12. Alira
Alira
The vision picks up right where it left off with the younger Kalel and his mentor—the man looks like he is a knight, based on the way he’s dressed in a military uniform with shoulder plates that are no different than the ones Tessa and Nikolai wear.
Kalel reaches into his satchel to pull out the bones.
It’s disorienting at first to be thrust into the vision. I was just in a cold cell in the dark, but now I’m standing outside beneath the veil in a different time. The air is fresh with the scent of upturned soil and flowers, the sun warming my skin and tricking my senses.
The goddess with the raven hair is standing beside me again. She looks at me with melancholic eyes, filled with truths that she perhaps doesn’t want to have to share.
“You’re still reluctant to see them for what they’ve done,” she says gently. “Let me show you.”
I don’t want to see. But I have to, no matter how much it tears my heart out.
Tears prickle my eyes, and I force my gaze back at the two demons in the garden. Fear starts to move its way up my spine, and I have to take a few steps back as I watch Kalel reach inside the bag and pull out a gilded skull.
For a second, it doesn’t process in my mind. It looks like a statue, something poured into a cast and used for decoration on a desk or perhaps on a bookshelf. It can’t be what I think it is…but it is.
It is, and I know it deep in my aching soul.
It’s a demigod’s skull, golden blood still trickling from the base and dotting the soil in beauty and horror all the same.
Time seems to slow as I watch him set the skull into a pre-dug hole. He wipes his brow, then covers the bones with dirt and looks to his mentor. Golden blood is spread across his forehead, already having stained his hands.
Grief swells inside me. How can something so heinous be true, even as I watch it unfold? Proof from the gods.
This cannot be. It must be a lie.
Because if it isn’t…
You mustn’t pick the flowers. That was Kalel’s only rule for the garden.
My heart is ten times heavier than it has ever been. It clenches and twists as my lips tremble with the blight of this vision.
“The veil… It is not a power that the demons have found—it is a power they have stolen.” My voice carries through the palace garden. The vision speeds through the decades, until every flower bed in his palace is filled like the rest of Devicit and every last piece of my heart is torn into pieces.
My silver hair lashes in the breeze as I turn to see the entirety of the palace grounds. The peonies are bright and glowing…whispering.
They’ve always been whispering, haven’t they? Trying to warn me.
Tears pool in my eyes, and I fall to my knees, sobbing and pressing my palms to my face. “This cannot be. Kalel wouldn’t do something this…monstrous. He wouldn’t,” I cry to the goddess.
A soft hand lands on my shoulder and beckons my eyes up. It’s the woman. Her dark hair falls over her shoulders as she tilts my chin up to look back at the flowers I once cherished so much, and there the phantoms are once more.
Hundreds…thousands of demigods standing beside their respective graves. Their faces forlorn and weary, lost and confused.
They are clearer now. Every wrinkle of sadness and hopeless eternity is written on their expressions. Mother, daughter, father, son.
Misplaced. Scared. Powers drained even in death.
Darkness spills into the hollowest depths of my spirit.
My eyes dilate as I whisper, “Can they not find their way to Mortem?”
The goddess shakes her head slowly. The gilded jewelry she wears is warm against her dark tones. Kindness seeps from her sympathetic eyes, tears falling as she stares at the same lost souls as I do.
“No, they cannot escape their fate. Not on their own.” Her voice is silk, soothing in its own consoling way.
“What god are you?” I ask as I look over all the graves, sickness rising in my stomach, and disgust at myself for not figuring it out. I felt them calling to me the moment I set foot here. It felt like home…because of them.
She grabs my hand gently and murmurs, “I am Minerva. Goddess of wisdom.”
I blink away the stray tears that fight to fill my eyes. Rage quickly takes over the emotional side of me.
“Why have you shown me this, Minerva?” I clench my fists at my sides.
I know what she’s going to say. She wants me to get revenge for the demigods. She wants me to be remorseful for my decision to marry a demon to stop a war that cannot be prevented.
The demons are everything I thought they were. And I let them trick me. I let him trick me.
Stupid girl. I bite down on my inner cheek until metallic liquid hits my tongue.
I hate what I am…who I am.
It’s always been our gilded blood everyone is after, and why wouldn’t it be? If it can create a veil as powerful as the one Devicit has made, we are all but done.
Minerva gives me a hollow look that I can’t see through.
“I have shown you this because war is at Devicit’s door. Alzhor waits at the edge of their veil, waiting for it to fall. The flowers cannot remain here against the demigods’ will, because of this, their souls are trapped here.” Her eyes search mine until it clicks.
“You want me to take down the veil? But…” I trail off. All I can see is the aftermath. The blood in the streets, the burning kingdom. Red and gold mixing until there’s nothing left but chaos. “I can’t…”
Can’t I? It’s what they expected of me anyway, isn’t it? Is that not why they locked me in this dark, dreary dungeon? Why am I fighting to not become the very monster they assume I am…the one Kalel believed I could become?
Minerva offers a frail smile. One of understanding and pity. It doesn’t make me feel any better, but then again, I don’t believe it is meant to.
“It’s your choice, half-god,” Minerva says softly and taps my forehead gently.
I’m thrown from the vision as if I’m being cast backward and falling from a rooftop. My senses take a moment to come back to me, but when they do, I’m sitting on the edge of the bed in the same dark cell. Every part of me is cold and hollow.
I take a deep breath and stand.
I don’t feel like me anymore. I’m no longer the tired demigod who wants to stop dying at the hands of the Blood Knight. I’m not weary any longer.
I’m filled with malice and hatred.
All this time, I’ve felt guilt for what I’ve done to the demons. I never asked what they’ve done to us. It’s so awful that I have to see it for myself…and try to set right these wrongdoings.
I have to free their souls.
I need to get out of this cell.