63. Chapter 57
Chapter 57
Never fight one of the Conduits. I cannot stress this more. Do not fight the Conduits. They are nearly immortal in the truest sense of the word, and you are nothing but an ant crossing their path, destined to be crushed under their boot.
~Sir Alistair Hawking, Magical Combat for Humans
Maeve
Power is a strange thing. It’s all relative. When I was a Wyrdling trying to get to Draenyth, a few strands of shadows felt impressive. Then I trained with Cole, and I felt like I could do anything even though I didn’t know I was a part of the House of Earth.
All of that was nothing compared to the power that came with the Painted Crown and the awareness of my Earth bloodlines. Now, I am a Conduit, and I feel like a completely different person. At the same time, I’m terrified that I’m too weak.
Gethin killed Roderic when he had wielded these powers for thousands of years. I’ve been the Conduit for an hour. At the same time, now I understand the difference between the Conduit and literally anyone else.
The ground in front of me swirls in a vortex. Yes, the very ground in this clearing has become liquid, roiling about like a whirlpool. It slowly climbs into the air, a tornado of stone, and then it all collapses as I lose control.
Peace thunders through me, controlling my body and my mind and giving me true ownership of everything that I stand on. The ability to make it move and shift and become more than it knew it could be. The rhythm of Earth… no, the rhythm of Stone flows through me. It’s soft, unnoticeable to anyone but myself, but it’s impossible for me to miss.
“If you were so inclined, Calyr would give you an audience to ask questions about your future,” Casimir says from beside me. He doesn’t mention the collapsed vortex of stone. He doesn’t mention very much these days, actually.
“I don’t particularly want to know anything that Calyr has to say right now,” I respond. It’s strange to think of Casimir as anything but the enemy, and I know Cole won’t ever think of him as anything else. I know what it’s like to let the power that’s flowing through you take control, though. My emotions have ruled me before. I nearly got Cole killed. I did more to break that obsidian tower than Casimir ever did.
He breathes deeply, his orange eyes staring ahead at the destroyed ground in front of us. “You sound different now,” he says. “What was he like? Kasan, I mean. I’ve heard stories, but Roderic never talked about him.”
“He’s… big. And slow, if that makes sense. Calyr moved like a cat, barely being bothered by my presence and then moving with lightning speed. Kasan seems to be older or more tired. It was like nothing could bother him to move faster than he wants.”
Casimir nods. “Inni is the opposite. She’s erratic, constantly moving. Every time I visit her, I want to tell her to sit down and pay attention. She’s… a lot.”
I chuckle. It’s strange to have a connection to Casimir that Cole doesn’t understand. Then again, he’ll understand soon enough. Casimir will have to give up the Throne to Cole, and that means…
Cole will have to watch his father die. Only they, of all the immortal Fae, shall fade in mind and body.
From behind me, Vesta says, “Your husband is back. The drakelings are becoming frustrated at being told to wait.”
I nod, the weight of everything feeling far heavier than I expected. One more battle. One more set of decisions. A few days before it’s all done.
“We’re coming,” I say, and I feel the gust of wind that means that Vesta has left us.
Casimir hesitates for a moment and then puts his hand on my shoulder. “I know you don’t like me, Lady, but I know the feelings that you’re having right now. Everyone is looking to you for answers, and you’re not sure you have them. Everyone expects you to know the right way to do things because of your connection to the Thrones or the Painted Crown you wear. But those don’t give you answers. They just give you power. The Crown is a heavy burden when hard decisions have to be made.”
I turn to him and stare into the eyes that remind me of my husband when he’s happiest. “I’m not alone, Casimir. Cole is beside me. Always. We look to each other for strength and answers.”
He chuckles. “What I would have given for that. It’s not that I couldn’t carry the burden of the decisions. It was that it was so lonely…” Flames appear near his fingers, flickering in and out of existence as he lets emotions about the past flood him. “I’m happy for you both. Your generation is better than mine. We failed the world—all four of us—and it’s up to your generation to fix this broken thing we’re leaving for you. I believe you’ll do it. I believe you have the strength and heart to do what none of us could. Just don’t refuse to give up the Throne when it’s time. Holding it too long will ruin anyone.”
That last bit is something I’ve been worried about for some time. Now that I’ve claimed a Throne, I’m no longer Immortal. I can’t be the Conduit forever. One day, I’ll have to give my power and life up just like the dragons did. One day, Cole and I will walk into the void together.
“We will make sure that no one holds a Throne too long. All of us have seen what happens if you do.”
He nods and walks away from me toward the meeting place. Once again, it’s hard to believe that this is the same man that I’d wanted to kill to protect Cole. Things change when you have to confront your mortality, though, and Casimir’s time is drawing to a close. I’m not surprised that he wants to be someone different in his son’s eyes than the tyrant that ruled him for his entire life.
I take a deep breath and push the thoughts away. For now, Casimir is a tool just like everyone else. Everyone but Cole, that is. I will never treat him like a tool again.
This is it. A final meeting, and then we begin the march to battle. The Nothing will hide the human army. The grandest battle that won’t mean anything. So many little moving pieces. So many tiny decisions that have led here to the end. Plans that go back thirty years, before I was even born.
All of those decisions will culminate in a changing of the rulers of all four Houses or an end to the Four Houses as we know them. Victory or death is the only answer here.
The Emerald Choker clicks softly in my pocket as I turn toward the meeting. He doesn’t have the power of Earth at least. It took me almost no time at all to find it hidden in a secret treasure room, but I’m the only one who could have since I’m the last Immortal in the House of Earth.
Yet, I still have no idea how to kill Gethin. No one knows how to kill him. Not Casimir nor my mother. That’s one reason Casimir has always been so afraid of him.
We have to try, though. All of us, all our powers, have to be enough. I pick up the book that has to hold the key. A History of Magic and Dragons . Putting it under my arm, I walk toward the meeting place.
But then a soft voice calls from the trees. It’s a voice that’s never soft or nervous. I turn to see Lee standing beside a tree, looking terrified. My Earth senses act on instinct, trying to discern her emotions, but then I stop them. This is my friend, and while something is obviously different about her, I trust her. Using my powers to read her is a break of that trust.
“Queen Maeve,” she says formally, and she takes a deep breath. It’s only then that I see the necklace hanging from her neck. From a thin gold chain, a piece of cracked hematite shines with a silvery sparkle. Now that I think about it, I’ve never even seen her wear any jewelry before. She looks different, just like Darian said. Right now, she seems scared, but beyond that, instead of having her hair pulled back in a tight horsetail like normal, it’s loose and hanging around her shoulders. A feather is woven into it, and that’s when I see the difference for what it is.
Where Darian’s never cared about his appearance, always wandering about with wrinkled clothes and mussed hair, Lee has been immaculate. Yet, she’s never cared one bit about how anyone else saw her. She’d never have changed her appearance in the middle of a difficult mission without outside interference.
“Who is it?” I ask with a smile.
She hesitates, her lips wavering as she looks into my eyes. “Maeve, I…” She shakes her head. “I didn’t mean to. I was just…” She shakes her head again, and tears well up. She squeezes her eyes shut. I don’t push her, don’t force her to speak more quickly than she wants. I don’t understand why she’s so upset, but it’s obviously a big deal.
Instead, I just take her hands in mine, gently squeezing them for reassurance. “It’s Rhion,” she whispers as she opens her eyes. “While I was gone, while I was hunting for Vesta, I spent a lot of time in Draenyth, and he was everywhere, always around me, even though I looked like a different woman each time. He always found me and always knew it was me. Instead of telling his father or trying to capture me, he just… talked. He talked, and he kept my secrets, and… Maeve, I couldn’t have found Vesta without him. He’s…” She shrugs. “He’s Rhion. He’s always there, always smiling, and always talking.”
I pull away from her with a look of disgust, and she returns the ghost of the smile I’d given her earlier. At the same time, her voice strengthens as she continues. “We’re betrothed, but I will break it off if you command it, my Queen.” Her faltering emotions suddenly stiffen with her new statement. “I swore my allegiance to you. I gave you my word not to hide anything from you. If you command it, I’ll break the bond I have with him.”
Her sudden formality shakes my abhorrence. It reminds me of how she’d talked to me when we’d been fighting the Nothing. It’s too similar to the days I’d been so cold that I saw my friends as nothing more than tools to use in my war. I hadn’t cared about their feelings or desires. All I’d seen were a set of powers to push and pull.
I don’t know Rhion very well, but he is the enemy. Well, he works for the enemy. Cole has refused to kill him every time that we’ve had the chance, and he believes that we have to keep him alive.
“Why? Lee, he’s…”
I don’t finish the sentence. “The enemy. I know,” she whispers before she looks into my eyes. “But he’s never been the enemy to me. He’s always just been Rhion. He was the Prince that always needed a little extra help when we were young. I was always with Cole, and compared to him, Rhion was a baby, always begging for attention. I was never scared of him like I probably should have been.”
“Lee, he’s Gethin’s son. Have you considered that he might tell his father everything he sees in your mind? If you’re betrothed, then you can’t truly keep him out. You’re a liability. As long as you’re close to him, no information is safe.”
She chuckles. “No information is safe from me, either,” she says with a wry smile.
I frown, not having thought of that yet. Then I shake my head. “He’s a Prince. He has more power.”
“Power that he won’t use against me. Maeve, he could have forced information from me about where we were. He could have used me against Cole by capturing me and using me as a hostage. I’ve been used against Cole before, but he’s not his father, and I love him. I spent months with him while I hunted for that book. I’ve spent a lifetime around him. He’s not the man you think he is. He won’t fight against us.”
I’m not convinced. “He’s Gethin’s son.”
“If you were Gethin’s daughter, would you fight for him?” Lee asks, her loyalty to her betrothed beginning to truly show.
“He’s fought for him plenty of times in the past.”
“He didn’t have an alternative, Maeve,” she says fiercely, and all the fear she’d embodied before seems to have fled. “Rhion is… Rhion is not Cole. I love that big idiot of a man, but he is not the kind of person who will start a revolution. He’s never been the one to strike out on his own.”
She sighs. “I wish he was, but he’s not. When you received the Painted Crown, he followed his father’s orders because what else was he supposed to do? There wasn’t a resistance. The House of Flames was going to fall. Casimir no longer held the Painted Crown, and Flames are weak to Steel. Maybe they could have held on if Rhion and Cole had both fought against Gethin, but still, they probably would have lost. Then we all fled, and he was left alone.”
I grit my teeth. Following orders is not an acceptable reason to commit atrocities. How many people have died because he did what he was told and didn’t fight back against his father?
“I…”
“You had Cole from the beginning, Maeve. You don’t know what it’s like when everyone you know is going along with it. And Maeve, you’re different. You’re…” She shakes her head. “There’s a reason that you and Cole work so well together. Not everyone is born to change the world and do impossible things. You fought the Nothing, something that was supposed to be impossible. Rhion wouldn’t have done that. I wouldn’t have either, though. Do you think I’m the enemy because I don’t have that inner whatever that you and Cole have? Or am I just an ally because I was lucky enough not to be Gethin’s daughter?”
I don’t know what to say. “He tried to kill me,” is all I can respond with. “He tried to kill Cole.”
“You almost let me die in the void, and Cole was nearly dead when you finally gave up the war against the Nothing,” she says, her voice becoming hollow.
The silence lingers between us for several moments, and my anger fades some. Finally, she says, “I believe he is a good man. I believe he is being honest about not helping his father. At the same time, I gave you my loyalty, and if you command it, I will break the betrothal.”
The words are formal again. For a while there, Lee was talking to her friend, but now she’s speaking to her Queen, and I have to think like a Queen. I have to put everyone’s safety, the very safety of the magical world, up against her happiness.
I never wanted to have to do this. I shake my head softly. “No, Lee. I will not make this decision for you,” I say formally. “You’ve seen into his mind just like I’ve seen into Cole’s. You know his heart better than anyone else, but Lee, you need to remember what’s at stake. If you’re wrong—if Rhion is using you—your decision could be the reason that all of us die. Your heart could be the one to blame for the entire magical world’s death. I won’t make this decision for you because that’d be hypocritical after the emotional decisions I’ve made. Be sure of yourself, though.”
I pause for a moment, and my formal tone deepens, verging on the way I’d spoken to her when I’d been the Queen of Earth. “And Lee, you should have come to me immediately. It’s the eleventh hour, and I don’t have any choices now. You’ve spent how long with us? You’ve listened to how many meetings? If you were anyone else…” I leave the threat hanging, not entirely sure what I’d do if it was anyone else. Her face pales, and I know the message has been received. “I trust you, as a friend and ally, but never put me in this place again. My friend wouldn’t put me in this kind of position.”
“Thank you,” she says, and formally bows to me. “I am deeply sorry that I’ve made you doubt my loyalty or friendship.” Every word is as formal as I’ve seen her, and that’s probably for the best. “Thank you for giving me your trust, and I won’t break it. I believe in Rhion, and after this battle, you will too. He’s…he’s wonderful. Rhion isn’t like Cole, but I never fell in love with Cole.”
I give her a smile, but more than a little bit of worry wedges itself into my heart.