Chapter 28
Elorie
“You’re following me.” I tip my chin up at Wilder.
Shadows cast darkness over the beach, but around us is a bubble of sheer light. Not light—but energy. The humming presence of his aura protects us from the wave of darkness.
He angles his head. “You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t thank you.” I wipe my bloody blade on my leathers and look around. “Prove useful, and maybe I will.”
He chuckles, looking up at a darkening cloud in the distance. “You’re a difficult one to save, Starfire. Let’s just hope this turns out better than the last time.”
The last time being when he died for me in the prison.
The thought of Wilder dying protecting me a second time makes my stomach clench. Or maybe it’s the thought of him dying at all. Anything that ends with him no longer being here is unbearable.
A scream tears through the darkness—deeper than any night. Angrier than any storm.
“We need to get to Greer.”
Wilder glances down, and I realize I’m gripping his arm. The fabric of his shirt is thin enough to feel the heat of his magic radiating off him. It burns so hot my palm sizzles, but I don’t let go; I simply feel it.
“Stay near me,” Wilder says.
I know better than to believe he’s protecting me because he cares. If I die, he dies; we’re tied. And if that isn’t a good enough reason, there’s the slim hope he’s clinging to that I’ll choose him at the Rite.
He’s protecting me for my magic, that’s all, I remind myself.
Wilder turns, but a bolt with no form surges toward us, so he pulls me down to the sand. “Gods damn it.”
He laces his fingers through mine, and my skin tingles at the vibration of his storm magic moving like a current through his veins as he tugs me to my feet and we start to run.
“You think I’m a storm wielder?” He pulls me along beside him, aiming for a mass of tents and guards.
“Is now really the time for you to be picking apart my thoughts?”
“It helps me focus.” He’s in my head, but his gaze is on anything else, watching as we cross the beach, avoiding what feels like an oncoming wave of trouble.
Ravagers circle, refusing to take their physical form. And I worry there are too many of them for the Guard on the beach to handle, especially if we can’t fight them.
“What are you then?” I ask, trying to think about anything except what we’re about to face.
“Since when do you care?”
“I don’t care. I’m distracting myself from imminent death.”
“It’s not imminent. Not with me by your side, Starfire.” He glances at me long enough to wink, and I roll my eyes.
“Your ego is ridiculous.”
Wilder chuckles, and it makes my spine prickle.
We reach the line of tents, finding half of them on fire. Pillars of smoke stretch up into the darkness like the pyres on Alyssium. My gaze cuts to the ocean, where right now a matching beacon of death could be burning, and my heart tugs.
“Down.” Wilder pulls me against him, shielding me as he throws out a hand.
Lightning rains from above.
“Not lightning,” he corrects me, and our gazes meet.
He’s so close I can feel him breathing. I can see how thick his lashes are when he blinks.
I can absorb the full depth of his golden eyes.
The shimmer on their surface is an illusion because they go far deeper than being just one color.
Every layer is another shade of gold. His eyes are the heart of their very own realm.
Wilder smirks, probably reading my thoughts, and I shove him off me.
“Get out of my head.”
“Says the girl in mine.”
He isn’t wrong, but the problem is, I don’t mean to be there. There’s this empty space I keep stepping into. A thread that’s always open, and without thinking, I tug on it and find my way to the other side.
A shock wave pummels across the beach, kicking up a wave of sand. The guards run for the cover of the tents as Wilder wraps me in something.
“Aether.”
My eyes widen. “Aether wielders don’t exist in this realm.”
“I’m not from this realm.” He smirks, standing.
His hands open and his eyes close.
Aether wielders predate the old texts. None have been noted for millennia.
Or so I thought. But as the air bristles and everything from my tongue to my toes prickles, I believe that’s what Wilder is.
Aether isn’t a substance of any one realm.
It ties them all together. It’s the pieces of all things.
The very essence of what makes the plants, the trees, magic itself.
It is everything, and yet, not well understood. It is light, space. Reimagining.
And destruction.
Wilder holds his palms to the sky, calm as can be. His hair stills like time itself has stopped moving. The runes peeking through the laces in his tunic glow.
Marks of the gods.
Maybe Greer was right. Not that he’s a god. If anything, Wilder strikes me as a Fae who would bring them to their knees. But something beyond this realm exists within him.
Something boundless.
My ears buzz as his magic trickles out, and I can’t tear my gaze away from the look on his face. It’s peaceful. Serene. Only broken by a dark smile that stretches like he’s laughing at the gods for giving him their power.
They had to have known what could come of it.
At last, the top of Wilder’s scar flares with a pinprick of light. It seeps beside his brow, over the ridge of his nose. A golden stream splits out in a fork at his cheekbone. Until it’s so bright—his magic burns so hot—it explodes.
The essence of the air around us crackles, and the shadowy onslaught sweeps back into itself, forcing the ravagers to take their physical form.
A form we can fight.
“You made them appear.” My eyes scan the beach, where ravagers step out of the darkness into creatures of flesh and bone.
Their teeth shine in the moonlight as their white eyes glow.
Wilder reaches for the sword at his hip, unsheathing it. The streams of his magic have condensed at his hands and forearms. Weaving around them like a second set of veins. Flowing with a surge as bright as lightning.
He glances at the dagger in my hand. “You should get back.”
“I’m not going anywhere until we find Greer.”
The beach swarms with guards as the battle breaks out. Four ravagers set their sights on Wilder, and when their lifeless eyes sweep me, a chill runs my spine. I expect Wilder to argue or shove me away, but he snatches a spare dagger from his belt and hands me the blade instead.
His stare hardens. “No mercy. They will kill you.”
“Or worse.” I remember what Greer warned.
Wilder nods, turning to face the oncoming wave. “Only wounds to the throat will slow them down. That, or you need to take the head clean off. Heads or hearts. That’s all that kills them.”
I’m outmatched without my ability to wield my magic, but I’m not going to hide when failing means the ravagers will get past the camp and into the village.
To Millicent and Lune.
Wilder’s gaze meets mine, and what I find in his gaze is confusing. A whirlwind of emotions.
I don’t know what to make of the fact that he didn’t drag me from the beach and force me to return to the palace to keep me safe. Everyone in Lyrichia will die for certain if I’m killed, and still, he listened to me. Like he knows I need this.
The ravagers sweep in fast. Too fast. I can’t differentiate one from the other as they circle.
Guards are at either side of us with blades raised, but Wilder doesn’t push me back; he waits for them to make the first move.
The first ravager lunges, and Wilder moves in a way that tells me he’s been holding back every time we’ve sparred in the ring.
He’s so fast I can’t blink without missing something.
His sword sweeps the air, laced with aether. It swarms around him as he becomes the wind itself. Three ravagers fall in the span of a single breath.
But there’s still more. So many more.
A ravager lunges for me, and I throw my weight into the swift jab upward. In the ring, I’m focused on defending myself, but it won’t do me any good here. I’ll end up cornered. So I attack with brute force while the nails of the ravager reach for me.
Wilder moves at my left, distracting the ravager as I drive my dagger up through her throat. Black blood spills from her emaciated neck. The putrid stench of decaying flesh floods my nose.
Holding my breath, I dig the dagger deeper until the tip peeks through her open mouth at the back of her throat. When I pull back, the ravager falls to the ground.
Wilder spins, suddenly at my side as he thrusts his blade down, finishing the ravager off by slicing off her head in one sweep.
He doesn’t slow, turning to drive his sword through the chest of one at his left.
He drives it up and cleanly through, until the ravager’s guts tumble onto the beach.
But even that isn’t enough to stop him, just to slow him down as he attempts to crawl on the sand.
Wilder wraps the ravager’s neck in a halo of aether, pulling tight until it rips his neck in half.
At my right, two ravagers close in. I’m not quick enough to fight them both, so I aim for the one closest, but I miss, digging my dagger into his thigh.
The other lunges, and her nails sink into my arm.
I wait for the pain as she rips my leathers open and her nails bury themselves in my flesh, but there’s nothing.
No pain.
No blood.
At least, nothing here. Distantly, I feel something tug on the thread that ties me to where Wilder battles on the beach, and I see him wince as his arm slices open.
“What are you doing?” I shove a dagger into a ravager’s eyes, forcing her back. “How are you taking my wounds?”
“Focus.”
Focus? Like it’s that simple when he’s clearly cast some kind of magic to absorb anything inflicted on me.
A ravager tears its nails into Wilder’s side, and more blood spills out. He’s taking too much damage. Mine and his. And after the burst of aether he expelled to force the ravagers into their physical form on the beach, I feel his magic wavering.
I duck when a ravager’s teeth aim for my throat, managing to slice him in the gut. He tumbles to the ground, and I press my knee to his chest, bringing my blade to his throat. With all my weight, I push down until the large dagger slices through, and his head rolls off.
My back is forced into an arch, and with no pain searing through me, it takes me a moment to realize I’ve been struck.
I look down to see long nails sticking through the center of my stomach, where a ravager has speared me with their hand from behind.
He pulls back, and I turn in time to see the ravager aiming for my chest this time.
Rolling, I get out of the way, but he lunges for me.
With my dagger firm in both hands, I hold it upward, piercing the ravager’s heart.
His eyes roll until they’re solid black, and it takes all my strength to force him off me.
I stumble to my feet, catching sight of Wilder. His magic and strength are stretched to their limits with the sheer number of them he’s fighting. Blood pools all over him. From his wounds to the ones he’s taken for me. But he doesn’t slow. Doesn’t falter.
He continues to fight for a kingdom that would rather see him Cleave.
Through the mess of guards and ravagers, one sets their focus on me. It’s a shadow before she takes form. She moves like the wind around the rest of them. Slipping where there shouldn’t be enough space. Weaving through the battle. She’s upon me before I can blink.
One moment, I’m staring into the ravager’s white eyes, the next, Wilder is standing between us, taking the full force of the ravager’s attack to his chest. He stumbles, and I grab the back of his shirt like that will be enough to steady him.
His skin is so hot through his clothes that I can barely handle touching him.
But I don’t let go. I hold the heat that swells within him like it is a part of me, and in a breath, he lets it explode.
Ravagers fall and run and burn. They retreat just enough to give us a break.
It drains so much of Wilder’s magic that his skin cools.
And when he turns, I see the full scope of his wounds.
His eyes no longer glow gold. They’re a deep amber, cast in shadows. Blood covers his clothes.
My palms find his chest, pressing, trying to hold him together, and that’s when I feel it.
Thump. Thump.
Thump. Thump.
His heartbeat.
I remember Callum placing my hand on his chest once.
His heart beat so slowly that I understood how Fae live for centuries.
But Wilder’s heart isn’t beating like Callum’s.
His is like mine but faster. A century on Alyssium was bound to subject him to the Beating, but I never considered it would linger when I resurrected him.
Pressing my palm to Wilder’s chest, I listen to every thump. Not the slow, steady pace of an immortal. Something quicker.
Something human.
Wilder plants his hand on a post behind me, catching himself, and it brings us so close that all I hear is that thundering truth.
His heart is beating too fast. He’s too mortal, his magic is drained, and he’s bleeding from too many different wounds. If Wilder doesn’t get out of here, he’s going to die.