15. Alira
Alira
Nikolai doesn’t veer from his path; he stays true to his word and goes straight to the castle, where he thinks I’m still in the cell, to keep me company. I hate that he’s so loyal to me…because I’m not sure what I’ll do once I get to Kalel’s palace.
I’ve never felt this empty and raw before, as if someone has parted my ribs and torn out all my organs. I’m numb yet aching and hurting so immensely at the same time.
I wait until Kalel is far enough away, disappearing behind one of the cafés across the street that we’d been to a few times. This was once a place filled with love and laughter. No more cheerful days spent wondering what this magical kingdom could bring in my future.
Where I once saw a family and peace, I now only see destruction. A world no longer meant for a halfling like me.
I furrow my brows and realign my thoughts.
There’s no room for emotions in this. I ditch my heels in the alley so I can run to Kalel’s palace gardens as fast as I can.
The adrenaline pulses through my bloodstream so fervently that I can’t feel the pain on the soles of my feet, even though I know they are bleeding based on the trail of gold I leave behind on the cobblestones leading to the palace.
My chest churns at the sight of the clouds separating and the rain slowly trickling out, the way the moon brushes the pink peonies like an eventide lullaby. They were always too perfect. Too alluring and whimsical. I should’ve known. I should’ve known.
I fall to my knees on the gravel paths and stare at one of the peonies that hangs lower than the rest.
“You made me feel at home when I was in a graveyard all along.” I let my fingertips glide over the soft petals before moving my hand down to the stem.
My throat dries as I grip it tightly and snap it.
Gilded blood drips from the stem, tapping onto my knees and staining my hands gold.
It’s odd. I knew I believed in the vision that Minerva showed me, but when you want something to be untrue so badly, you find yourself hoping for it to be a lie. Even if you know you’re deceiving yourself and self-soothing. You still hope.
But hope all too frequently dies.
Something rots deep within me. It twists and turns into fury that burns from the base of my heels up to my clenched teeth and hot tears.
I drop the flower and start ripping furiously at the rest of the flowers in the bed, throwing them behind me and ignoring the gold spilling onto my hair. I don’t stop until I reach the dirt, where I claw at the soil until I hit something hard.
My body stills, heart pounding like the rapid drums of war. I swallow the knot in the back of my throat and take a deep breath as I slowly lift a skull. Dirt topples from the eye sockets—a beautifully haunting gold shimmer showing from beneath.
I clutch the skull to my chest and shrink into myself, holding it as despair shudders through my bones.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to them, to all of them, hoping that they may find peace.
“Alira, daughter of Venus, do you still wish to leave the veil as it is?” Minerva’s voice draws my eyes up. She’s standing before me, dressed in a pale-blue shimmery robe. It looks like a veil made of starlight, with the hood pulled over her head as if she’s come in mourning. And perhaps she has.
The tears on my cheeks dry. Now there is only vengeance in my soul. A root of decay that Kalel has put there.
How dare he make me fall in love with him. How dare he make me think that demons aren’t the evil, vile monsters I always thought that they were. How could he take all of this from me? My sanity…my hope for a new future with him.
How could he?
How could he do this to my people and me?
I drop my eyes back to the skull in my hands. “Tell me how to get rid of the veil,” I whisper. A dull pain aches deep in my chest, because so many of the demons don’t deserve this. But it will never stop. They will always return for our bones if the veil protects them from the wrath of the gods.
It has to end. Even if it makes me a monster.
Minerva is silent, studying me for a few seconds, then she murmurs, “You must take their power into yourself and away from the veil.”
I slowly force myself to my feet and stare up at Minerva.
“How?” My voice has a dull edge. I’m not happy about any of this.
Minerva’s eyes narrow with sympathy. “I will bless their stolen power to you. Justice will be done, through you, Alira.” She reaches down, grabs one of the flowers I picked, and places it in my hand, exchanging it for the skull I unearthed.
She holds it delicately. In a way that a mother would a fallen son.
“Drink.” The word sends chills up my spine.
I hold the flower up, stem down, and part my lips. Cold drops of gold fall onto my tongue, and the metallic taste burns through my senses. It feels as though lightning is shooting through my bones and charring my marrow. Splintering every thought and hope and fear I’ve ever had.
The shock of the sensation makes me drop the flower, and I recoil backward as if I’m choking. My hands fly to my throat, liquid fire burning its way into my system and making my entire body convulse.
Minerva watches with no surprise in her features and merely lifts the skull to the sky—to the veil. “Come back to what once was yours,” she says with a smooth voice that instantly settles the burning inside me like a cooling mist. “Come home.”
My breaths are staggered as I stare up at the veil. It responds to her call and shatters like a spiderweb of glass. The entire orb-like structure bursts into gilded dust and falls like snow.
Minerva kneels before me and dips her fingers in the skull’s eye sockets that are now filled and overflowing with liquid gold. She runs one finger down from my brow, over my eye, and to my jaw on each side. They feel like tears.
“Once upon a demon’s heart, it was done.” She recites words that carve hollows into every cavity of my heart. My eyes widen at them. “Only written in gilded blood can it be undone.”
Minerva stares into my eyes, thoughts flickering across her gaze as if she might say more. Then she’s gone—disappearing into the night as if she had never been here to begin with.
“Wait, Minerva. What does that mean?” I call out, standing and feeling a zing of power rush through my limbs. Energy collects at my fingertips and coils as my emotions do. They hold a rhythm together, balance.
I look back at the flower beds and find the visions of the dead that Minerva showed me. They no longer have faces, but I can feel their relief in the air like morning dew collecting on leaves as they finally dissipate.
On their way to Mortem to rest, I pray.
The peonies wither, turning from pink to black within a few short breaths. The petals are dry and infested with mold. Rot from this wretched place.
My eyes catch on snowflakes as they slowly fall and hit the ground. The veil really is gone. Devicit, the kingdom that couldn’t be found, kept safe from the gods, has now been revealed to the world once more.
Civilians start to scream in horror as all the lavishness from the power of the demigods turns into soot and unfruitful ground. Trumpets and warning horns are blown and church bells ring to signal the locations of safe havens.
For war is coming.
It is already here.
I am the inevitable harbinger of ruin.
The gravel crunches behind me. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly as I shut my eyes. Just a few weeks ago, I heard his steps, thinking how I’d cherish them forever. I’d know the sound of them through the crash of many boots upon the ground.
But there’s nothing left in my heart anymore.
Not for the Blood Knight.