Chapter Thirty
Stassi
“ T orrel, get as close to the forest as you can without actually entering it!” I shouted to my girl. She turned her large head my way, the nearly white light of this world’s sun making her pink scales seem like they were aglow. Looking at me as if she disagreed with the order, Torrel rolled her eyes and then began her descent.
I held on tightly as she circled the forest below. The dark and eerie quality of it reminded me of home, strangely enough. This was most definitely Padon’s work. I would’ve known even if Asta hadn’t written it out.
We slowed as we approached the ground. Bordering the coastline, a village lay in pieces. White cottages and cobblestone paths were cracked and stained in old blood. Not too far there was what seemed to have once been a market, wooden booths bleached by the sun sitting in wait. Past it all loomed a black castle-like structure. It seemed to shout at me, warning off the intrusion.
When Torrel landed, my bones shook not from the impact, but from the death that seemed to coat the air.
“Excellent landing,” I said, patting her scales before standing and descending her spine. She remained perfectly still, waiting until I jumped off the tip of her tail to sniff at the air. In her lifted claw, Milo let out small roars, practically begging to be set loose.
“Milo, I don’t know if it will be safe for you to roam. Please, for once you need to listen to me. Do not stray.” With that, Torrel released her drake. And, like most young dragons, the little menace bolted. He made his way to the very edge of the forest, where the ground and the trees faded to black.
“Milo, get back here!” Torrel shouted, leaning forward to grab him. But just as her teeth caught one of his tiny spiked wings, I felt something in the air shift. Magic was near. A lot of it.
There was a beauty to raw magic. At its core, it was like clay, ready to be molded into anything. It could become whatever one needed it to be, though it often had its preferences. My magic preferred to handle Sin and Virtue, but it still sang to me when other magic was near. It still wished to be free to hunt the familiar tune of Sun and Moon that seemed to softly hum from within the confines of the forest itself.
“Torrel, can you feel that? Feel her?” Though I knew she had to have been able to feel it, I still found myself surprised when her wide pink eyes darted towards the trees just to the right of us.
“Yes. She waits,” Torrel said through clenched teeth as she held onto her son.
Milo was crafty though, and he used her distraction against her. A laugh threatened to escape me as the drake used his hind leg to kick his mother in the tooth. Her grasp released as she hissed in pain, and Milo beat his wings desperately, looking more like he was falling than flying. Still, he was through the trees in moments.
Both Torrel and I took off in a sprint, dashing into the forest to stop him from getting hurt. Torrel made it barely ten feet into the forest before she got stuck. “I cannot break through these trees without potentially hurting him or you. Find my son and I will watch for the empress!”
Nodding, I continued on, running far faster than normal and begging Eternity to spare the drake. If Milo died, I would kill Bellamy in retribution for not taking the baby dragon.
Shoving those thoughts down for a later time, I honed in on the forest around me. Creatures could be felt everywhere, though Padon’s magic was not nearly as strong as I thought it would be. It was like listening to someone speak while your hands were over your ears. Muffled.
Stella’s magic, on the other hand, only grew stronger, dancing to the beat of my heart as I searched and searched. When I caught sight of broken branches and heard a tiny roar, I darted to the right. Jumping through a small clearing, I was met with a jaw-dropping sight.
Before me sat a modest cottage, black vines creeping up the walls and smoke escaping the chimney. The bricks appeared to be faded over time, now shades of white and gray. Just in front of the door, a female bent down, rubbing Milo’s dark belly as he rolled on his back with his forked tongue hanging from his open mouth.
Even if she had masked her dual-toned hair, I would have known it was her. Stella. The female who practically raised me after my mother died and my father took his life in his grief. She had held me when my magic struggled to absorb the seed of Sin and Virtue. After, when my too-young body acclimated to becoming a high demon, she taught me to use and manage so much magic. She sang to me when I had nightmares, matched my clothes to her youngest daughter’s, and stood up for me in council meetings. Every day she told me she loved me, that she cherished me like a daughter.
Staring at her now felt surreal. Like coming home and finding it changed.
“Ana, it’s good to see you.” Ana. Only she and my mother had ever called me that. Instead of making me feel better, it only enraged me. My fists clenched, emotions so strong that they were hard to hold onto flooding me. This was too much. We were not made to feel this deeply.
“You. Left. Us.”
If my accusation hurt her, the smile that stretched across her perfect face did not show it. Her dark skin somehow still glowed in the darkness of the forest, the magic of the sun shining from within her no doubt. Her hair was no longer straight from her heat tools, the tight coils now cut so short that they surrounded her like an orb. She wore a thin white dress, the simpleness so different than what she used to prefer.
“You’re just as fierce as ever. That makes me happy,” she said.
“Padon finds it increasingly annoying.” Her smile fell at the mention of the new emperor. Of the male she once thought of as a son. The one who killed her daughter’s husband and banished her from her own world.
“Yes, well, he was always impatient. One day he will meet someone that will challenge that. Remake him. Form that anger and desperation into something beautiful.” Her words did nothing to soothe me. In fact, all she was doing was confuse me further.
“How would you know? And why are you here? Shamay needs you and you’re playing house in a forest full of bloodthirsty creatures? What the fuck, Stella!” I shouted, reaching down to grab a jagged rock and throwing it as hard as I could at the stupid house behind her. When it sailed through a window, I let a wretched and wicked smile spread across my face.
Stella didn’t so much as flinch at the damage to her home. She used to be far quicker to anger than that. She used to be so much… more.
“You’re allowed to be angry, you know. They tell you that we don’t feel. That we aren’t capable of real emotions. But it’s not true, Ana. We might not feel the same as the creatures on this world, but we still feel.”
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, her white and black eyes lined with red. Eternity above, she was going to make me cry too. My hand reached into my satchel of its own accord, gripping Asta’s dagger and pulling it out. The moment the blade met the air between us, a great shake of the forest rattled my bones.
My magic simmered and convulsed, pouring out of me like steam.
That was when the fetch appeared. It was just as hideous as I remembered, its crooked body and gray skin dripping black from where it drooled poison. Its long black hair hung in strings over its face, a smile showing all black teeth.
“Anastasia, how exciting that I have found you. His Majesty wishes for you to come home,” it hissed, practically floating our way. I saw the moment its black eyes caught sight of Stella. Horror shook me to my core. Padon couldn’t know I found her, nor could he be made aware of the fact that I was on Alemthian. “The fallen empress. What a surprise. He will be thrilled to know you still—”
Leaping forward, I caught the fetch by its hair and shoved its face into the ground. My magic pulsed from me in small waves, drowning the fetch and forcing it to remain corporeal. Bringing my face down, I smiled back at it. “Pity you will not be able to tell him.”
Then I dug my nails into its flesh and tore it to shreds, black blood squirting onto my clothes and skin. I was drenched in it by the time I was done taking my anger out on the creature. When I looked up at Stella, she was staring blankly at me.
“What, are you against murder now? So changed that you don’t revel in a little violence anymore?” I accused more than asked. She was getting on my nerves for some reason.
“No, it’s not that. I just realized how far we have fallen. High demons, resorting to fighting one another instead of fixing our messes. You, Padon, Asta, me. All of us. We’re failing.” Before I could insult her back—or worse, agree—she offered me a hand. I took it, letting her pull me up. She grabbed her spotless skirt, lifting it to my face and cleaning me off, staining the cotton. For once, I didn’t fall victim to my need to be unfeeling. Instead, I leaned into her touch. “We have a lot to do, Ana.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised by the sudden change in subject.
“Worse will come. I’ve watched it happen.”
“Was it the Oracle Asta wrote about meeting?”
“Yes, she told Asta a lot.” There was a grim and heartbroken tone to her voice. One that felt as if it might crush my soul. “It was why Asta poured her magic into that fae river. She brought me there and together we watched what the Oracle foresaw.”
“Does it have to do with Asher Daniox?”
“Yes. Asher, she is at the center of it all. She is the promised doom. Our gift and our punishment. I can’t say much, and the only future that the Oracle saw in which Asher succeeded was one that I remained hidden until her great loss.”
“Her great loss? Stella, I don’t understand.”
“I know. I want to say more but I could risk everything I’ve worked fifteen thousand years towards,” she croaked. Her hands gripped my face, cradling me like a mother terrified of dropping their youngling. Milo pranced around us, alternating between sniffing flowers and chewing on one of the fetch’s wretched bones.
“I’m scared, Stella. Shamay needs you. We all do.”
“Everything will fall into place, I promise. Trust me.”
“I do, I trust you.” Stella kissed my forehead, letting her chin lift and rest on my head. I tugged her close, hugging her so tightly it might have hurt.
“This won’t be the last time I see you. Don’t worry. For now, you have to help Asher. She needs to be ready when Padon comes. This war was always the prelude. Expect him to come when the world is weakest. When she is weakest. We both know what lengths he will go to in order to get what he wants.”
“He wants to take Alemthian. To destroy it and rid the universe of its inhabitants.”
“Yes, I figured he would. It represents everything that went wrong in his eyes. I won’t pretend like he isn’t right about some of them. That horrible fae queen came and brought a poor mortal boy here. She practically fed him to one of the creatures. By the time it was done with him, he was a shaking, sobbing mess.”
“Well, not everyone is born a ruler like you and Asta,” I muttered. With my mind on the female I once looked at as a sister of sorts, I could not help but ask, “Was she happy?”
“Asta? Yes, immensely. She loved her mortal husband until her dying breath and cherished this kingdom. She felt at peace until Zohar was taken from her. After she saw the Oracle, much of her family had already passed. Once she was positive the information was safe with me, she asked for me to remove her seed.” When I scoffed in response, Stella sighed. “She was tired, Ana.”
“Aren’t you tired too? I know I am.” Weren’t we all?
“Yes, but I still have much to do.” Her mismatched eyes watered, as if whatever it was she must still accomplish was heavier than she thought she could handle. Or perhaps it was just the memory of her long-dead family.
“I miss her. I miss all three of them.” My uneven voice was startling, a disgusting and raw display of emotion that made me feel mortal.
“I know, Ana. So do I.”