Chapter 53 Lena
FIFTY-THREE
LENA
Three nights after the battle, they burned Finaen’s and Brother Dunstan’s bodies beneath the stars.
It was a simple ceremony. Lena and Maia whispered an old funeral song as Ioseph and Dimas carried the bodies, wrapped tightly in Lena’s and the emperor’s cloaks, to the small pyre they’d built atop a secluded hilltop a few miles outside of Rosvayle.
Dimas had lit Brother Dunstan’s pyre first, his cheeks wet with tears, and Maia’s voice had wobbled when Dimas handed her the torch.
But she never stopped singing. She held the song on her lips as she walked up to the pyre.
As, with tears glistening on her cheeks, she set fire to the wood and watched her brother burn.
Lena had cried when Maia had awoken the morning after they’d fled the cultist’s cavern, her words barely discernable as she’d told Maia that her brother hadn’t survived. They’d spent hours huddled together after that, barely moving until Maia, her tears dried, asked Lena to tell her everything.
So Lena had.
She’d recounted how Venysa had come to her that night in the Frozen Wastes, how she had made a deal with Casimir and worked with him to get into the acolyte’s hidden chamber. And finally, how she had lured Dimas into Naebya’s Church and severed the bond between them.
Lena had been fully prepared for Maia to blame her. To shout and cry and tell Lena she should have trusted her and Finaen to help. But Maia had simply wrapped her arms around her, voice thick with tears, and said, “It isn’t your fault.”
Now, as she stood staring at the ocean from that same hilltop, Lena tried to believe her.
To believe that there was nothing more she could have done.
But she knew it wasn’t true. If she’d been strong enough to withstand the first Fateweaver’s spirit inside her, to wield Venysa’s power as her own, instead of severing the bond between them, maybe she’d have been strong enough to bring Finaen back.
And even though doing so would have turned her into the very monster she’d fought so hard not to become, Lena knew she would have done it.
Knew that in that way, at least, she and Venysa were not so different, after all.
It was strange not to be able to feel Venysa’s presence.
The Fateweaver’s magic was still there, a steady hum beneath her skin, but there was no whisper of Venysa’s voice.
Lena had expected the impulse to bend the threads of fate to her will to disappear with the first Fateweaver’s spirit, and whilst it was easier to ignore than before, the urge itself was still there.
She’d freed herself of the bond. Of Venysa.
But not of the darkness that had been born from Venysa’s abuse of the Fateweaver’s power.
What she’d done, making a deal with Naebya, becoming the Furybringer and creating the Haesta, had irrevocably changed the very fabric of her magic.
And now there were only two others powerful enough to undo what Venysa and Naebya had done.
The Lost Sisters.
Lena didn’t know if the vision she’d seen of them had been sent by the Sisters themselves or if it had been one of Naebya’s memories seeping through her link to Lena.
What she did know was that if there was any place she might find an idea of where to start looking for them, it was in the original Raven’s research.
I’m going to find them, Mada, Lena thought, looking up at the slowly lightening sky, and when I do, I’m going to get them to make this world everything you hoped it could be.
Her moment of solace was interrupted by the soft press of footsteps as Dimas came to stand beside her.
Dressed in a simple tunic and cloak, his hair no longer slicked back, he looked …
younger. Less severe. There were dark circles beneath his eyes that refused to fade.
Like her, he was still dealing with his grief; Brother Dunstan and the general were dead, and whilst Roston, Iska, and Milos had betrayed him, they were still his family.
In losing them, Dimas had lost everything he’d ever wanted. His crown. His empire.
His Fateweaver.
Lena swallowed her guilt. It wasn’t her fault the church, under Milos’s orders, had branded them both heretics and put a price on their heads.
Nor was it her fault that their only option was to sail to Verlond to meet with Casimir’s queen and hope she could help them prove their innocence and free Wyrecia from a religion based on lies.
They stood silently for a moment, staring out at the same sky, watching the sun rise above the horizon. And then, when the sun was high enough in the sky to bathe the hilltop in a soft, hazy light, the emperor said, “It’s time.”
Lena nodded. She’d lingered here long enough. She didn’t know what awaited them in Verlond. But there was one thing she was certain of.
Everyone had a story to tell.
And this was not the end of hers.