Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Aurelia
Iwoke in a different place but on the same bedroll, the cave lit by a torch. Exhaustion still clung to every part of me, but I forced myself to sit up. A cask of water sat nearby. I drank deeply, noting the cavern where I slept had a lower ceiling than before. The air was humid, stale, unmoving.
Farther down the narrow tunnel, more torches flickered. I could hear voices murmuring quietly. The only other bedroll beside mine was empty.
Shoving aside the temptation to sleep again, I pushed to my feet.
My legs shook, but they held. Slowly, I made my way down the tunnel, my head nearly brushing the ceiling above me. Around the bend, the path opened, widening into a rough chamber where the others had gathered.
Faint torchlight illuminated the faces of the survivors.
Withered, hollow-eyed but alive. There were far fewer now than we’d brought with us.
A dozen at most. They regarded me warily but without the hostility of Brist and Taron.
Eirnan was seated against the wall, one leg splinted, cloak torn and blood-streaked, gaze steady and watchful.
Beyond him, on a pallet of cloaks, Lesha lay motionless, wings nothing but blood-stiff bandages.
Keres bent over her, tending her wounds, and my heart squeezed at the sight of them all.
My people. My responsibility. My war.
I stepped toward them, pressing a hand to the rock for balance.
“Your Highness,” Eirnan greeted. “It’s good to see you up and about.”
Leif appeared, taking my elbow and offering support. I leaned on him gratefully and let him lead me over to where Keres hovered over Lesha.
“What are you doing up?” Keres demanded.
“How long was I out?” I asked.
No one answered.
I glared at Keres. “How long?”
“Two days, Your Highness,” Leif answered quietly.
Two days.
I tried not to think of everything that might have happened in the world during those two precious days. Instead, I looked down at Lesha. Her chest barely moved with her small breaths.
Fear twisted inside me.
“How is she?” I whispered.
“She’s weak,” Keres admitted. “Hasn’t woken for more than a few minutes at a time. Thorne and Daegel have taken turns carrying her.”
I looked over at where the two warriors stood watching us. “Thank you,” I told them. They dipped their chins. I looked back at Keres. “Will she recover?”
“I don’t know,” Keres admitted quietly. “There are broken bones and wounds that healed over, only to be inflicted again.”
Torture.
“But the loss of her wings is the most concerning,” Keres went on.
I swallowed, eyeing the bandages. “They cut them off.”
“They ripped them. Slowly, piece by piece. For maximum suffering, I think.”
Eirnan loosed a string of curses.
“To what end?” I asked bleakly. “Did she have information they wanted?”
“They must have thought so,” Keres said, and I knew the look she wore could only mean one thing.
“Me,” I said grimly. “They wanted information about me. My whereabouts. My plans.”
“Your magic,” Eirnan said pointedly.
I swallowed, a weight pressing down on me at the thought of Lesha enduring such a horrific nightmare because of me.
“Then they were disappointed,” Slade said. “You hardly have any plans at all.”
I shot him a flat look.
He held up both hands. “I mean that in the nicest, ‘you keep improvising and almost dying’ sort of way.”
A faint sound came from the pallet.
It was small. Broken. But it was a sound.
I bent closer. “Lesha?”
Her eyes opened, clouded and unfocused at first, then clearing as they found my face. For a heartbeat, she just stared at me, like she wasn’t sure I was real. Finally, her cracked lips curved.
“You… look terrible,” she whispered.
Relief hit so hard my vision blurred. I huffed out a laugh that sounded suspiciously close to a sob. “You’re one to talk.”
Her gaze drifted past my shoulder, taking in the cave, the others, the dim torchlight. Confusion creased her brow. “Am I…?”
“Safe,” I said quickly. “You’re with us. We got you out.”
“Took you long enough,” she murmured, but even that hint of her old spark was a ghost of what it had been.
Keres slipped a hand under Lesha’s shoulders, easing her up enough to sip from a waterskin. “Small sips,” she warned.
Lesha obeyed. Every swallow looked like it cost her just as much as it gave.
I waited until she slumped back against the makeshift pillow, eyes half-lidded, then said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” she managed.
“For not getting to you sooner,” I said. “For not being there. For… this.” I glanced at the bandages. My throat tightened. “They hurt you because of me.”
“Nonsense,” she rasped. “They hurt me because Heliconia is a monster.”
Her gaze sharpened slightly. Her fingers twitched toward mine. I took her hand, careful not to grip too hard. Her fingernails were broken, peeled down to the beds on some fingers. I hated imagining that happening to her. The pain—
“Aurelia,” she whispered. “There isn’t much time.”
Panic sparked. “You’re not dying,” I said. “Keres says—”
“I’m not dying,” Lesha cut in, a shadow of her usual impatience. “But I’m drained—utterly and maybe in a way that cannot be repaired.”
“Don’t say that—”
“Hush now. I need to get this out before I’m too tired for it.
” She swallowed. Her eyes found mine, and in them I saw the weight she carried—the knowledge she’d held alone all this time.
“Heliconia nearly died when she cast that curse on our people seven years ago. The drain on her power nearly ended her then and there. What she took from your father was not enough to sustain her. But she found something else to take from. To revive herself. To build this army.”
“What?” I asked, even though the word whispered through me already.
“The Ice Throne,” Lesha said, “contained the power of the gods, left behind in this realm when they were cast out of it after the Great War. Heliconia found out. And she drained it.”
Lesha squeezed my hand, desperation and urgency swimming in her murky gaze. “She cannot be allowed to claim another throne. Do you understand?”
“Because of the power in them,” I said. “The oracle hinted in Rosewood, but she was vague.”
“You saw Meerdra,” Lesha said, and there was relief in her.
I decided not to mention that I’d granted the old Verdant fae a favor. Marked myself to seal the bargain. Instead, I merely nodded and said, “She told me about my gifts. Said I was the gods’ champion, that I am to fight for Menryth.”
“Heliconia has made herself a champion now too. A contender for ruler of Menryth—a fate that will be sealed if she drinks from the other thrones.”
“What’s inside them?” I asked.
“Kernels of the gods’ power,” Lesha said softly. “The pieces of themselves the gods left behind when they agreed to the treaty between them.”
“The treaty my parents broke,” I said quietly.
“Yes. And the balance must be righted, or we will all be destroyed.”
The cavern went still. Even Slade didn’t have a quip for that.
“She wants the others,” I said slowly. “Not just Concordia. All six.”
“Five,” Eirnan corrected. “The Verdant court has no throne anymore. If the legends are to be believed.”
“Yes, but the Summer Court has two.” The two Whitestone thrones at Sevanwinds. The Harvest Throne in Grey Oak. The Onyx Throne behind the walls of Midnight. The Coral Throne Beneath the Osphanis. The Ivy Throne in Lightshore. “Each one a piece of what the gods left behind.”
“And if she gets them all,” Lesha whispered, “she won’t need armies anymore. She’ll be something else. Something the realm can’t survive.”
Lesha was right. She’d be a god herself.
My thoughts flew, unbidden, to Callan.
To the way his eyes had gone distant and wary when he’d mentioned Heliconia wanting a seat beside him on his. Wanting legitimacy. Wanting access. But mostly, wanting his throne for herself.
My fingers curled into the rough fabric of Lesha’s pallet. “Callan was right; the Harvest Throne really is her next target.”
“She’ll kill him the moment he gives her what she wants,” Keres said. “Or even if he doesn’t.”
“Not without an army,” Slade pointed out.
“She won’t need them,” I said, the shape of Heliconia’s plan snapping into place with cold clarity. “She’ll marry him. Or pretend to. Get close. Get onto that throne. And drain it from the inside out before anyone realizes what she’s done.”
“With Concordia’s stolen power backing her,” Slade said. “Clever bitch.”
Lesha’s fingers tightened weakly around mine. “You can’t let her sit on another throne, Auri. Not Autumn. Not any of them. The more she takes, the harder it will be to stop her. If you wait… there will be nothing left for you to save.”
Her words landed like stones in my gut. The weight of it all… not just my court’s curse. Not just my parents’ bargain. The whole realm. The thrones. The magic that held all of Menryth together. It was all hanging in the balance now.
“I thought all I needed was an army,” I whispered. “To break my curse. To face her on a battlefield and win.” I shook my head. “But armies won’t be enough, will they?”
“You’ll need the thrones,” Lesha said. “Or at least, you’ll need to keep them out of her hands. Meerdra told you that, didn’t she?”
“She gave me riddles and headaches,” I muttered. Then softer, “She warned me. I just didn’t understand how bad it could be.”
Lesha’s gaze met mine, soft and clear. “I have missed you.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears burning my eyes. “I’m here now.”
Her eyes drifted shut, her breaths going shallow again. Panic flared in my chest.
“Rest,” Keres murmured, gently easing Lesha’s hand from mine to tuck the blankets higher. “She’s done more than enough for one day.”
I sat there a moment longer, watching the rise and fall of Lesha’s chest.
Callan’s face flashed across my thoughts again. His fear. His arrogance. The way he’d said he didn’t want to be his father—and how easy it would be for Heliconia to make him into something worse than Duron ever was.
If she claimed his throne, Autumn would fall. And with it, every fragile hope we had of stopping her before she came for the rest.
I pushed to my feet.
The cave swayed then steadied as I fought off my own lingering exhaustion. Leif’s hand hovered near my elbow as if he wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t topple over.
I looked at Eirnan.
He watched me like he already knew what I was going to say.
“How long,” I asked hoarsely, “until we reach Autumn?”