Chapter XLVII. Ellery
XLVII
ELLERY
WINTER
As Ellery entered the Citadel’s grove, she barely recognized it amidst the storm’s destruction.
Leafless trees wailed and shuddered as the winds contorted them and stripped away their bark.
The cobblestoned path was slicked with ice, and the cataclysm seethed around her with palpable fury.
But as she neared the alban tree in the grove’s heart, the storm shifted.
Its gales retreated from her. Directly above, its clouds thinned, just barely, so that a frail light broke through.
Until an eye opened within the scurge across the grove, a small stretch of solace.
And as soon as Ellery sighted the tree, she knew why.
Domenic awaited her beneath it.
The storm had not given them solace. It’d given them an arena.
Domenic was unmistakably remade, just like her. His shadow shined golden. Heat wafted around him, blurring the air like a mirage. Valmordion remained sheathed at his side, and so Ellery sheathed Iskarius, too.
But she didn’t lower her defenses.
His gaze raked over her as she stepped closer. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she echoed. Then, softly: “You know the true prophecy now, don’t you?”
He inclined his head. “I do.”
“And you chose Summer.”
“Just like you chose Winter.”
Yet again, they were the same. But the reality of the task ahead still nauseated her. Ellery pushed it down. She would swallow this even if it poisoned her.
“I should’ve known it would end here, in the grove,” she murmured. “The first place Valmordion and Iskarius met.”
Domenic’s voice cracked. “So were we just fools, then?”
Instinctively she stepped closer, wanting to comfort him, to comfort herself. Then she halted, grimacing. Domenic was dangerous. Not just because he was Summer’s champion. But because she still couldn’t see him as her enemy.
“Maybe we were fools,” she said. “But Syarthis still hid the truth from us.”
He scoffed. “Oh, come on. The only reason Syarthis got away with so much was because I refused to accept Valmordion at first. Because you already had a prophecy piece, and I didn’t. But as soon as I bonded with it properly, I got mine. The one I should’ve had from the start.”
Painful realization fissured through her. If he’d had a prophecy piece from the beginning, he never would’ve gone looking for her, and their story would’ve been entirely different.
Except the ending.
“We thought we were fulfilling each other’s prophecy pieces, but we weren’t,” she choked.
“They’ve always been two separate prophecies.
They were never meant to be combined.” The vortex of the storm seemed to press in tighter around them.
“We thought we were meant to do this together, but we’ve been on different paths all along, haven’t we? ”