Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
It wasn’t as much of a strain, bringing Fee back to Norenth.
But Lia felt the pull, the heaviness, and the ringing.
Earlier, it was as though the very fabric of her being was at war with the Emperium, like it clung to whatever she tried to bring through.
And in returning Fee, it relented, the return of its guardian a victory.
Fee asked the Weatherstone brothers herself about using the castle’s fortification for Papa’s trunks.
Like Lia had thought, Jace—since his parents were locked up in meetings, literally according to Terranth—agreed to bring her papa’s storage to Norenth until they could comb them for clues on the Seekers’ status with the Initiis.
When asked about coming to Earth to help, Jace and Terranth were curious, eager even, for the chance.
Kristof opted to stay back and organize the boxes in the castle, but appreciated the offer.
Kayce ignored her.
Well, he was distant. Quick responses. Wouldn’t look her in the eye.
Worse than right after the dragon attack.
Lia didn’t know what to do.
Before all this Flameheart business, they’d hardly ever fought.
There were small tiffs and spats over the years, especially when the first bout of hormones went raging.
The whole bit over his lost pendant and the pastries.
Since he’d arrived in her reality, they’d had two major blow-outs, one rolling right into the next.
It was a matter of time before the avalanche came crashing down around them.
He’d weathered everything with her so far.
The mall attack. The meeting. The Forge.
But this fraught tension had been growing steadily, like Kayce didn’t know what to say, how to act.
Now, he avoided her. Didn’t even ask about her limp when the other brothers had reached for her with concern, willing and able to do all the heavy lifting for her.
So Lia did what she did best: try to be proactive. Pretend like it didn’t hurt. She put the smile on for Terranth and Jace, escorting one and then the other through the portal after Fee. But it was challenging, channeling those feelings of comfort and peace from her last attempt.
But coming back for Kayce, Lia nearly stumbled. Her boots scuffed the carpet of Jace’s room where they’d all met, the navy filigree rushing to crush her face before Kayce’s arm banded around her waist.
“Don’t you normally warn against rushing into things?” Kayce muttered, his arm leaving her so fast it was as though she were a pyre.
“I didn’t mean carpets.”
The ringing in her ears was deafening, a keening shrill that could burst an eardrum.
Lia rubbed her temple, ignoring how much it twisted like a knife in her chest to have Kayce turn from her, palm up.
She could have been a volatequis he was readying to ride for how much he cared—no, he showed far more care for those winged horses than her in this moment.
Shaking her head of the ringing that had faded to a rung bell’s hum, Lia took his hand.
Their fingers laced together, her fingertips brushing his knuckles, the swell of his oath scar nestled into her palm.
Eyes closed, Lia grappled for peace. There was so much chaos to sift through, and she felt like she was falling through the spheres all over again.
It took several heartbeats, and she swore she heard Kayce take a breath to ask, but she tugged him forward.
The world tore—
Ripped—
Resisted—
Lia wrenched her hand free to cover her ears, the ringing a scream carving its way deep into her marrow. Her teeth vibrated with it, nearly cracking a molar as she clenched them shut to keep from crying out.
“Aurelia—” An emotion finally pinched Kayce’s voice as they stumbled into her papa’s study.
“Give me a minute—”
“Wyrm crap—”
Breathing through her nose, each one loosened the tension in her jaw, the noise in her head.
Her stomach settled, her heart slowing from a gallop to a trot.
Forcing herself upright, Lia caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror hanging opposite the desk.
Her skin had paled, and her lips cracked like she was dehydrated from fever.
Touching her hair, she saw that the curls had lost their luster.
Like bringing a creation to Earth took something from her.
But there was Kayce, looming over her from behind. His broad, callused hands came to her arms, steadying her. This time, he didn’t let go. She met his gaze. Something burned in those amber depths.
“This wears on you worse than when you fell through all the spheres.” His voice was a rumble of waves. “You need to eat something.”
“I need to master this power. Headaches are why we have Tylenol.” Lia licked her dry lips, Kayce’s gaze dipping. “I’ll have my mom order Chinese.”
His hold tightened, and Lia’s pounding heart had nothing to do with her recovery. Kayce’s brow lowered, casting shadows over his eyes. “Why do you insist on shouldering this all by yourself?” he asked. His breath whispered against her hair, the shell of her ear.
Fee had asked the same thing. Lia wanted to erase the worry, but more so, she wanted to remove the tension between them.
But this intensity that suddenly came with it, she didn’t know what to do with.
She turned her back on her reflection, forcing him to let her go.
“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the nightshriek right after it happened. ”
His jaw flexed, the burn in his eyes extinguished. “That’s not the point.”
“Then, what is?” She reached for him, but he stepped back from her. The pain that sliced through her was a barely suppressed flinch. Her hand dropped.
“Eat something before we head back,” was all he said before heading to the attic where Fee and his brothers worked.
Agitation twitched in Lia’s body, ready to move into action despite the bruises that tightened her back. Everything was spiraling out of her control. And her papa’s note, clearly placed for her to find after he was gone, sank a slice of pain deeper into her being.
How could she no longer smell like fire when she felt like she was constantly burning?
Chinese food was becoming a favorite for all the Weatherstones.
Terrenth had to be shooed from the door when the delivery guy arrived, wanting to see more of Earth.
It was innocent enough, but Mom had freaked.
Lia decided not to comment on the overly generous tip she gave, or the pedestrian minding their own business walking a dog.
And even after eating a generous helping of chicken lo mein, Lia felt weak. But what would Aurelia have done? There was a job to do. It didn’t matter if she had to break her back doing it.
After dinner, they condensed the trunks to about half a dozen after realizing many held old photo albums or other mementos unrelated to Norenth or the Order.
Jace and Terranth did well to fill the silence as they worked, Fee ordering them about in her own way, especially Terranth.
Marcus peppered the Weatherstones with questions, in awe of their attire and asking all about the kingdom.
They were kind enough to humor him, Kayce as well.
Lia tried to catch Kayce’s eye, but he refused to look at her—though she swore she’d felt his stare like a weight settled between her shoulder blades.
Bringing Fee back to organize with Kristof, Lia managed three more trips with the brothers, a trunk in hand. It was hard to mask the exertion it took, her lungs burning like she ran the steep face of Mount Fealtek. It was easier to ignore the ringing with the pounding of her heart.
Lia waited for Kayce to reach out as he had last time.
The first trip, he was intent on wiping the dust and grime off one of the trunks.
The second, his gaze snagged hers, words hovering between them, before he swallowed them with a drink of soda Marcus had goaded him into trying.
The third, he stood, took several paces away as she stumbled on the landing back into the attic—then froze, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked out the gabled window into the night.
The little stubbornness Lia had to keep it all together was thinner than a volatequis hair.
Her mom was by her side as the portal faded behind them, her lips a pinched line. “How about we stop here? Lia can bring you boys back to Norenth in the morning with the rest.”
“I can do it, Mom, I just need—”
“No,” Kayce interjected. “She said it could wait until morning. Rest.”
Lia’s eyes burned, but not with fatigue. “But she needs these out of here in case—”
“Nothing will happen tonight,” Jace said, a wary glance shot toward his youngest brother. “We’ll make sure of it.”
Kayce grunted in agreement, studying her with a furrowed brow before he turned on his heel and disappeared down the stairs.
So much for proving you were strong enough. Can’t even do what Mom needs, either.
The discordant ring faded, but Lia’s temples continued to throb. Her shoulders dropped as she followed everyone downstairs.
Kayce’s distance was more than the bookstore blunder or training agitation. Refusing to touch her one moment, nearly cradling her the next. Their tentative peace was gone—she couldn’t understand what changed.
Lia’s night was nothing more than twisting sheets around her legs and staring at the ceiling.
Every time she shut her eyes, girlish humming and her own screams echoed in her mind.
She heard it in the wind against the windowpane.
The creaks of the floorboards as one of the others went to the bathroom.
The drum of her heartbeat, an increasing staccato in her ears.
Her chest ached, the loneliness a creature nestling its burrow between her ribs.
Kayce was a wall away, but he might as well have been back in her pages.
She desperately wanted to go back to their alcove, back to before they woke in her bed.
She only wanted her best friend back. Nothing more.
Her eyes burned, but the longer she kept them open, the more of an excuse she could use that it was because they were dry. Nothing more.
Rubbing the scar in her hand, Lia stared at the ceiling until the window threw a dawn silhouette across its expanse.
True to pattern, Kayce avoided her until they arrived back at Castle Finerda, stowing the remaining trunks in a nondescript closet in Jace’s rooms to pilfer through later.
Her leg burned, but she’d assured her mom she would stop at the infirmary for a poultice that would help speed the healing.
Cheeks wan from the multiple trips plus the additional heavy loads, Lia huffed a limp curl from her face as she pushed in the final trunk.
Kayce brushed past her, hardly sparing her a glance.
Lia gritted her teeth. Never did she think she would lose so much sleep over a guy who was supposed to be fictional.
Enough with the silence.
Enough with the one-word responses.
Enough with the lingering stares when she wasn’t looking.
Enough.
Whipping around, the verbal tongue-lashing poised, Lia poisoned the words with the loneliness and agitation burning in her belly—
—only to find him gone. Again.
Fury splotched life back into her face. “Where is he?”
Terranth and Jace, leftover take-out in hand for the royal chefs to replicate, shared a glance. “The woods,” Terranth said. “He mentioned something about Fee.”
Biting out a terse “thank you”, Lia turned to leave.
Jace caught her arm. “Aurelia?” he asked, eyeing her from head to toe, “are you well?”
“Yep!” Lia smiled, stepping back. “I’m fine.
” Because she had to be. No one needed her flailing about when they had so much else to contend with.
Her mask was slipping, her wall crumbling, bringing the boys back and forth across the barrier destroying what little energy she had to put on her best face.
Was that why Kayce was so distant? Because Lia couldn’t prove that Aurelia existed as much as he did? He had spoken like she could be both. Did he not see she was trying to flip between the two as best she could?
Lia felt Jace’s stare on her back as she left.
The mist was thick, sunlight barely piercing through what had become their normal training spot in the forest. But not even the crisp pine and seawater scent could ease the tightness in her lungs. Despite a slight limp, Lia’s steps were soft, the quiet gusts preluding a storm.
She was so lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the subtle hoot carried on the wind.
She didn’t see the bird until its shadow eclipsed what little light shone through the trees.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose, that awareness that only came with being watched.
Since the nightshriek’s attack, it wasn’t a feeling she would forget any time soon.
But it wasn’t the first time she had felt it in this forest.
Lia stopped, her hand deceptively lax at her side. Only her eyes moved as they flickered up to the canopy. There, cupped in a skeletal palm of bare branches, was an owl. Six eyes beheld her, skewering her to the forest floor with their stare.
She had seen one on Luddeck’s ship. Heard one outside Castle Finerda. Felt its presence as they trained here. Her anger snuffed out, a flame extinguished. A tear was in Norenth. But she had seen this creature before.
Before she could utter the name, the barred owl stretched its gray wings, those ringed eyes narrowing, and took flight for the darker part of the wood.
She didn’t have time to pull out her pen, send the infernal bird back from whatever hellscape it had clawed its way out of.
Though from those eyes, ringed like the nightshriek’s with a glazed obscurity devoid of life, the two could have only come from one sphere, a sphere supposedly lost and imprisoning all within.
She had unknowingly broken into Malum’s prison.