Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
LYVIA
Empress…Empress… Empress…
– Hidden notes in Queen Antares’s secret alcove, Gilded Fortress
Lyvia – The Evecta, Kayj
My fingernails dug into the eight-pointed stars on my sweaty palms as I paced in Isla’s small room below deck on board the Evecta. A spark flashed as Isla used an already lit taper to light a few others.
The ache forming behind my eyes grew, and I closed them, pressing the pads of my fingers into my lids.
Sometime between jumping through the Vael Lacrima, my trip through hell, and returning to the Realm of Vael, I had undone the first transformation of my life.
I’d spent my entire life as a human. And now, my entire body was different.
My ears hurt, my eyes ached. My muscles moved too quickly.
And what was I doing here? The ship I’d learned to call home seemed to frost in my presence, the once warm, welcome space now foreign and unfamiliar.
“Sit down. You’re still in shock,” Isla ordered as she set down the smoking bud of incense on a blue plate. The dried lemongrass and lavender slipped into my nostrils, and I inhaled a deep breath without thinking.
My head shook, and I opened my eyes.
“We have too much to do,” I said, and my gaze shot from Isla’s amber eyes to her bare, bronze neck.
She tracked the movement, noting my attention, and her eyes dropped.
We’d been in this room just months ago after Dark King Daimos had used the Ramadiel Bone to wreak havoc on our group of fighters, forcing some of us to relive the lifetime of trauma our bodies had healed from.
Isla’s throat bobbed, and the image of those hand-shaped bruises flooded into my mind. A dullness entered my chest as guilt threatened to pounce.
“I left you. I’m so sorry—”
Isla raised a hand and waved me off. “Stop. Don’t do that. I’m fine.” She cut me off in the lie. Isla was not fine. None of us were.
We stared at each other for a moment. I’d been back for one day, and though Nerissa had insisted on keeping our meetings short, the brief breaks in between were barely enough to keep me from floating away.
When was the last time I had slept? There was no sleep in hell.
I fell, and then I had landed. And months had passed…
I didn’t know where to look now. Who to sit by.
Who to look at as I spoke. I shouldered the questions from some of the most powerful beings in the Realm of Vael and argued in favor of heeding the words of advice from a demon.
From one of the very same creatures that threatened the Realm of Vael. The God of Death. An Embodied.
There was uncertainty among the group when I shared his warning about Sintarrak. What if following Tynan’s guidance was a trap?
And the revelations just kept coming.
There had been no sign of the Celestyn Bone, and everyone was frantic with the disappearance of the Aeterna Bone.
Who would have taken it? The guards had been questioned endlessly, both claiming they had no memory of the night.
Selvina and Nerissa had spent… time with them…
and felt they were telling the truth, which was enough for me without needing the details.
With Olienna’s death, Aquila’s memories had been restored.
She’d taken them in those final moments before the shattering of the Vael.
In the end, she had betrayed the Bellators of old.
She’d always been after their powers, searching for ways to take them for herself.
There would be no need for more cryptic dreams from Enya with the wealth of knowledge in Nerissa’s caeluma.
“If what Tynan told you is true, we need to get to the Arx,” Isla murmured, scattering my thoughts. She floated to the corner of the room, where she pulled out a foggy bottle of ridecus.
My stomach churned at the sight of it.
“If this ‘Sintarrak’ can jump from body to body and is seizing as much power as he can get, he’ll be indestructible in the body of a mystic or Bellator.
We’ll need whatever weapons we can get our hands on.
And if that’s in the Arx, we should leave soon,” she finished, grabbing the top of the ridecus cork with her teeth and unplugging it with a pop.
Her nostrils flared as she lifted it, the ring on her nose shifting.
“And if it’s a trap, as Bayne expects?” I asked. My stomach pitched as I said his name. Something sharp and prickly had filled the space that time, and our actions had shoved between us. We needed to talk.
“Then we deal with it. I’m not letting you do this without me this time,” Isla answered, her hand gripping my arm and halting my pacing.
My heart squeezed at the pain in her eyes—at the unspoken trauma we’d both endured during our separation last year. My throat bobbed as emotion surged, and I gave her a firm nod.
“Speaking of Bayne,” she murmured, her dark brows pinching. “You two should probably talk.”
My throat constricted before I reached for the bottle in Isla’s hand and took a quick swig.
Isla had a strange way of reading me. It’d become clear to me, even before I went through that gate, that my months away from Bayne had not only strained our relationship, but we’d both changed.
I still cared for Bayne, but I stopped loving him long ago.
And somewhere in the mess of the past year, I think he stopped loving me, too.
I’d never ended a relationship with a man, but thinking about it made me want to throw up. I savored the burn as the smooth liquid slid down my throat, false courage taking hold as the ridecus wrapped its calming hands around my mind.
My hand paused as I reached for the ebony doors of the Onyx Tower throne room, which had become a mess hall of sorts. Whispers reached me through the wall, the words clearer and crisper than what I was used to.
I stilled as the voices hushed further, and I strained my new elven ears, testing their ability as Bayne’s voice carried farther than he realized.
“I don’t doubt her ability,” he murmured. “She proved her strength with the Transcindiel on the ashen before she left.”
“Then what is the problem?” Nerissa whispered. “Let her try. You cannot tell me you wish to stay soulbound to Queen Antares.”
Bayne’s sigh reached my pointed ears in a rippled whisper.
“Of course, I don’t. But I’ve managed her this long. I know how to handle her.”
Nerissa let out a disgusted scoff.
“But you don’t have to!” Nerissa whisper-screamed at him. “Lyvia is strong enough. She can break magical oaths.”
“And that scares me more than staying soulbound to Queen Antares. Break magical oaths? Do you hear yourself? That shouldn’t be possible. It goes against the forces of this world. Against all that is life and light,” Bayne whispered in a firm tone.
“This is Lyvia. We know her,” Nerissa urged.
Warmth flared in my chest. I guarded it against the Bellator bond connecting me to her, a pinch of guilt slithering into me as I kept utterly still and continued to listen.
“Do we?” Bayne challenged.
A strange, floating sensation washed over me as the blood drained from my face.
“I never told you what I saw in the Waters of Ascendiel last summer.”
“You said you thought it was a warning,” Nerissa murmured.
“I saw pure death. I saw a creature of shadows and black flames. I saw wings… I didn’t realize it then, but now I’m certain I saw someone using the Obscura power to battle Soleia flames. Our flames…”
My stomach hit the ground, and a burning sensation formed behind my eyes.
Bayne had never said a thing… He’d seemed shaken when he returned from the Waters of Ascendiel the night of the Awakening, but there was so much happening with the queen and with the bone.
And I really didn’t press him on it. But what he claimed… I’d never…
“She’d never,” Nerissa echoed.
I pinched my eyes shut, trapping my emotions and forbidding them to travel down my bond to her.
“The Waters provide a glimpse. You may not have seen the entire vision. It could have been one of the Embodied battling the Obscura powers…”
“It wasn’t Aelius! It was me. There is a reason you went after her in Mount Telum last year, Nerissa,” Bayne murmured. “And a reason I kept close.”
My stomach plunged as the reminder of the crew’s early intentions on finding me drew a nasty cut against the recently healed scar.
“You care for her,” Nerissa cut in. “Do not say anything you might regret. And yes, I feared what she might become, but I was wrong. So were you. Stop this line of thinking. We are Bellators, all of us. We need to work together. Let her try to cut the soulbinding bond.”
Nerissa’s voice curved in urgency. My eyes locked on my hand still held out in front of me, and small tremors began to take hold. Lines of gilded darkness swirled on the surface in response to my emotions. I should leave. I should not be here…
“And if I let her try to cut my bond with the queen, how do we know the death in the blade she conjures wouldn’t slip and end me in the process?” Bayne countered.
“Her precision with that power has improved greatly,” Nerissa cut in. “And I’d wager it’s even more exact now that she’s been reborn into her true form. Her elven—”
“Elf?” Bayne challenged, voice rising from a whisper to a near growl. “Have you even looked at her? Death slithers under her skin like it’s alive… She is more creature than elf—”
“What the fuck did you say?”
My heart stopped along with the tremor in my hand, as Kellan’s voice ripped through the chamber on the other side of the wall like the sharp edge of a spear. Sets of footsteps rose from the opposite end of the throne room.
“It’s none of your concern, Astraeus,” Nerissa cut in after too long a pause.
“I was speaking to the king of Lotrennia,” Kellan answered her, his tone firm, yet lacking the condescending swagger it so often carried.
“And I was speaking with my sister,” Bayne cut in smoothly. What sounded like papers swished across a table.
“Careful, Majesty. Speak of her in that way again, and I’ll cut out your tongue.”
My heart stuttered as Kellan’s threat rolled off his lips with practiced malice.
Someone scoffed.
“You’re quick to defend someone who wanted you dead last year,” Bayne replied. “One thing you’ll learn is Lyvia’s allegiance changes quickly. I’d be careful what you put on the line for her.”
My stomach plummeted, a twisting of shame and grief colliding with the nauseating, plunging feeling that accompanied friendship’s death.
“You have no idea what she’s capable of,” Bayne continued. “You think you know her—”
“I know her better than any being in this realm,” Kellan snapped.
The sensation that propelled me through the Abyss flared to life in my chest.
“Are you upset she didn’t run into your arms when we returned?” Kellan drawled after a moment. “That she didn’t weep into your chest?”
Silence cleaved the room.
“The gate never closed,” Kellan quietly continued. “You could have come after her. You didn’t.”
“You have no right to question my choices,” Bayne hissed. “You’re no king. I am bound to the people of this realm. I am bound to my kingdom to protect them with the Soleia—”
“Exactly. You have the power of the godsdamned sun,” Kellan cut in, his voice trembling with a vicious edge. “And you stayed behind.”
A vice wrapped around my chest, and I struggled to breathe.
“Don’t begin to tell me—”
“What I will tell you, Majesty,” Kellan cut Bayne off once more, “is if I had the power of the fucking sun searing through my veins, I would have burned the entire godsdamned realm down to bring her back.”