Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Thea
The air felt oddly charged as Clay, Ayanna, and I descended into the Veilstone caverns. There was a strange dampness to it that hung on my skin and an odd metallic tang that seemed to linger in my nose.
Clay held onto my fingers, helping to hold me steady over the slippery patches of wet rock. He’d offered to help Ayanna, too, but she’d simply narrowed her eyes as if the offer offended her.
She was an interesting addition to our court.
She seemed entirely unfazed in the presence of a king and seemed to revel in annoying Rankor, but got along with Iris as if they were old friends.
So far, though, I didn’t mind her presence.
Although, my mind was far too preoccupied with the Forging to pay her much notice at all.
Our footsteps seemed to echo on and on, tiny droplets of water louder than they should be as we made our way through.
“This is what the Underworld looks like,” I mused, not even realizing I’d spoken aloud until both Ayanna and Clay’s heads snapped towards me, interest and fear flashing in both of their gazes.
Right. They hadn’t been to the Underworld.
No one else knew it as intimately as I did.
Except for Hyrax and Caldrius, of course.
“Parts of it, at least,” I explained, running my fingers around the smooth stone walls of the cave. “Other parts are quite beautiful. It’s filled with good people. People who care for each other and enjoy their time spent together.”
Something in my chest was warming. A force seemed to wrap itself around me, tugging me forward, and I followed its lead, allowing Clay and Ayanna to follow behind me.
“It’s a timeless sort of place, but it’s not isolating or frightening. It just is.”
Clay squeezed my hand. “Maybe one day you can show me.”
I smiled at him. “I’d like that.”
Once, I might have feared taking him there. I might have worried about what he would think of me when he met my father. I might have been terrified that if I brought him there, I wouldn’t be able to bring him back.
There was no room for fear now. Clay had loved me through every atrocity that we had experienced together. Nothing would take him from me now.
Ayanna pointed ahead of us. “Look.”
Around the bend ahead of us, a faint glowing light emerged, unnaturally bright.
That force around me tugged even more sharply as I saw it, and I stumbled forward, dragging Clay behind me as he held tight to my hand.
Ayanna rushed after us as I rounded the corner, and we all gasped as we took in the pulsating light glowing like thousands of tiny beams from the Veilstones bursting out of the rocks.
They were everywhere—stretching out of the floor, hanging from the ceiling. Smooth in some places, cracked and jagged in others. All the same opalescent, shimmering white as the necklace Caldrius had given me.
“It’s beautiful,” Ayanna breathed.
Clay walked towards the stones, taking in the way the light seemed to bend around him. “I thought they had all been looted.”
“They emerge when the Veil is thin,” Ayanna said, pulling the book from the satchel she had slung over her shoulder. “Maybe when you opened all those portals between realms, new stones formed.”
I nodded. Not only did it make sense, but—if I was honest with myself—I wanted that theory to be true. I wanted to believe that something this beautiful had come from that terrible day.
“Let’s do this.” I cleared my throat, steadying my shoulders as I turned towards her.
As much as I wanted to explore these caverns and see just how many of these beautiful stones had emerged, I wanted this all to be over more.
It was past time for Hyrax to return to the Underworld.
Ayanna nodded her agreement. She had read the instructions over and over in the single afternoon it had taken us to prepare to travel here, and then she and I had gone over them repeatedly on the journey here.
“Here.”
I took the blade she extended towards me, turning in Clay’s direction. Ayanna smiled softly, taking the hint and stepping aside, quickly busying herself with preparations to give us a moment of privacy before everything we knew changed.
He came towards me without hesitation, pulling my mouth to his and fusing his lips to mine. Momentarily, I allowed myself to melt into him, savoring that tiny spark of heat that rushed to life in my core. As he pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine.
“Is it terrible to admit that I’m scared?” I whispered, cradling his jawline in my palm.
He laughed, his breath warm against my face. “I am.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be telling me that this will work?”
Pressing his lips against mine once more, he lowered his hands to my hips and gave a reassuring squeeze. “Of course it will, but it’s still okay to be scared.”
I chewed on my lower lip. “And if it doesn’t work?”
Clay looked away, indecision in his eyes, and conflict obvious in the tension in his shoulders.
The part of him that wanted to protect me wanted to give me vague assurances that everything would be okay. The king in him, though, recognized the Goddess in me and knew that platitudes and hopeful wishes wouldn’t be enough to win this war.
We couldn’t just be two people in love anymore.
We also couldn’t be the prince and the last Descendant of Hyrax wearing masks and faking political politeness anymore.
We needed to be leaders, and leaders knew when to be honest about the odds they were facing.
“What if my powers don’t ever come back, Clay?” I could hardly bear to whisper the words. My chest constricted around them, as if giving voice to the fear made it more likely.
He sighed, staring at the ground as he ran his tongue over his teeth. I felt the passing of every second he considered his words like a pounding against my heart. And even though I knew exactly what he was thinking, I allowed him the dignity of being the one to say it.
“I won’t bow to him, Thea. Not for anything.”
When he lifted his head to meet my gaze, his eyes were blazing. The golden light within them was luminescent in the darkness, shining like a beacon to guide the way home.
He was my home.
I wouldn’t lose him again.
“Then we'll go down fighting together,” I agreed, breathing the words like a vow. “To the very end. Even if that end is in the Underworld.”
Clay traced my lower lip with his thumb. “If that’s what it comes to, I will happily follow you into death.”
After the past few months, I'd grown rather accustomed to the concept of death. I knew, better than anyone, what waited for us on the other side of the Veil. I’d walked every corner of the Underworld and seen it for myself. If we lost this war and our lives with it, I knew where we would end up.
And when I pitched forward and kissed him, I did so with joy in my heart because that outcome—as much as I would fight tooth and nail to avoid it—didn’t seem that bad.
Clay’s arms circled my waist, pulling me to him, and the chasm of hurt, pain, and fear inside of me shrank even further as his tongue tangled with mine.
He kissed me as if it were the first and last time all at once.
His touch was both gently and insistent, and I was just as desperate for him.
Warmth traveled throughout every inch of me, as I pulled against his tunic, needing the feel of him pressed against every part of me.
If we only had this last kiss before the end of this war, then I wanted him to feel my love in every second of it.
Ayanna cleared her throat, standing from the circle of crystals she had laid out on the floor. “We should start.”
Pulling away from him felt painful and unnatural, like stepping away and leaving a part of my soul behind. Clay’s pained eyes seemed to mirror my feelings, but he nodded down at me, and I smiled, knowing that whatever happened next I would be able to face it with him at my side.
“Show me what you’ve got, love,” he commanded.
He squeezed my hand once more, his grip pressing the metal bracelets into my skin before he rested a hand on my lower back and pushed me towards the circle.
No more time to waste.
No more delays.
No more time spent feeling powerless.
Stepping inside the circle of stones, I felt a quake of power ripple through me.
Ayanna watched me, as if she could see it sparking up my legs, and nodded as if she had expected it.
I held the blade in my grip, repeatedly tightening and loosening my fingers to keep my grasp on it despite the sweat that lingered in my palm.
“The blood of the divine must be shed?” I questioned, lifting my brows at Ayanna.
“Not a lot; your palm should do.” She glanced down at the book in her hands, nodding to herself once more. “Let it drip onto the stone and imagine your power spreading into a cocoon around you.”
Right.
Simple.
“Well, here goes nothing.”
I lifted my hand, tongue darting over my lower lip as I stared at the wrinkled lines that crossed my skin.
The text had only provided instructions for initiating the ritual, and despite all of Ayanna’s expertise, she hadn’t quite known what the Forging would entail once it actually began. None of us knew what to expect after I cut my hand.
Still, I couldn’t shake the overwhelming sensation that what I was about to do was going to change my life forever.
Lifting my head, I sought Clay, and I held onto his gaze as I sliced the steel against my flesh and let the welling blood drip to my feet.