80. Sunchosen
Chapter 80
IRIS
Large, reptilian eyes stared down at me.
Moon-white scales came into view as my vision adjusted to the dark room, the head they belonged to tilting slightly as I shifted. The bed beneath me was soft, silken sheets cool against my feverish skin.
Karhu snorted, blowing warm air against my cheek. Slowly mending bones and muscles protested in agony as I sat up. A sling kept the shattered bones from Draveth’s blow immobilized, exposing enough skin for me to notice fresh scars wrapped around each wrist—twisting patterns of marred, burned flesh.
Karhu sprawled across the wooden floor beside the four-poster bed, her head resting on the pillows near my own. The deep teals and soft purples of Reilune adorned the bedding, colors reminiscent of the bioluminescent forest the realm was built upon. She nestled her chin further into my space, and my fingers brushed absently against the patterns on her scaled neck.
Free, she whispered across the weak connection between us.
The bridge between our minds wavered, flickering in and out. I reached for my essence—nearly losing consciousness again as the surge met me. The writhing, uncooperative pool that had lain beneath my skin stretched further, filling cracks and crevices I hadn’t previously known existed.
With it came an insurmountable wave of grief. An endless torrent of betrayal, hurt, and fury.
Persist.
I cataloged every moment I could remember, each truth turned lie. My mind seared with the effort of piecing together every fractured memory.
I had thought I was escaping captivity—free from being carved into a picture-perfect scion of greed. Thought I’d outrun a life in which I would be molded into an unrecognizable tyrant or a catastrophe. Had warred with the belief that the two outcomes of a life in Solyndra were to become the power-hungry instrument they wished me to be… or fail the continent entirely.
Instead, I had been shaped by the hands of a different puppet master—stitched, stuffed, and manipulated to perform for her. A budding rose plucked from a garden, cultivated for her thorns.
I no longer knew what was true of my past. Could not even begin to comb through the gilded library that now lay in ruin, splintered, possibly beyond repair.
All I could do was cling to the few fragments I had left—the untainted images that remained clear. The pieces of myself I knew belonged to me and me alone. The people I loved, the ones who had never asked me to be anything but myself… I prayed they were who I thought they were.
I had no idea who to trust anymore—least of all myself.
But I knew who not to.
Lux. Solyndra. The Council. Zinnia. The Incarnates.
In caging me, they had crafted a weapon of their own destruction.
Because I would become exactly what they had made me.
Something to be feared.
And it would be their downfall.
They would never take anything from me again.
Their curse was no secret anymore—I had seen more of it than they ever intended. I knew how it attached to an essence, how it fed on life itself. What caused it to recede, to flee. And I would find out exactly how to destroy it.
They needed me. Their purpose hinged on my magic.
And it would be the very thing they feared most.
I would stop at nothing until everything I loved—until Altaerra—was safe from their corruption.
It was my life.
And with it, I chose to stand against them.
I would not back down. I would not falter. I would stand against the hatred, the intolerance, the thumb they had pressed down upon so many.
I refused to bow to tyrants.
Muffled voices drew my attention to the closed door. I pushed myself upright beside Karhu, searching for my dagger—the amethyst gem in the blade glinting from the nightstand. Sheathing it at my thigh, I tested the limits of my power. My essence felt unfathomable, but something about it still seemed off . I allowed a few Threads to drift through the room, commanding them as I had with?—
Theon.
I fought the urge to collapse again, knowing there was nothing I could do for him if I succumbed to the grief threatening to crash over me.
I had to push forward.
Had to keep breathing.
Keep breathing, Karhu repeated.
If Karhu was with me, Nadya and Ferrin couldn’t be far.
I pushed at the door—unlocked. Unwarded.
I wanted to trust them. Wanted to believe that my instincts had been right about something.
Surely, if they had ulterior motives, they wouldn’t have left me with a dagger, a full essence, and a Sygen.
Would they?
Nadya. Ferrin.
My family.
Theon.
My friend.
Deyanira.
Another wave of guilt and grief burrowed deep into my chest.
A boy from the woods.
I pushed it all away. I didn’t know if any of it was real.
But what was left of me desperately needed it to be.
How would I ever know?
How could I ever trust my own mind again?
Golden-wrapped memories shimmered in the ruins of that gilded library, and I clung to them. Pulled myself forward by the spines of each book.
Barefoot, I padded down the dark hallway, Threads ready at my fingertips.
Karhu remained in the room, her head poking into the hallway. A strange blue light bounced around the corridor, dancing along oak lined walls. I twisted, searching for the source.
Cold metal pressed against my sternum.
Sinking into my skin.
Beginning to… pulse.
The locket was beating . And glowing.
I flipped it, the ice-blue stone facing outward. Silvery light flared, blinding in the dark hallway.
The panicked voices grew louder. I wrapped my hand around the necklace to dim the glow and continued down, turning the corner to find a cracked door.
A whisper slid up my chest as I approached the threshold— emerging from the golden oval itself and wrapping around the ruins inside my ribcage. A voice I knew like the edges of my soul.
On every path.
It whispered again, repeating in time with the beating.
On every path. On every path. On every path.
“What reason do we have to listen to any of you?” Nadya’s voice reverberated, grounding me in the present.
I wedged my bare foot into the crack, widening the opening just enough to peer inside.
Nadya and Ferrin stood on the far side of the large space, their backs to me. A tall man in armor similar to Nadya’s stood beside Ferrin, light hair brushing down his shoulders.
“If you did not believe us, we would not be standing here freely, would we?” one of the figures across from them replied.
I pushed the door open just a bit more.
Two Ethera stood opposite them, draped in twin cloaks. One figure remained shadowed, but the man who had spoken was visible in the sunflare’s glow.
He had short, dark curls, deep brown skin, and a thin strip of gold running from his temple, through his hair, curving behind the array of jewelry decorating his arched ear. The light fabric wrapped around his torso flowed in the breezeless room, as if by its own accord.
“All we’ve determined is that you mean us no harm,” Ferrin countered.
The other figure removed their hood, long, slim fingers brushing against velvet fabric. As they turned, recognition struck like a blade to my chest.
It had to be a trick of the light.
“Who—”
The figure stepped fully into view.
A choked sound escaped me before I could smother it.
Every head in the room twisted toward the doorway.
Time stopped.
Those features were unmistakable.
The copper hair, smoother, with a streak of spun gold framing one side of her face. The paler skin freckled but untouched by hours in the sun. The forest-colored eyes, the angular cheekbones, the high arch of her brow. The way her shoulders rested and the delicate frame of her body, though not as tall. This Ethera couldn’t be much older than the age of ascending, likely the same age as me. But it was undeniable.
Those were Zinnia’s features.
Far more than mine had ever been. On a younger body, with softer edges and hands not marred by years of working with corrosive ingredients. Like someone had taken her features and sketched them from memory, losing some of the finer details along the way.
And as the cloak slipped from her shoulders, revealing gilded skin in the sunflare, I knew .
She was the exact age as me.
At least down to the year we were born.
Because there, at the outer edge of her collarbone?—
A golden tattoo.
Sunchosen.