Chapter 24 #4
Later that day, after training and dinner, I slipped away from the dining hall and made my way toward the field Aiden, and I hadn’t trained on in what felt like weeks.
The snow crunched beneath my boots as the cold bit into my cheeks, but it wasn’t the weather that chilled me.
It was the absence. Firebeard should’ve been out here, yelling at us to focus, to push harder.
He was the only one who really believed in us.
Who wanted to help us. I missed him. I hoped wherever he was, he was safe.
Not silenced.
I kept walking until I reached the spot where we had found the boy’s body.
Now there was nothing but a patch of snow, flattened by boots and blurred by time.
Another student is gone. Another name etched into the stone plague outside the school.
Forgotten. Just like the boy whose life I took.
I wondered if my father ever heard about that.
He probably did. And, like always, chose silence.
Shaking the thought off, I dropped to one knee and summoned a flicker of fire in my palm, the golden flame crackling gently as it melted the snow around me.
I swept it in slow arcs, letting the warmth guide me, searching for anything unnatural.
Then it recoiled. The fire hissed and twisted back from a tree trunk to my right. Found it.
I stood and approached cautiously. Nestled deep in the bark, half-concealed by the frost, was a rune, black as ash and humming with a terrible pulse.
I reached out slowly, and the moment my fingers brushed the stone, the world around me shattered.
And reformed. Suddenly, I was standing in the sun realm again.
Golden wheat rippled in the breeze. The sky was a rich blue, and warm air kissed my skin with the scent of jasmine and summer.
But something felt… off. Dimmer. Like a storm lingering just beneath the surface.
“Hemera?” I called, and there she was. The Sun Goddess turned to me, her once-radiant presence dulled. Her red hair still shimmered, and her blue eyes still shone but there was a heaviness in her expression, and when her gaze landed on the rune in my hand, it darkened.
“What is that?” she asked sharply, her voice low and tense.
“It’s a rune,” I reply, slipping it quickly into my satchel. “I have so much to tell you—”
“I hope it’s good news,” she interrupted, but there was no hope in her voice, only weariness.
“Some of it is,” I admitted, stepping closer.
I told her everything: about the two dead students, Firebeard’s suspicious disappearance, the arguments and kiss with Aiden, the friction between us that refused to settle and yet, somehow, the way we were working together now.
She listened in silence, standing near a golden bench, her thoughts hidden behind a furrowed brow.
Then, as if something clicked in her mind, she turned to a radiant chest embedded with threads of light.
From it, she retrieved a delicate amulet, an orb of warm yellow energy encased in gold.
“I want you to have this,” she said, her tone gentler now.
“What is it?” I asked as she approached and fastened the chain around my neck. The gem pulsed, briefly glowing like the last ray of the setting sun.
“It’s the sun’s core essence. A fragment of my power,” she said, stepping back. “Keep it safe, Rynlee. I fear… I won’t be able to, for much longer.”
A pit opened in my stomach. “What do you mean?”
She sank onto the bench, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “This darkness it’s devouring me, piece by piece. Every time I summon you here, I grow weaker. That’s why I haven’t called you. Soon, I may not be strong enough to return at all.”
I sat beside her, grasping her hand. “Hemera, no. Don’t say that. You can’t die.”
“I don’t want to,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.
“But if I do… that gem will keep you anchored to my power. It will help you grow. And, one day… it may help you with the resurrection.” My heart twisted.
She sounded like someone already fading, already preparing to say goodbye.
“Promise me one thing,” she continued, her grip tightening around mine.
“Trust your instincts. Trust your light. And above all… trust the bond between you and Aiden.” I hesitated.
That was the one thing I wasn’t sure I could promise.
My relationship with Aiden was chaos wrapped in fire.
But when I looked at her when I saw the desperation in her gaze I nodded.
“I promise.”
Her shoulders relaxed, but only a little.
“Good. And remember, Rynlee… Aiden’s power is strong, but it is rooted in darkness.
He was born of the moon, and that darkness lives in his blood.
If he is left unbalanced, if he loses the light, he will fall.
” The sky began to crackle, and the realm flickered.
“Wait, Hemera—!” But she was already vanishing. And I found myself back in the snowy field, the rune cold in my satchel and the sun’s gem burning warm at my chest. More questions. More warnings. And the terrifying possibility I might lose her… and him.