Chapter 25
The leather satchel lands on top of the ruby-colored silk bedding with a muffled thud.
The room is dark, the sound of my grumbling stomach from missed meals confirming the number of hours I spent engrossed in the strange book of tales that question everything being forced down the country’s throats.
Everything we know about our gods is a lie. Entire lives have been devoted to teaching about the Golden Pantheon and none of it true. Years of being told to thank Nobus for his generous blessings and to blindly worship his divine justice. But just and fair kings rarely incite rebellions.
A rebellion that Kieran’s mom somehow knew about. And if she knew about it, did my mother? Another book that leaves me with far more questions than answers. Answers that my gut tells me Cal has.
The soft, unexpected click of the door opening has me pivoting to face it. Cal offers a sad smile as he strides past me to the desk, setting down a tray filled with cheeses, meats, fruits, and … oh my gods, are those chocolates?
“I thought you might be hungry,” he says when he notices the way my mouth practically waters at the spread.
He pulls out the chair and motions for me to sit before he takes his own seat on the edge of the bed. His eyes assess me thoroughly, searching my facial expressions and body language to silently gauge how my day went.
“We need to talk,” I say between bites of buttery crackers and salty meats.
“Eat first, princess. I can brief you on the situation in Emerald and, when you’re done, we can talk about whatever you want.”
I nod wordlessly, urging him to continue. My topic of conversation is likely to derail us for the rest of the evening, and I need to know what information he was able to gather.
Cal fidgets for a moment before inhaling sharply, his nerve mustered. “He’s truly dead, Ivy.”
I set the plate down, my appetite gone. Pain pricks the back of my head as tears well in my eyes again. I knew it was true, but hearing it confirmed is almost too much to bear.
“Marks didn’t kill him, but he did order a raid on the capital city right after he died. The temples were already draped when the troops arrived. Emerald is under his control. For now.”
My heart stops beating at his words, stalling for several seconds before summoned air fills my lungs and forces it to start again.
“No,” I breathe out. “No.”
“Ivy…” Cal tip-toes around the rest of his news. “Lord Yarrow made a deal with Marks to spare the council, but … fuck, princess,” he groans. “He promised your troops in return.”
Troops, my troops, promised to Marks. A promise Lord Yarrow had no authority to make.
The world tilts on its axis again, threatening to let me slide off its sloped sides into the numb abyss.
Cal moves to kneel before me, taking my hands into his.
Magic runs wild throughout my body at this touch, his emotions mixing with mine in a miserable symphony of pain and grief.
Mists of thin black shadows dance along the wall, wisps that echo the ominous death that plays nightly in my dreams. The prize I can’t decline in a game I never asked to play.
“Ivy.” Cal moves his hands to cup my cheeks, forcing my eyes to meet his. “Do you still want to go to Amale?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
Tears burst from my eyes, no longer able to dam the flood that sweeps through me.
Fate requires that I journey forward no matter how fast I want to run back to Emerald and retake my region from men who have no right to rule it.
The Amethyst Throne burns in my nightmares, and I know in the depths of my soul that I am the cause of it.
I wanted to stop Marks before, but now I want his head on a fucking platter.
“You will always have a choice where I’m concerned. Marks deserves every ounce of your revenge and more, but I will never think you’re a coward for choosing to go home instead.”
“I can’t go home, Cal,” I confess, pulling away from him. Confusion tugs at his features as I extract Kieran’s book from the leather bag and toss it on the floor in front of him with a resounding thump. “And I think you know why.”
He trails his fingers over the embossed title in a way that feels eerily similar to my own movements hours ago.
Cal opens the book, fanning through the pages in silence.
A thousand questions and demands form on my tongue, but one stands out, more important than all the others.
This first truth has to be shared so that all the others can be revealed.
“How many elements can you wield?”
Cal stands from the floor, gently placing the book on the desk before turning to me. His eyes close as he takes a deep inhale, physically bracing for what comes next.
“Three,” he says. “Water, air, and fire.”
Three. Cal can wield three elements. I knew he was powerful, could sense it in him, but this level of power …
“Last night … the blood … how did you do it?”
“Blood is eighty percent water. If you isolate the element …”
“Holy gods,” I curse. The legend of the Captain of Corinth taking down an entire legion of Synalian troops must be true.
“No one besides you can wield the earth, princess,” he adds.
“Take your shirt off,” I command.
Cal’s mouth pops open in surprise before pulling up in a playful smirk. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that to me since the first day I saw you.”
“I’m not playing, Cal.” I rush towards him, angrily jerking at the straps of his leather armor as I fumble with the buckles. “Show me your tattoo right now.”
“I know, I know.” He removes my fingers from his chest as he speaks. “I just wanted to take that look off your face even if it was only for a second.”
He undresses from the waist up, stepping towards me until he stands side-by-side with the open book in my hands.
The drawing of the beast and the one inked on Cal’s chest are a perfect match. Whatever pitiful glimmer of hope I had that they wouldn’t be disappears.
Cal pulls a dagger from the sheath at his side and sits it down on top of the desk.
My breath hitches at the sight. Running back to the bag, I extract the found dagger from the leather satchel.
It’s a perfect twin, from the runic carvings along its alloy blade to the polished ivory hilt that shines in the dim lantern light.
Two identical blades further cementing the cosmic connection of this moment.
Using the pointed tip, I prick my finger. The runes glow a brilliant shade of blue as the crimson drop rolls down the carvings.
“The sea beast is Arcasia,” I mumble, still clinging to a pathetic shred of disbelief that evaporates in my hands. “She touched me. She left this magic in my veins and she tied me to you.”
“The magic is yours,” he starts. “She may have connected us, but what I feel for you ... I see you in my fate, Ivy. There is no life for me without you.”
Fire burns in his smokey eyes, the flames incinerating me without touch.
It’s one thing to accept your fate, but another entirely to choose it. In a world that has denied me choice after choice, how can he be so brazenly resolute?
He steps closer to me, pulling me against his broad chest and into the inferno of our conjoined power.
I breathe him in, the scent of leather and salty air clinging to him despite being more than a week’s ride from the sea.
I barely know him and yet my soul has always known his.
His lips brush against mine, lingering only a second before he breathes against them, “When I meet Death, I’ll do it at your side. ”
There’s only one path forward for me, only one future that awaits me. I don’t want to be the cause of Cal’s death, but it’s his choice to make.
“I have to kill Marks,” I declare against his warm skin.
“I was wondering when you were going to say that out loud,” Cal teases, pulling back to look at me fully. “I will help you, of course, but there will be innocents in the crosshairs.”
“I know.”
“No, princess, I don’t think you do. That day on the battlefield, when my magic fully woke …
Ivy, they had Theo. The Synalians. They’d had him for days before I could get there.
The broken, bloody shell of a man they pulled from that wagon …
” Cal’s voice breaks, pausing to take a shaky breath before pressing on.
“Raw power consumed me and my only thought was ‘kill them all.’ And it did. Every last Synalian on that battlefield died, and I didn’t even have to lift a finger.
Men who had no part in Theo’s torture fell alongside those that did.
Death feasted on so many souls that night that I expected him to appear in my dreams to thank me.
What we possess … this magic … it’s equal parts amazing and dangerous.
It may do the killing, but we are the ones who have to live with those actions. ”
Wispy shadows flit through the air, wrapping us in a delicate, magical embrace. His pain overwhelms me, evoking more tears from my own eyes as his emotions wash through me.
The sea of despair that threatens to consume us is vast, and we cling together as if the other is the only rope that can moor us to the shore. Our only anchor in the neverending chasm of sorrow.
“How do you live with it?” I whisper against his chest.
“I have someone worth living for.”