Chapter Thirty-Eight
Istare at Julian, trying to make sense of the words he’d just spoken. “What do you mean the end of Aureon?”
Julian begins to pace back and forth in agitation.
“I knew there was something special about you when you came to Shadow’s Keep.
Why would you be hunted for eight years if there wasn’t?
I could sense something, too, but was never able to put my finger on it until Professor Wyllora’s spirit summoning told me who your family was.
Then I was able to trace your family tree, and discovered… ”
“Discovered what?” Daemon prompts.
“Discovered that, once every couple of millennia, there is born a wielder of fire, who death cannot touch, because of their power of regeneration.” Julian stops moving and fixes me in an intense gaze. “The Phoenix, Embyr. You are a Phoenix in human form.”
My blood turns icy. “A Phoenix? How is that even possible?”
“It’s magic, not logic. It is exceptionally rare, but clearly possible. How else do you explain what happened?”
My brow furrows and my mouth opens and closes, but I can’t.
“But what does that have to do with us being together, and the end of Aureon?” Daemon asks. His voice holds a deadly tone, as if daring Julian to defend himself.
“Because, in the prophecy of the Phoenix, it says that the Phoenix can be used to bring about the end of the fae.” Julian clasps his hands behind his back as if he’s going to begin pacing again, but he remains still.
“And it also says that when the Phoenix joins with the Night, the beginning of the end of the world will begin.”
“And I am the Night,” Daemon says, his tone dead, flat.
“She is the Phoenix, and you are the Night,” Julian says. “Complete opposites, but drawn to each other, again and again. It’s why you can sense her, Daemon. It’s why you’re so connected.”
Daemon and I look at each other. We’re clearly both thinking the same thing. Is it already too late?
“So… I, alone, can end the fae race, but together, we end the entire realm?” I ask shakily.
Julian nods and his shoulder slump. “If I had known what you were sooner, Embyr, I never would have allowed you both to reside within the keep.”
“But what do we do?” Daemon asks. “The heads of the royal houses have all been slaughtered, and the Queen is in danger of being overthrown. We need to help, not hide at opposite ends of the world.”
“Listen very carefully,” Julian says. “You must—”
At that moment, the sound of hoofbeats rings through the sky. Julian turns to us, panic in his eyes. “I will hold them back. Go! Now! You cannot, under any circumstances, let your family find you, Embyr. Find the Druids of Erissed. They can break the curse. They will tell you what to do.”
Riders on horseback pour into the glen on the other side, a few hundred feet from where we stand.
Both riders in red, bearing the House Harkyn emblem, and riders in black, dressed all in leather.
Cillian rides at the front, flanked by Kildari and Quelan.
For a moment, I can’t draw my eyes away from them.
From my cousin, who betrayed me. Who had lied to me this entire time.
“Embyr, now!” Daemon snaps, and before waiting for an answer, he grabs me, shadows spinning around us in a cyclone of midnight.
We vanish into the darkness, and reappear a moment later on a ridge the next valley over.
“What just happened?” I gasp, my blood feeling like it’s pulsing too quickly, like I might lose consciousness.
“I told you, I can travel through the night,” Daemon says, sounding slightly breathless himself. “But I can’t do it much—it requires a great deal of energy—and I can’t move very far.”
From our new vantage point, we can still see the glen where we stood a moment before. I watch, heart in my throat, as the riders descend upon Julian.
“We need to go.” Daemon’s jaw muscles pulse, his eyes hard.
“Not yet. I just need to see…”
“Embyr…” Daemon warns.
Julian raises his arms, and in the space between him and the galloping horses, a chasm appears, splitting the glen in half.
The riders pull their horses up, and Julian turns to flee.
I watch, helpless, as Kildari pulls a massive arrow from a quiver at his back, notches it in his bow, and sends it right for Julian.
The professor stumbles, then falls face down in the glen. He doesn’t move.
“We are not nearly far enough away to stop now,” Daemon says. “Come, now, or I will carry you.”
I turn to him, feeling tears prick the corners of my eyes. “Julian just died, Daemon.”
“Yes. He died for you, so you don’t fall into the hands of your family. Don’t make his death be for nothing.”
I wipe the tear running along the rim of my eyelid, and we run, and we do not look back.