Chapter 66 True Origins
True Origins
The disorientation was tenfold as I stood in the pitch black with only the slow drip, drip, dripping that came from a short distance—though from what direction I couldn’t tell.
Starting to lose perspective on what was real and what wasn’t, I brought a hand up to my collarbone, hesitating for a moment before gliding my fingers along it. The soft, healthy flesh confirmed that this wasn’t my waking life.
No, I was in Endymion’s prison of dreams again.
I could sense his essence permeating the blinding darkness that enveloped me. I took in a deep breath. Focusing, I tried to pinpoint where the dripping was coming from, but every time I took a step toward it, it stopped, then started up from a different place as if it were hiding from me.
No. Not it. Him.
It was as if Endymion didn’t want me to see whatever memory was contained there.
Undeterred, I decided to ignore the sound and follow my instincts instead, like I’d done when I’d found Thaddeus’ lost pen. Even though I couldn’t see, I closed my eyes and focused on Endymion. His smile. His scent. His embrace.
“There you are,” I said aloud, feeling him.
Eyes open, I followed the tug toward him through the dark, having to pull aside the never-ending curtains of magic that got heavier and heavier as the sound neared, until finally I’d pulled the last one back.
Light flooded my vision, temporarily blinding me. As I blinked away the light blindness, the blurred impressions I got was some sort of dome-like chamber. Vision clearing, I stepped into the room, my knees nearly buckling at the sight.
Terror stole my ability to move. To breathe. To look away.
There, suspended in mid-air, was Endymion’s limp, lifeless form.
It’d be a misnomer to say he was chained up.
No, that would’ve been preferable to the floating bands of molten gold that had burned his wrists to the wick as spread his arms up and out.
I took in a ragged breath as I noticed his shoulder joints were at awkward angles, like they’d long since given up on holding their form.
Trembling, I took a step closer, still not fully believing what was right in front of me.
Shirtless, sweat poured down his chest.
Hot tears pricked my eyes as I held back a sob, my hand now over my mouth.
Twinned golden bands had gnawed through the flesh of his ankles, his feet dangling above a sphere filled with glittering white flecks that were sparsely interlaced with shimmering black ones.
I fell to my knees before the sphere, my heart dropping as understanding crashed into me. As if in answer, another drop of Endymion’s beautiful onyx essence pooled at the tip of his toe, then let go. Gravity pulled it onto the sphere, which seemed to relish in its touch as it absorbed the offering.
Like a flurry of snow, the inner portion of the globe came to life as the new speck of black was swallowed by the fray.
This sphere—whatever it was—was slowly siphoning Endymion’s life force.
Already knowing what I’d find if I looked up, I held my breath, forcing myself to take in the evidence of this truth.
As I took in Endymion’s form, I wondered if this raw helplessness was what Artton felt when he saw my emaciated body—for as frail as I was in the living world, Endymion had paid the toll in this one.
Paid the toll.
Hadn’t he used those words before when he’d explained his cost to the Mother? I looked down to my wrist to find the bargain marked on my flesh as bright as ever, and I knew then what was happening—to both of us.
Moving out of instinct, I lifted my palm and made to place it on the sphere.
Endymion’s head snapped up, eyes wild with panic. “No!”
A band of black wrapped around my torso and wrenched me away.
“Endymion!” I screamed.
I reached out for him in vain, ripped backward through memories so fast that I had to close my eyes against the overwhelming amount of information being thrown my way.
Eventually, the feeling of being pulled backward subsided, and I risked a glance to find I’d been deposited into the memory of a massive cavern.
I stood, taking it all in.
Had cavern’s magnitude not been so vast, I might have mistaken it for the sacred cavern Caius had brought me to as a human.
“I’m sorry,” Endymion said from my side, drawing my attention to him.
My brows furrowed. “For what?”
His throat bobbed, and his eyes held something deep and broken in them that had me taking a half-step back as if I already knew that whatever it was, my world was about to crumble again.
“For what?” I said again, only this time the words were demanding.
“Please believe me when I say that I wanted to be the one to tell you, Nyla. I never wanted you to find out his way.”
“Endymion, you’re scaring me.”
Doing nothing to allay my fears, he looked over my shoulder. “Just watch.”
Rooted in place by fear, I made myself look away from him toward whatever truth he’d hidden from me.
Five obelisks worthy of giants stood in a proud circle around the cavern’s center. The halos of light that twinned my powers poured into the stones, illuminated five fae that formed the epicenter of the scene; each one facing their respective pillar, backs to each other.
Thaddeus’ tale on how I’d come to be flashed in my mind, and I knew what I was witnessing.
“The fall of the Celestial Court,” I breathed.
Endymion slid his hand into mine and intertwined our fingers before answering.
“Yes.”
I looked up at him, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“But”—my voice wavered—"this is a memory."
“Yes.”
Heart in my throat, I turned my focus back to the Celestial fae.
One of them, a male, began speaking in a different language. The cadence of it stirring something deep within me.
Endymion spoke over the fae, translating the words to me.
“Back to stardust,
your loss we shall mourn.
Greed was the catalyst,
for desperation to be born.
We beg of the Mother,
the moon, and the stars.
Bestow your mercy,
preserve what’s ours.
Grant us rebirth,
to hold back the dark.
We’ll pledge our lives
to restore the spark.”
The cavern went silent.
I watched as a tear slipped from the lone female as her form burst into the brilliant colors I’d witnessed in the void—the mirror of my own powers.
As her energy became one with the others, the black surface of the obelisks absorbed their essence.
Then, unimaginable glittering white magic poured from Lumnara herself, until the giant pillars could hold no more.
Bursting at the tips, pillars of white power incinerating the roof of the cavern as it reached for the heavens.
As fast as it had begun, it had finished.
In the aftermath, the only thing left were five piles of onyx ash, and that single tear which had fallen to the earth.
Slowly, I turned my gaze to Endymion’s and was met by deep regret and sorrow.
Pulling my hand away from his, I asked the question I both needed and dreaded the answer to. Unable to hold my emotions at bay, my voice trembled as I said, “How is this one of your memories, Endymion?”
He steeled himself before saying, “Because, Nyla, it was me who spoke those words a lifetime ago.”
I stumbled back, my world crashing down on me.
“You…” I said, my panic stealing the rest of my words as I began to hyperventilate.
He stepped toward me, and I put a hand up, taking another step back. Eyes wide, I stared at him. Really stared at him.
Hadn’t I been the one to say he didn’t look like an autumn fae?
Hadn’t I been the one to feel that there was something different about him?
Hadn’t I been the one to say his powers weren’t like the others?
Hadn’t he been the one to give me daggers that only those with arcane abilities could use?
Hadn’t he told me he had access to all four elements?
“No,” I said, trying to will the word true.
This couldn’t be happening.
I took another step away from him, and I could tell it was taking every ounce of restraint for him to give me the space I needed.
My breaths came in heavy as I struggled to keep myself from spiraling, and I was vaguely aware when our surroundings began to change in rapid succession.
“Little Star, I need you to breathe.”
I wanted to yell at him. To tell him he had no right to call me that. But all I could do was rest my hands on my knees as oxygen betrayed me. Taking in heavy gulps of air when afforded the mercy, I distantly noted our surroundings flipping through my memories.
The cabin.
Mrs. E’s.
Leighmullan.
The training ring.
“Nyla, please,” Endymion said, placing a gentle hand on my back.
I woke up screaming, nearly falling face-first into the table, Artton catching me in time. I scrambled out of his grasp, turning to sit on the table instead.
“Nyleeria?” Caius’ deep voice said, permeating my panic, “what’s wrong.”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My shoulders raised and fell with the harsh breaths still fueled by panic. The same panic that was making my vision blacken at the edges.
“Here,” Artton said from the couch, handing me a short glass of amber liquid. I’d never had a drop of spirits in my life, but if there was any time that called for it, it was then.
Taking the proffered glass, I steadied my breathing long enough to pound it back in one go. Hissing against the burn, I shoved the glass back at Artton before it hit my stomach. “Another.”
“Spark, I thin—”
Utterly uninterested in whatever fucken excuse he was about to spew next, I spotted the ornate, rectangular decanter and grabbed it.
Sliding the glass stopper out, I unceremoniously brought the entire thing to my lips and took two long pulls before Caius wrapped his hands around mine and lowered it.
Knowing I’d had more than my share as the warm reprieve of its poison slid through my veins, I relinquished it to him and took a moment to finally breathe.
Caius sat on the couch beside Artton and gave me a few minutes to compose myself before saying, “What happened, Nyleeria?” His tone was kind, but there was no mistaking the undertone of demand in his question.
I didn’t answer him; instead, I continued to wrap my mind around what I’d just learned.
What else had I missed? What else did it mean? If I were to believe that Endymion was the one who created the spark, then what other truths had been right in front of me—only I had no idea what they’d meant.
My focus shifted to Artton as another piece shifted into place.
Endymion wasn’t the only one who commanded all four elements. Nor was he the only one with access arcane powers. Fuck, how many times had I seen similarities in their features, in their cerulean eyes?
Then there was Caius. Why had he given Endymion a residence here? Yes, they’d grown up together, but why? And why was Caius so adamant that the spark was the key to healing Lumnara—so much so he’d committed patricide for this truth?
A bitter laugh escaped me as I leaned back slightly, shaking my head at the two fae before me.
It all finally made sense.
Shifting forward, I said, “How long have the two of you known that Endymion was the celestial fae that spoke the spark into existence?”
They had the good sense not to deny it.
Stealing a glance between one another that seemed to convey a silent understanding, Caius nodded to his second, then spoke. “I’ve known since the day we understood what his episodes really were.”
I thought back to the sparring platform—what I’d witnessed through Endymion’s memories—and finally understood myself. “Memories. They were memories of his previous life.”
“Yes. The life he’d forgotten when he was reborn as an autumn fae.”
“Reborn?” I asked.
“Reincarnated, if you will,” Caius supplied.
My focus landed at Artton, and though I got the sense he knew what I was about to say next, he didn’t flinch. “But, he wasn’t the only one that was there that day, was he?”
“No. He wasn’t.” Artton’s voice was heavy with memory and the weight of so much more that I couldn’t comprehend.
I nodded, taking a moment to let it all sink in, and as it did, there was one question that nagged me. “Artton,” I finally said, “who—exactly—was Endymion to you?”
He looked to Caius who lifted a shoulder as if to say this decision wasn’t his to make.
Slowly, Artton dragged his focus back to me and took in a deep breath. “I am Endymion’s second.”
The shock that rippled through me had me leaning away, trying to escape the truth.
If Artton was his second, that meant Endymion was—
The thought was so insane, I couldn’t even think it. Knowing he’d been there when the spark that dwelled within me was spoken into existence had been enough to process.
“So,” I said cautiously, “you’re telling me that Endymion—formally Autumn’s Second-in-command—is actually the High Lord of the Celestial Court?”
“Yes. But by title and birthright, Endymion is High King of the fae.”