Chapter 45 #2
She wasn’t surprised when she glanced back at the water keeping them captive and souls stood all around her. What did surprise her, though, cutting off her scream… was the eyes looking at her with such a mixture of sorrow and pride that she could barely take it.
“Ardow,” she whispered as her friend smiled at her. “No…”
He wasn’t the only one.
Venko stood beside him, and to their side… a strangled sob burst from Lessia’s lips as Amalise and Zaddock raised their hands, her blonde friend looking so fucking sorry as she shook her head.
Raine was on her other side, and she wanted to scream again as his tear-filled eyes just blinked at her, a calmness she’d never felt from him flickering through the air.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why you?”
Frelina would not survive this. Lessia had seen them together last night. They might not be mates, but perhaps their bond was stronger for it. They’d chosen each other through pain and heartache and war. And now Raine was fucking gone…
That defiance—that feral rage—ripped into her chest again, and Lessia found her own eyes on the water, watching the golden glow brighter than she’d ever seen it.
She was brimming with energy. She was alive.
She was… fuck, she was just so fucking angry.
Why did they have to die? Why was she still alive? Why did she still feel that fucking pull—the one that told her she was missing something?
“What is it?” she screamed at the souls around her. “What do you want from me?”
Merrick’s parents stood next to Raine now, and Lessia screamed at them next. “Why does he get to decide? Why can’t he live and I die?”
They just shook their heads.
“Why aren’t you talking to me?” Lessia’s voice was rough, broken like the heart within her as she faced Thissian. “Why?”
His eyes looked the same as they had when Rioner had held the group hostage on that ship. Even though his lips didn’t move, the memory of what he’d said when she’d refused to believe her father was dead bounced within her mind.
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
It’s not a vision, Elessia.
It’s not a vision, Elessia.
It’s not a vision.
She blinked slowly as her eyes drew back to her own reflection.
It wasn’t a vision. This… this was real. But she knew that already. Didn’t she?
She stared at herself—really took in the image in the mirror of water—and what looked back sent a current over her skin.
Atop Ydren, Lessia glowed. Not just her arm from the soul stone, but her entire being, her skin seemingly laced with gold, by its brightness.
There was no wind in here, yet her hair still whipped around her face, forming what looked almost like a gilded crown.
Not like the one her uncle had died in, which they’d let sink to the bottom of the sea, but darker, more resembling the one made out of flowers that Merrick had gifted her, but with thorns and branches that would prick anyone daring to come too close.
And around her? An army of wyverns and souls, ready should she wish to command them. The urge to look away nearly consumed her, but Thissian’s voice drowned all other sounds. Look. At. Me. Look. At. Me. Look. At. Me.
So, she did. For the first time in her life, Lessia looked—truly absorbed who stared back—allowed every sense and emotion and feeling to wrap around her, forcing her to face the things she’d avoided for so many years.
Before her eyes, the image reflecting in the water warped, memories she’d never known she’d stored flashing so quickly she almost didn’t catch them.
Lessia staring at herself, hating her glowing eyes, in the packed tavern on that night Merrick had come to tell her the king was calling in his debt.
Her bruised face in the mirror in her house after Merrick had hurt her on Rioner’s orders, her mind refusing to believe he’d actually spared her that day by ensuring the first strike knocked her out.
The mirror in Raine’s house, with Merrick behind her, helping with her dress, her skin pebbling under his cool fingers—a night when she’d already known that something within her yearned for him, but she hadn’t had the courage to look too deeply at it.
Lessia in Merrick’s tunic, staring at herself in Loche’s mirror, for the first time in her life knowing where—and with whom—home was, but barely able to admit it to herself.
She didn’t dare blink as the Lakes of Mirrors came next.
All the warped faces around her, above and below her—they had been hers all along, if she so chose. Lessia focused on the defiant one—the one she’d seen today—and another voice reverberated in her thoughts.
We needed someone who wouldn’t seek power—who wouldn’t want to be queen—ruling the shadows.
Her fingers curled so hard into her palms, her nails broke her skin.
And suddenly the image of herself atop Ydren was back, every soul and wyvern in the same place as before, the sounds of war reaching her over the roaring water again.
This was real. But… so were the other images.
Even the one right now—the one where she looked like the dark queen the gods didn’t want.
Lessia moved her eyes to Auphore’s apologetic ones.
What was it he had said?
To forge a new path, you must leave what you know behind: shed it like snakes shed their skin in the summer, or wake up from it, wake up from what you thought was a nightmare, and realize it was true all along—but that not everything unknown is evil.
Wake up.
She needed to wake up and realize… it had all been true all along.
Aixle’s words followed Auphore’s.
Sometimes we must accept what our reflection tells us… even if that reflection is one of shadows and darkness and a life we’ve never wished for.
The memory of that thing possessing Kerym flashed in her mind, and what he’d told her right before he’d told her the gods had warped their own gifts.
Your mate was right when he once told you magic is but a power to be molded by its wielder.
It’s a gift from your soul. From the earth.
From darkness and light. From the source you need.
A gift that you should cherish and respect. Don’t fear it, child.
Do not fear it. Her lips parted, and when Lessia stared at Merrick’s parents next, she knew why they’d asked her to find the one who clung to life.
Five queens. There must be five queens awakened to save them all.
They hadn’t asked her to go to wake another queen. They’d asked her to find another queen to realize… she hadn’t awoken herself.
Her eyes burned into her golden ones before her, the warm sensation going through her like it always did when she compelled someone, and she wasn’t sure if she spoke out loud as she forced herself to admit:
She was half Fae.
She was half human.
She was the daughter of two amazing parents, and the niece of an evil king.
She was the mate and wife of Merrick.
She was enough.
She was accepted.
She was loved.
And if she must be queen?
Then she would become a queen.
Power surged within her, flying through her bonds, and she could feel every single one of the souls—dead and alive—tethered to her so fiercely that she started atop the violet wyvern.
But she didn’t hesitate as she felt her friends—the strongest links, sealed within her heart and soul even without a formal bond—and somehow, Lessia forced them back, until one by one, the shadows behind her disappeared.
Raine first.
Then Amalise.
Zaddock.
Ardow.
Venko.
She nudged Thissian, but he only smiled at her, shaking his head, and she nodded when he remained behind her, now shoulder to shoulder with Merrick’s parents, who beamed at her like her own mother and father might have, pride glittering in their eyes.
Looking up at the wall of water again, Lessia saw the queen she would now become, the one filled with light and just a little bit of darkness, before she declared, “I claim this power, I claim this life. I will take the throne as Queen of Shadows.”
As that surge that had started within her burst through the water, the dead souls went with it. The wyverns—now refilled with energy—shot forward when Lessia jerked her chin in the only direction she could now go.
Toward Merrick.
Toward the male who’d somehow known she needed to be strong enough to accept this fate—to not fight it but embrace it and use it for what good she could.