Chapter 42
WEAVE ME THROUGH YOUR ROOTS
Seryn
Igripped the astral version of my dagger, its cool platinum hilt heavy in my palm. The wavy edges of its chiseled obsidian blade glinted, and the faceted diamond at its pommel filled with swirling iridescence.
This blade was part of me. It had chosen me. And it was the only thing that could remove Gavrel’s rune. But what did that matter if it would kill him? I was damned tired of the games the Fates played.
My gaze followed the dips and curves of the radiant tree before me, and I bowed my head. At least there were things far greater than the whims of celestial beings, and this tree that stood unyielding, rooted in the very essence of life and ember, was proof of that.
With a long inhale, I lifted the blade.
Here goes nothing.
The slick bite of its edge slid across my flesh, and I hissed, crimson pooling in the hollow of my hand. I exhaled, looking at my father.
He brushed his thumb over my cheek. “Repeat after me, daughter.”
His words fell over me like hot, gilded wax. Ethereal and sealing my fate.
“I come with my heart and breath and ember,” Morpheus intoned.
I echoed him, forcing myself to respire so my spirit wouldn’t recoil into the comfort of Midst Fall. So my body wouldn’t betray me.
The roots of the banyan trembled, sending a tremor up my spine.
“Body bound and spirit free.
Weave me through your roots.”
I mirrored Morpheus’ cadence, letting the syllables hum in my chest. Blood dripped from my cut, seeping into the moss.
“Let my will be tested.
Let my essence prove true.
I surrender so the Somnis may guide me,
and bind me with Kosmos anew.”
With a final shudder, the tree’s radiance pulsed three times before blinking out. The floral-scented breeze stilled, my curls settling around my cheeks.
A deep line of confusion etched between my brows, and I glanced at my parents. But before I could speak, the banyan exploded in light.
The world warped, reality folding inward like a sheet drawn into the roots by its center. My stomach flipped, and I clamped my eyes shut against the nausea clawing up my throat.
Then—impact.
I slammed into roiling liquid. Tendrils of ice and flame licked over my skin in the same moment. I spun, tumbling through rivers of stars and prismatic hues, my very being a streak of consciousness cast between the currents.
Disoriented, I flung out my limbs, trying to stabilize. My vision swam as the flux snatched me, carried me away on a coiling channel.
Faces and scenes zoomed past me.
Children laughing.
Kaden and Gavrel sparring.
My mother’s eyes in the firelight.
Sirens singing death-songs across glassy oceans.
A wyvern hatching from its metallic egg.
Lives I’d touched. Lives I hadn’t yet.
Another wave slammed into me. Air fled my lungs.
I plummeted straight into a sea of stars and sank as the tide wrapped around me.
My scream smashed against my closed lips so the luminous substance wouldn’t fill my throat.
Panic flared within me. I thrashed about, fingernails clawing at the shifting shimmers above, but the Somnis dragged me deeper.
The midnight unknown caressed my body. Picking me apart.
I was both here and elsewhere.
Time fractured.
Slowed down.
Sped up.
Condensed.
Folded.
Reversed.
I was everything.
I was nothing.
Breathe. Gavrel’s voice bounced through my skull.
I couldn’t fucking breathe! I was drowning. My body stilled. I let the Somnis claim me.
Be brilliant, Asteria.
I wasn’t brilliant. I was broken.
Unworthy.
My throat closed, despair pressing on my chest.
Enough.
My fist clenched around my dagger. Its diamond pommel glinted, my ember alive within it.
I was enough.
I was more.
And I was needed.
My gaze lifted. A speck of light gleamed above, impossibly distant. My aura shimmered around me, calling to the motes of starlight at the edges of my vision. Heat cocooned me. Electricity vibrated from my crown to my toes.
When the tide comes, look not to the stars, but to what hides beyond them. Phantasos’ words flickered through me. Beyond.
I thought of Gavrel. Of Mama. Letti. My friends. They were my beyond—the reason I’d fight through whatever void waited.
What was beyond the stars?
Death? The unknown? Destiny?
All those things. But it was not for me or anyone else to comprehend.
Sometimes you had to surrender to the chasm to become who you were always meant to be.
I leaned back, letting the current cradle me. The fizzing stars condensed, sinking into the glowing branch patterns on my arms. My gift thrummed; a chorus of water, laughter, and endless silence filled my ears.
Then my lips parted, and I let the molten beyond pour into me. It filled my lungs and stole my breath. Shadows and stars streaked across my vision, but I didn’t flinch. I let it consume me, embrace me.
It was terrifying and exquisite. The tide pulled me in all directions, a thousand dreamers’ thoughts brushing against my skin.
And then, with my next fluttering heartbeat, my body heaved upward, breaking the surface. A sputtering gasp tore from me, melted starlight spilling from my lips.
The sea descended, and I floated weightlessly, my dress soaked with the dreams of others. Wind whirled around me, drying me in a rush of warmth.
All around, ribbons of imagination wove through the molten firmament, brushing my astral form. Echoes of lives I’d never known whispered my name.
“Breathe,” I told myself, my voice reverberating across the expanse. “Breathe and stay.”
Below me, my physical body glowed hazily in Midst Fall as I sat cross-legged in a trance.
Above, Surrelia and the Elysium Tree hovered, almost calling to mind the floating islets in the Stygian Murk. The banyan’s long roots dangled from the bottom of the earth, stretching and weaving through the currents.
“They’re coming,” the familiar voice rasped. “They want Elder Harrow—mean to free her!”
Time quivered, and the sensation of dropping plopped heavy in my belly.
“Father?” My sister’s voice echoed around me.
“It’s too late,” Gideon spat. “Letti, get behind me.”
Thundering footsteps.
Shouts.
“Hold your ground!” Yaya yelled.
Then a scream sliced through the Somnis.
Melina.
The platform of Hallowed End flickered into being beneath my astral feet—half real, half dream. Smoke curled, thick and choking. I sliced through it with my blade, my power lashing out.
And there, one golden string burned brighter than the rest. Brighter than the dreams and stars and the unknown. My khorda bond.
I seized it, wrapping the cord around my left wrist, feeling it pull at my ribs. A tether between soul and body.
The battle surrounded me in blurred flashes. Like splashes of splattered watercolors.
Gavrel, Kaden, Breena, Jace, and the others—all fighting across overlapping planes. The Bloomless had returned. They’d freed Melina and brought loyalist Draumrs and Akridais with them.
Locust tattoos glowed like infected wounds over the enforcers’ throats as they whipped their oily energy at the Korax.
Breena’s scarlet shield flared in front of her, Gideon, and Letti, who dropped to her knees and stabbed their attacker in the ankle. Gideon slashed a knife toward a cultist reaching for my sister.
Trees bent to Kaden’s ember, thrashing their foes into the swamp water, the muckweeds holding them under. Jace’s runes traced in the air, and Caelora’s lavender-tinged power spilled over screaming bodies. Marek’s illusioned flames clung inside the skulls of his victims.
Gavrel lunged, his ten-point star igniting, the blaze illuminating his blade as it met Melina’s smoke. She shrieked again, pewter eyes gleaming, and slammed her power into him. He flew backward, crashing through warriors who’d been attacking Xeni, Rhaegar, and Yaya.
Gavrel lay, unmoving, in front of my prone form, his chest rising and falling fitfully.
A feral grin split Melina’s mouth, and her features twisted into something grotesque. Slowly, she inched toward me, savoring the hunt. “Do you feel it, pet?” she crooned. “How close you are to death? I’ll take you piece by piece until there’s nothing left to save.”