Chapter 18
Elorie
Wilder isn’t in the training ring when I arrive. It should be a relief, but something about it doesn’t feel right with how closely he’s been watching me lately.
“Is he finally done taunting me while I train?” I ask Greer, who is polishing her sword.
She looks up to the empty spot where he usually perches during our training sessions. “Seems that way. Thank Gods. I’ll be glad when he Cleaves with the rest of his realm.”
The thought sends a chill down my spine. Cleaving is the ultimate curse to wish on someone. As King Malachi explained, it is more than death. It is the consumption of all.
Unlike the transfer of souls through Sarrow into the After, there is no knowledge of what is beyond the Cleaving. Some say it is complete erasure from fate. Others whisper it is the greatest sacrifice in the eyes of the gods.
Either way, to wish all of Vaelier such a destiny is merciless.
Greer’s jaw sets, and I wonder if her hate stems from the brutality of the battlefield or something more personal.
She doesn’t tell stories about her family or home.
I don’t even know where Greer is from. But, as a member of the Guard, she must have fought on behalf of her kingdom at some point.
I don’t doubt she’s seen great losses in this war.
“Have you been to the battlefront?” I ask, meeting Greer at the weapons chest and grabbing the daggers I’ve grown used to.
“Yes.” She frowns. “I fought at the front lines for nearly a century before I was pulled back to the palace. Hopefully, I’ll be sent to help them again soon.”
“Did you prefer the battlefront?”
“It’s where help is needed the most.” She turns, walking to the center of the training ring and swinging her sword in her hand, likely testing its weight in the breeze.
Greer is a true warrior, unlike many of the guards at the palace who have never been to the front lines. She’s fought in this war—would rather be fighting in it now—than stuck training me.
I don’t blame her. While I spend my days learning new tricks with daggers and failing to resurrect the dead, humans are dying on Alyssium.
Fae are dying in Lyrichia.
It makes our afternoons together seem unimportant in comparison.
“Let’s get started.” Greer waves me forward.
“You’re not using the daggers today?”
“Your weapons won’t always match your opponent. You need to be ready to fight them regardless of what each of you has in your hands. When you can’t wield, or when your magic is drained, you need to be flexible.”
She takes a swing without any warning, and I barely dodge it. The tip of her blade slices off a strand of hair.
“Your reflexes are improving,” she compliments me with a smile that is as narrow as her steely eyes.
I don’t wait for her to attack again. I move first this time, diving quick and low, aiming for her side. With a swift slice, I nick her chest plate.
“Aim lower next time. Get between the slats of armor and find flesh.”
“Aren’t you worried I’ll actually stab you?”
“Is that an insult?” Greer smirks.
“You just said I’m getting better.”
She spins. The movement is so smooth and fast, I barely have time to defend as her blade slices down. Throwing my arms up, I create an X with my daggers, catching her blade where they connect at the handles. The tip of her sword is an inch from my forehead.
“We can’t die here.” Greer pulls back. “The training ring is spelled so that any wounds will heal instantly. It will hurt like eternal Sarrow, but you’ll recover the moment the blade leaves your body.”
“But Wilder made it sound like I’d kill myself if I killed him during training.”
“Wilder is a liar.” Her eyebrow lifts. “Don’t trust anything he says, Elorie.”
I press my lips together, nodding.
Greer and I go a few more rounds. Each day, my back hits the dirt less than the last. But today, the exhaustion from last night’s attempt with the corpses has me tripping over myself.
Sweat trickles down my face. I grunt, fighting off the force of Greer’s attack to my left side. The sun is blinding with how it shimmers off the golden aura of the palace’s stone walls.
By the time she pauses for a break, I’m dripping from the effort.
“Long night?” Greer looks me over.
“I’m fine.” I try to brush her off.
“You’re not sleeping.” It’s not a question. “Your body needs proper rest if we’re going to get anywhere.”
“I know,” I grumble, not wanting to discuss my exhaustion or my nightmares.
The Ley Court might be lavish and comfortable, but I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since arriving. Between the memories of the prison seeping into every dream and my constant worry for those back home, it’s impossible to get good rest.
I lean against the wall, catching my breath as I stare up at the shimmering palace, and decide to change the subject. “How does light wielding work?”
Greer’s eyebrow lifts. “You’re unusually brave for a human. Asking about the magic of our king in his courtyard.”
“Am I not supposed to?”
A small smile creeps at the edges of her mouth. It’s a hint of amusement when Greer is rarely anything but cold. “What do you want to know?”
“Royals are powerful, aren’t they? Like King Malachi said, they bear the magic of their kingdom, which is why I need to be ready to take it on.”
“Royal magic is the strongest magic there is aside from the magic of the gods,” Greer confirms. “If they bother to get off their golden thrones to train it.”
“You just called the royal court lazy, and yet you say I’m the brave one?” I laugh.
Greer cracks a smile but doesn’t apologize for it. “The full depth of the king’s magic is only known to him—as it is with any Fae. But there are so few with the ability to wield light that not much is known about it.”
“What is known?”
Greer sheathes her sword and leans against the stone wall. There’s not a drop of sweat on her.
“Light wielders are dangerous. It’s not as simple as drawing the brightness of the sun into a room or blinding those they wish to.
It’s rumored they can alter perception. Not just shine light externally, but within.
Heightening emotion, influencing thought.
Tampering with memories as far back as they go.
While many magics can counteract others, it’s nearly impossible to cast shadows strong enough to block that of a light wielder. ”
I look up at the palace. Cracks weave between every stone, webbing in gold and silver along the surface. A beacon of light. Yet, beyond is something darker. Where the trees converge and the brush thickens, light ceases, and there’s something else.
“There are so many different kinds of magic.” I sigh, staring out at the forest.
“There are as many types of magic as there are types of flowers and leaves and animals. As many as there are Fae. No two are ever exactly the same.”
“What do you think I wield?” I ask, and her gaze meets mine. “The king made it sound like I created life.”
“The only ones capable of creating life are the gods. Besides, what lies inside you isn’t creation or necromancy.
I don’t quite know what it is, and I don’t think he does either.
” She rests her hand on my shoulder like she can feel it.
Maybe that’s Greer’s power, to sense it in others.
“Your magic is something in between two things. That’s all I know. ”
Like me, between human and Fae. Not quite one or the other.
“That’s enough training for today. And enough talk of the king’s magic before we both end up on the gallows.”
“The gallows aren’t rumors then?” My eyebrows pinch as I start to follow Greer out of the training ring. “I always assumed it was too hard to kill a Fae to simply hang them.”
“The rope is laced with obsidian.” Her eyes darken, and the reminder of the shackles on me makes me shiver. “It’s enough to weaken them, and over time, even the strongest succumb.”
“They hang there until they die?” My eyes widen. “How long?”
Her gaze is cold and empty when it drifts away. “As long as is needed.”
Greer leaves me with that thought, taking a separate door from the one that leads to my room. And I stand staring out at the courtyard, reconsidering the king’s threats.
Prince of Light.
King of Hope.
Where are either when I look around?
Spinning, I’m about to enter the palace when the door opens, and dark eyes meet mine. The sky dims, like she drank the sun from existence with a single gulp.
I’m careful to avoid Hazel at the nightly dinners, but she doesn’t move from my path. Her presence chokes the air from my lungs.
I attempt to slip past her, thinking she’ll ignore me like she usually does. But in a blink, she moves in front of me, grabbing my wrist. Her fingernails dig into my skin.
A tangy darkness crawls through me, like the snakelike shadows haunting the dead I’ve tried to wake. The taste of the sky at midnight drifts over my tongue.
Her nails bite into my skin, turning black as night when darkness crawls up her hand and arm.
At a distance, her magic looked like shadows, but this close, I see they are something else.
Liquid darkness. Not an absence at all but a presence themselves.
So black they aren’t black at all. They’re endless, with purple flecks.
The heart of obsidian.
But obsidian is the counterpart to all magic, which means it’s not possible to wield it. Whatever Hazel harnesses isn’t stone. It isn’t death. It climbs my skin with tendrils so smooth they’re a caress that soothes at first. Until they turn to teeth and claw. Biting. Dragging every inch.
The webs of darkness trail all the way up her arms and neck as they climb mine, and though she doesn’t move, something pulls me toward her. From the deepest part of my core, I’m being summoned. I don’t so much as flinch, but I feel her taking.
“You see them, don’t you? The threads.” Hazel’s eyes are nearly black, deepening with flecks of purple the longer she stares at me.
“My brother doesn’t understand, but you do.
You see them shifting. Changing with every whisper.
Every decision, every mistake. Do you also see the frays? Where the web has been broken.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I try to pull away, but her grip tightens, choking the air from my lungs.
I’m suffocating in my skin, just like I did in those obsidian shackles. Becoming a void within myself.
“He was in the threads when you found him. How did you unmake it?” The whites of Hazel’s eyes have fully disappeared. “There are so many frays now, and you can’t put them back together, can you?”
My heart races, and I wonder if this is what it feels like for the Fae when they face the Beating. My heartbeat thunders in my chest, and my ribs can hardly contain it. My vision dots until the edges are consumed by darkness. The very fabric of my aura tightens like it’s on the verge of fracturing.
“Elorie.” Strong hands grip my shoulders, pulling me back. A warm, invisible blanket sweeps around me.
Callum tugs me to his chest as Hazel finally releases my wrist.
Her eyes swirl to the center, until she’s blinking at me with her dark gaze. The shadows that creep to her shoulders retreat to her forearms. A small, unsettling smile forms on her lips when her gaze lands on Callum.
I’ve never seen her smile. Never seen so much as a crack of amusement on her stone-cold face. And even if she is now, nothing about it is kind.
“The Callum I remember wouldn’t have risked his life to protect a human.” Shadows creep down her fingers, webbing along the floor around her, but stopping just shy of touching us.
“It’s been a long time since then, Hazel.”
“I suppose it has,” she murmurs, watching him with interest. “Your father was looking for you earlier. I suggest you find him.”
At that, Hazel turns to leave, sweeping her shadows with her. But I still feel them all around. Like the rivers in the cracks in the windows and the invisible ties that bind me to two kings.
Threads.