she hissed, beginning to slowly circle around the toppled piece of furniture, her focus locked on his scrambling form. "Do you have any idea what you just risked to retrieve an item you didn't even know how to identify?"
The thought of that inky black presence danced hauntingly through Celeste's mind, the clamoring and clinking of the wights movements a song that it moved to.
What had they done?
"Celeste," Gandriel reasoned, wisely putting the couch between himself and said female as he staggered to his feet, his hands raised in front of him as though calming a wild animal, "You have to understand I didn't know THAT was going to happen-"
"And what did you think was going to happen?" Celeste shot back, her hair sticking uncomfortably to her sweat-soaked dress, the useless frilly thing that nearly cost her life. "That we'd just waltz in there, magically find whatever the hell that piece of metal was and stroll out? How did you even find that place?"
The place reminded her of the horror tales that were told as ghost stories to get her into bed when she was a small child alongside Anelisse. The same stories that had her crawling under layers and layers of blankets late in the night as she watched the window in the cottage, contemplating when the real demons would come crawling out of the shadows to take her once again.
She suppressed a violent shudder.
"It was on a map," Gandriel replied, watching her carefully, "a map designed specifically to locate objects that the user needs most." He rummaged through his back pocket, keeping on eye on her as though he half expected her to tear out his throat, and withdrew a small folded piece of paper, clearly charmed to keep it protected. "It led me to that island."
"What could you have possibly needed from there?" Celeste snarled, throwing her arms out in frustration, "Death? I could have given that to you easily enough without having to risk my own hide!"
"I needed something to break a bargain I made," he replied coolly, unfolding the map gently, its surface plain except for the faint outline of the continents and islands. "The map doesn't specify the object, just the place."
"And you needed my help why?" she growled, beginning to circle around the couch towards the fool.
"Like I said before," Gandriel cautiously kept pace with her circling, keeping the distance between them with one hand still out as though attempting to placate a furious wildcat, "it was rumored you could track it, so I figured why not. I hopped that boat intending to jump ship and sail to the island myself. You were . . . unexpected, but Cauldron-sent nonetheless."
Lies, she could taste them.
"You're lying," she hissed, moving closer towards him, he took a pace backward in time with hers to keep the distance, "You're not telling the whole truth."
Gandriel's face remained passive but his eyes finally flicked away from hers for a moment. He let out a breath. "There's more but now's not the time for it." His gaze trailed down to her hands, still quaking and trembling, and his brow knotted at the center. "You need rest." A snarl. "We bothneed rest, and food; you look like you're about to keel over."
"Thanks to no help from you," Celeste spat, recalling his taunting as Gandriel had 'guarded' her on the boat back from Vanica, "You're not exactly making me want to spill your blood any less."
Gandriel took one more step back toward the door. "Do you really think you could retrieve your sister in this condition?" Celeste balked at the implication, even as a sliver of truth accompanied the statement. She was in no condition to travel at this point, to gut Lukas and let him bleed - "Exactly." She dropped her gaze, her face having confirmed what Gandriel had already expected. "We'll rest, then we'll get your sister."
"You swear it?" she demanded, a shiver racing up her spine. Cauldron, just how long had it been since she'd slept adequately?
He quirked a brow.
She hissed.
"Yes! Yes," Gandriel retorted loudly, his mossy golden gaze locking with her own violet as he stared down at her, thick lips pressed into a near pout, "I promise we'll get your sister back."
Something in Celeste's nerves shattered as she felt herself loosen, shadows of memories dancing at the edge of her mind, and exhaustion finally caved in on her like stone. She suddenly felt very lightheaded and peaky, like she needed to sit. She wavered.
"I'm . . . tired," she told Gandriel, a heaviness settling over her as she reached out a wobbling hand to steady herself against the couch, the lightheadedness growing. Her eyes were still sharp as she glared at Gandriel however. "I'll deal with . . . this, YOU later."
The male tried to not look too relieved.
"I'll go get food," Gandriel replied, looking more than happy to be away from Celeste. Good, she thought, it was best he was afraid of her. "You should rest." He nodded over a shoulder towards a door situated in the back of the large apartment, "There's a bath in there, feel free to use any of the soaps, they're there for my . . . nightly companions," Celeste snorted in response as that insufferable smirk resurfaced. "I'll return shortly."
"At this hour?" Celeste had slumped to the floor, her head leaning against the toppled couch, which she noted was a lovely shade of crimson. "Where are we anyway?" She took a moment to glance around at her surroundings. Gandriel's apartment was notably larger than the small cottage she'd been raised in and filled with items far more expensive that she could have ever have dreamed of possessing on Vanica.
"Marchedor," Gandriel replied as he finally, grudgingly, turned his back on her to pull off his blood-soaked boots, that trilling accent slipping through on the way he rolled his r's. "The trade Capital between the Northern Fae Countries and the Mortal Lands. There's always something open in the square."
Celeste tried to ignore the tightening of her stomach, the faint nausea that always accompanied such a violent hunger. Gandriel eyed her with what might have even been concern as he tugged on a fresh set of shoes.
"Fine," Celeste didn't even bother arguing, the exhaustion already seeping into her violently as her eyes fluttered, heavy with sleep. "Just be quick about it, I need to get back to Anelisse."
"Of course," Gandriel stood and slicked his hair back, nearly brown now from the sweat and grime, "I'll be back shortly."
Celeste didn't even bother watching as she heard him rustle around in a drawer, no doubt looking for money to pay for whatever food he intended to buy. She barely registered him leaving, the door closing behind him quietly as he made off into the night.
Sleep, the sweet reprieve that she so desperately needed was so close.
The smell of death was still on her.
She groaned and rubbed at her aching eyes.
A bath, then sleep, then saving Anelisse. She could kill Gandriel after that. Maim the lying sack of skin and leave him out for the buzzards to pick at.
She hauled herself upright.
"Unbelievable," Celeste nearly whispered as she took in the expansive bathing room. It was nearly the size of the living area with a deep stone pool, hot water already steaming, whatever magic here keeping the pool full and hot. Around the pool sat a variety of candles already lit, casting the room in a golden sheen.
The prick was as flowery and over the top as he was stupid.
Some nightly company indeed.
Celeste hadn't seen a tub like that in . . . years. It had always been buckets of water in Vanica, warmed over the fire and then used to scrub herself with a hole-filled old rag that, no matter how many times she washed it, never seemed to be completely clean.
This, in comparison . . . this was heaven.
She loosened the ties of the dress about her waist and pulled the sticky fabric from her skin with a wet squelch, the delicate fibers grimy beneath her fingers. She glanced down at the article, its once beautiful plum hue now nearly the color of dirt.
A pang of guilt strummed through her as she thought of the work Pennelope had put into it, as she thought of Anelisse alone, forced to endure Lukas-
She tossed the dress to the floor, a nearly black clump on the golden tiles.
She felt so heavy, so very heavy.
Celeste gazed up at the high shelves lined with every soap imaginable, the supplies Gandriel's various lovers used.
She snorted at the idea as she stepped up and began rummaging through the various containers, all labeled in lovely feminine script.
Orange-lemon, gardenia, sandalwood, patchouli, rose, rose, rose . . . and another container of rose. Celeste wrinkled her nose, the strong smell of the flower escaping the bottle.
Oh he was sumptuous indeed.
A bit more searching produced a small bottle of milky liquid and written across its surface . . . jasmine. She plucked the bottle from the shelf, ignoring the tinkering bells of memories at the back of her mind as she ascended the few low steps into the bath.
She nearly moaned in delight as her toes tested the warm water, heat seeping into her frozen body. She quickly lowered herself into the tub, savoring the water as it thawed her icy limbs.
If nothing else had come of this at least she'd been able to get a bath.
Scrubbing at her face, she worked the grime loose, the flecks of blood and earth floating away in the tub. Celeste tried not to let her mind wander, her focus solely on cleaning beneath her shattered nails, on detangling her matted hair.
She closed her eyes, an image of seeping blood suddenly filling her vision.
Her eyes flew open, and she shuddered as the image of Anidre's prone form filled her mind. If she'd only been loose she would have been able to save her—
She shut down the thoughts with a breath and proceeded to dunk herself beneath the water, tuning out her mind and everything around her.
Later, she could deal with it later.
It was almost unfortunate the wights hadn't killed him, Gandriel pondered as he strode through the market, because Celeste's intent was nothing short of malicious. He was near certain she'd rip his throat from him if given the chance. Though if the rising wights in the tomb had been any indication she'd have no issues raising him from the dead to kill him again and again either.
The old scrying glass hadn't been wrong after all, and it sent Gandriel's senses ablaze as he thought of those skeletons rising from the ground. She was beyond dangerous, and in his case, hopefully, beyond useful.
He hated the paranormal. Absolutely abhorred it.
But the ability to bring back the dead . . . it could work.
Gandriel passed a few copper pieces over to the stall's owner, paying for the meat pies he'd chosen, before nodding his head and trekking back down the cobblestone road towards his Hightown apartment.
The fact they hadn't died was a miracle, an absolute miracle.
The remnants of the blinding terror that had seized him still lingered, still clung to the edges of his mind, taunting him as walked through the quiet city streets. The golden faelights illuminated the pressed stone beneath his feet in the twilight as fae and humans alike strolled to and fro in the emptying streets.
And the . . . winnowing as Celeste had called it, that had been unexpected too. He still wasn't certain that had originated from him, but his mother had warned him many years ago-
He banished the thought. It had to have been Celeste, he was certain.
Ascending the stairs to his apartment Gandriel pushed the door open and walked into the sight of Celeste curled up on the now-upright couch, her damp raven locks tousled around her as she lay sound asleep in his favorite shirt.
He scowled at the soaked edges of the garment he'd been so looking forward to wearing tonight. Well, she'd certainly made herself at home.
At least she hadn't left.
Setting the food down on the side table, Gandriel made to move towards Celeste, intending to wake her to eat. Her bony frame and hollow cheeks hadn't escaped him in their time together and feeding her was the least he could do after the fiasco he'd just made her endure for his benefit. He crept quietly over to her slender frame and was considering what method of awakening was least likely to get him punched when his eyes snagged on a red mark on her back peeked out from where the sleeve of his oversized sleep shirt had slid down over her narrow shoulder.
His eyes widened as he looked more closely at that mark.
Centered in the middle of her pale shoulder was a jagged, atrocious blotch of dense scar tissue that puckered at the edges - a vicious reminder of a brutal wound. Only the top of it peeked out above the shirt and Gandriel instinctively stepped forward, narrowing his eyes on the scar, wondering just what had happened to this strange fae woman to have obtained such a mark.
He reached forward a tentative hand, just to see how far down the scar stretched-
Celeste rolled over and sharp violet eyes narrowed up at him.
He jumped and stood abruptly, tucking his hands guiltily behind his back.
"I was going to . . . um . . . wake you." He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "There's, uhh, food - meat pies," he finished weakly, swallowing a bit nervously as he made a vague gesture toward the table.
The violet eyes blinked twice, softening them and clearing their fog, before she nodded slowly and sat upright, her pale legs long and bare beneath his sleep shirt. He averted his gaze, a blush inadvertently spreading across his cheeks at the sight of so much skin.
Smooth, Gandriel, he chastised himself, Way to go.
Celeste tentatively sniffed the air before letting out a small noise of yearning and attempted to stand, her thin legs wobbling beneath her.
"Here, sit." Gandriel waved her back to the couch and walked to retrieve the meat pies, feeling her incredulous glare in the back of his head, grimacing as the instinctual male instinct to protect began to float to the surface.
What exactly was with this woman?
Snatching up the pies he quickly handed one over to her, then sighed as he remembered the splintered table. He plopped down on the poor, bloodstained carpet instead and unwrapped his own, sinking his teeth joyfully into the buttery crust. He savored the peppered spice of the lamb, and the fact he was still around to enjoy it, before shifting his gaze to Celeste.
His pie halfway to his mouth, Gandriel watched in amazement as the small female devoured hers in moments; not a crumb dropped. He quirked a brow in amusement as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and licked her fingers, color beginning to bloom in her cheeks again.
She lazily handed the cloth wrapping back to him and flopped back down on the couch, a contented sigh slipping past her lips, completely ignorant of the fact that Gandriel had an optimal view of her . . . finer assets.
He needed to get her a blanket, for both his sake and her own.
"Tomorrow." Celeste mumbled as she rolled towards him, her arms tucked in front of her and her form suddenly seeming so much smaller than it had in the previous days. "Tomorrow we go get Anelisse, first thing." Her voice was sleep ridden and Gandriel watched as she started nodding off.
He popped the last of his meat pie into his mouth before rising, brushing the crumbs from his filthy trousers with a grimace.
He was in desperate need of a bath.
"Celeste," Gandriel prodded gently, earning a grumbling growl from the drowsy female as he opened a closet and began rummaging for a blanket, "You can have my bed, I'll sleep on the couch." Celeste yawned before snuggling further down in the couch, her face muffled by the cushions.
"No thanks," she muttered, her voice barely audible, "I'd rather not contract any illnesses from you and your 'nightly companions.'" Celeste shifted her shoulders, causing the shirt to ride up to nearly inappropriate heights. "Nice array of flowery soaps by the way." She yawned again, loudly. "I noticed there wasn't anything particularly masculine in there either. I didn't realize you liked smelling like roses, not that I'm surprised."
Gandriel bristled and threw the blanket at her face, none too gently, before stalking off to the bathing room.
She was such a bitch.