The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(43)
Then another stupid sob tore from my lips, and I curled back in on myself. But this time sleep eluded me completely.
*
Hatter
She did not come the next day, and now all I had left was this night. My life was slowly slipping away, and I could no more go to her than I could return to Wonderland.
I waited, sitting in the same spot I’d been in the past two days now. I hadn’t the energy to do much more than that. It seemed no matter how much I slept, it never felt like enough. My bones ached. My soul grew daily more weary. And even the colors around me seemed more dim, muted. The whites looked gray, the greens were washed out, and the blue sky above no longer resembled a deep blue so much as a tinted white.
If there was a silver lining in all this, I was somehow managing to retain my sanity. I had feared that at some point I might slip into the mania that’d affected me in the other time. That I would be unable to focus on anything other than the madness, unable to remain sane long enough to show her just how deeply I loved and needed her.
But if I focused on her, on her smile, her gentle doe eyes, I could retain some form of sanity. And so here I sat. Waiting. Hoping. Pondering what this might mean for my future and hers.
Alice was remembering.
The tea gave me hope, but I knew that remembering our love would only be half the battle. Because mired in all the joy of a possible reunion was the very real reality that in this life I’d not been good to her.
Because I was now so familiar with our story, I knew that in the other time, she’d called to me during a stint with brain cancer as a child. Age thirteen. And, ironically enough, in this life I, too, had gone to her when she was age thirteen. But the situations had been different too.
It’d been that visitation that’d bonded us through time and planes, bringing me back to the reality of who my true Alice had really been. Thing of it was, the other Alice had been gone from my world in the alternate time. I could see clearly now that with Other Alice remaining in this time as she had, it’d caused my focus to tunnel and I’d ignored all else save for my ridiculous need to force her story and mine into some sort of a twisted happily-ever-after. I’d been so damned determined to make the stories of Hatter and Alice true that I’d been blinded to the reality that Other Alice had never been right for me.
With a deep sigh, I stared morosely out at the world of the dead. Night was well under way now and my soul yearned to find Alice, but there was very little strength left to me anymore. When the sun rose, my time here would be at an end. I’d always known three days wouldn’t—couldn’t—be enough time, but faced with that reality now, it was a soul-deep ache that stripped me down to the raw inner nucleus of myself and obliterated what tiny shred of hope I’d told myself not to cling to but had anyway.
I’d half expected the world to become a dazzling landscape of pristine snow again after she’d fled, but this part of Elysium was budding now with the possibility of spring.
The feather-soft petals of a large red rose seemed to wave at me as a gentle zephyr stirred through the calm night, redolent with the lush perfume of a garden in bloom.
A wistful smile touched my face as I recalled another time and place when the flowers had meant so much to us. I’d gifted her a birthday present, and worlds upon worlds we’d traveled through to get to the gift itself. One world in particular had been nothing but flowers. Men and woman and children and animals, all flowers. There’d been such wonder in her eyes. My Alice had always loved the blooms. But that memory was a lifetime ago, and there wouldn’t be enough time to show it to her even if I wanted to. I had this night and nothing more.
And as I sat there, studying that rose and wondering why it was no longer winter, I felt a presence stir behind me.
It wasn’t her.
Even here, in a place of death, I was viscerally aware of Alice, of her scent of vanilla and honey. Always she’d smelled of the foods she loved most.
No, behind me wafted brimstone and fire.
I sniffed, flicking at a long-stemmed blade of grass. “Come to check up on me again, have you? My three days aren’t done yet.”
“She is remembering,” he said without preamble.
Sighing deeply, I hugged my arms to my knees and rested my head upon them for just a moment. Even the simple act of trying to remain alert was harder now. All I wanted was sleep, but I was terrified that if I gave in now, I might never wake again.
“Seems that way. But I only have a few hours left me—she did not return to me today. So I’m not sure that it matters.”
Hades snorted, sounding almost angry. “If you give up now, then you deserve the fate you get.”
Those words had sounded far more personal than they should have. Lifting a brow, I gave a slight shake of my head.
“I didn’t let you into my world, boy,” he snarled, “to have you piss away the privilege all because the task is too hard.”
Finally intrigued enough to force my weary bones to move, I rotated on my arse until I was able to make eye contact with him.
Today Hades was dressed in knight’s armor the shade of deepest shadow with wickedly long, curving horns on the helmet and a broadsword in his fist that flamed neon blue. The helmet was open around the eyes, nose, and mouth, allowing me to see the orange glow radiating through his gaze. His lips were set in a harsh, thin line.
We stared at one another for the longest time, and though he was a god of legend and I knew I should feel some sort of fear or dread of him—he was after all death incarnate—I was too exhausted to care.