Chapter 52
Elorie
“My queen.” Wilder drops to a knee.
I’ve never seen him bow to anyone, but his head drops for his mother.
Across the ring, I notice Selia’s cheeks pale. Thunder stirs in the air as Queen Delayna walks toward the altar. Her toe reaches the edge, and she pauses, which is when I notice the slightest flicker.
Her face cracks, like the webs in the windows when I try to stare through them. A mask that paints another image over what’s really there.
“What is this?” Wilder shoves to his feet. “This is not my queen. This sight was stolen.”
Rage courses through the thread between us, rattling my heart with every beat of his.
King Malachi grins, twisting the orb around his neck until the queen flickers again, and this time, a scythe slices through her neck, sending blood splattering as her head rolls. “The queen is dead.”
Selia’s eyes are stone cold while Wilder’s bloom with rage. His hands clasp, but no magic crackles in the air with the trap that entombs us. My own frustrations wane as Wilder’s pain crashes through me. It rips at my heart until it’s nearly unbearable.
I reach for him because I can’t help it. This need to soothe him. To heal him. To wash away his hurt is overwhelming.
My mate.
His gaze shoots to mine, and I know he heard me. The mark on my chest burns as those two words settle. As I accept them. Maybe a part of me has known since the prison. It was simply buried so deep I didn’t know what to make of it. I recognized myself in his eyes. I recognized us.
Wilder reaches for me again, and this time, I don’t pull away. His fingers twine through mine, and he brushes his thumb over the back of my hand. Anger is still a heady turbulence inside him, but the crashing waves have subsided.
King Malachi twists his fingers on the orb again, cycling the vision back to that of the queen alive.
The image is more distant. She’s on a balcony overlooking a forest so lush it sings.
Every leaf and branch stir with magic. It’s somewhere I’ve never been, and yet, my heart longs for it like it’s my home.
Wilder squeezes my hand, and I rest my other hand on his forearm. This is his home. A memory from it. A vision of his queen speaking with his father, the king.
It’s clear that both Wilder and Selia take after their mother. Apart from the same dark hair and bronze skin, they all share a similar nose. While Wilder’s features are more angular, they’re both clearly descendants of their queen.
In the vision playing in front of us, the queen stands at the ledge that overlooks the forest.
“Wilder is the key to the Well. The gods’ blessed. And he will lead us to the other,” Queen Delayna says.
“You’re sure?”
She nods, and her emotionless expression reminds me of her son.
“His magic is not of this realm, Redsen. It is not that of lightning like they whisper. Darvel said that when it woke, it was fragments, and that Wilder has been careful to shape it, hiding its true nature from me. He’s wielding the aether. ”
King Redsen’s eyes widen. “There is no such thing. Only Davorian wields the aether. It is a magic of the gods.”
“Exactly.” The Queen turns. “And so it is written that the realms were gifted with pieces of the gods. And that within each realm would be a drop of magic to wake only for the gods’ blessed.”
“You quote the old text.”
She nods. “Wilder has been blessed by the gods with the heart of our realm. With the magic of Davorian.”
“That’s impossible. The heart of the realm sleeps for a reason. Millenia have passed, and it has never stirred for the Fae.”
“It woke for Wilder. I do not know how or why, but it did.” The queen stops in front of the king. “That night Wilder was born, I felt the shift in the stars. Something opened, and the realm gave him the gift of its very own magic.”
“Have you summoned Wilder from Andare to tell him? If he holds the magic of the heart of the realm, he might be able to heal the damage of the Collision.”
She shakes her head, frowning. “It’s not that simple anymore. Our magic has twined with that of Lyrichia. The Well muddles us together. Wilder’s magic will not heal us on its own anymore. Not unless we find the gods’ blessed from Lyrichia as well. Only together can they stave off the Well.”
“There is no celestial wielder in Lyrichia. The spies would have heard. Just because the heart of Vaelier woke doesn’t mean it did there.”
Queen Delayna takes the seat beside the king at the edge of the bed. “You’re right, the heart of Lyrichia hasn’t woken yet. But the seas showed me that Wilder can wake her.”
“Her?”
“I’ve seen her.” The queen nods. “The blue-haired girl who will wield the gods’ blessed power. She waits in the stars to be born. But when she is, Wilder must be there to wake her. If he is not, then we all will die.”
“Where does he need to be?”
Queen Delayna folds her hands in her lap, frowning. “Alyssium.”
“The human island?”
“The prison,” she answers, and the king frowns. “Our son must fall. To wake the star, he must meet his fate. Only then will the magic that can save our realms be born. I saw the truth in the sea.”
“Our meeting next week with the king—the one I’ve been warning you about—”
“Is a trap for Wilder. For all of us.” Queen Delayna’s tone is sharp. “And we will walk into it. For the heart of our kingdom, my son will fall.”
Wilder’s palm is sweaty. His body is rigid. The sight of his mother and father fades, and he’s still as death beside me, not blinking.
A century ago, Wilder didn’t just fall in battle. He was brought down by his own queen. She sacrificed herself and her son for some vision of the gods. She led him to his capture. To that prison.
To me.
My father’s voice hums in my mind. “You don’t need the sun to glow, not when you are the heart of a star.”
Did he know?
Did he understand where my magic came from?
Not a life wielder. Not a death wielder. Not a necromancer. But a celestial wielder, gifted with magic from the heart of the realm. A god’s magic.
The magic of Voilene.
“Who would have guessed your mother was right. That the blessed magic of Voilene would be trusted in the hands of a half-human?” King Malachi sneers, disgusted.
“How did you get this vision? They were in the palace in Quietus.” Wilder’s teeth grit.
“There are eyes in every palace.” King Malachi’s gaze cuts across the courtyard to where Greer stands.
“Your parents made a worthy sacrifice, providing the key to saving your kingdom. You should be proud. It was too great a secret to let them carry it, unfortunately. But they did their kingdom a great service in retrieving it for me.”
Greer’s back straightens as the king’s words sink in.
“It was too great a secret to let them carry it.”
It was never the rebels who killed her parents. They reported what they learned to the king, and he couldn’t risk them telling anyone else. He had them killed, and he made it look like the enemy. All to incite this war and play into his scheme.
Greer tries to rush forward, but Callum catches her. Not to protect the king but to protect her from herself. She’ll be dead before she reaches him. Either from the guard at her side or the king. There is no battling him. He made sure of it.
Callum wraps his arms around Greer, whispering something in her ear as tears start to fall. The first real emotion I’ve seen stain her cheeks.
“You’re horrible.” I turn to King Malachi, glaring.
“I am protecting my kingdom, Elorie. Something you were prepared to do only moments ago.”
“Not like this.” I shake my head. “This isn’t protecting your people.
You slaughtered your people. You—” My mind jogs as I try to put all the pieces together.
“You caused the split in Solace, too, didn’t you?
I saw your magic in that crack, pulling the Well to the city.
You set siege on your own people for this twisted mission. ”
“You needed motivation.” King Malachi isn’t the least bit apologetic. “I helped set your magic free.”
Callum steps forward now, but guards turn at him from every angle. He and Greer are trapped in place, and Malachi gleams.
“At least now we’ve weeded out the traitors in my court.”
I jump forward but can’t get past the wall of magic locking me inside the altar. Wilder grabs my waist, holding my back to his chest, just as tense but trying to calm me.
“What do you plan to do with us now?” I shove my chin up. “If you hurt them, I won’t help you heal anything.”
Malachi’s chin dips, and his eyes darken.
“Healing implies fixing what is broken. Why bother when I could just recreate? The gods blessed you two with the power of destruction and creation, and now you’re at my fingertips.
Do you understand what your magic can do?
Why heal this shattered, broken realm when we can create something new? ”
“I will never help you with that.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
“Magic can’t be stolen.”
He turns the orb between his fingers. “To steal implies it belongs to you. While for most magic that is the case, yours also belongs to the realm. And when you are but an empty corpse, that’s where it will try to return, but it will not make it that far.”
The king grins, slowly spinning the orb.
“What can that orb do?” I ask Wilder.
“I don’t know. He’s worn it for at least a few centuries but never indicated where it came from.”
“It feels… wrong.”
“It feels familiar.”
I look up at Wilder, who’s focused on the orb as well. “Familiar to you?”
“Familiar to my magic. It whispers something that I can’t understand.”
“But you hear it?”
He nods.
“Interesting,” Malachi muses. “Your mate also has the ability to mind whisper. I suppose that makes sense with her celestial magic. But it’s quite difficult keeping tabs on you when you do that.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you.” Wilder doesn’t sound sorry at all.
“I’m going to miss our little chats,” King Malachi says, stepping forward. “But the full moon has fully risen, and it is time to claim what is mine.”
“A kingdom does not belong to the king or the Crown. It belongs to the people.” Wilder’s jaw tenses. “You desecrate your lineage with what you’re doing. You spit on those who put you in this position.”
“I am the king. I am my crown and my people and my kingdom.” King Malachi’s voice pitches as he stands on the opposite side of the invisible barrier that separates us.
“And when I am done with you and your mate, I will be you as well. Your magic. Your kingdom. I will drink them all down and create something far greater. I will not just be a king. I will be a god.”
A god.
I glance back at Greer and Callum, who are watching from the side.
Bound with magical ties that hold them back.
I think about my father, dying for a false cause created by a selfish king.
I think about Isolde, sacrificing herself so that we might get to this point where I would save the kingdom with my magic.
My magic.
I glance at the staff, still floating even though it is bound within the same confines that encircle us on the altar. It should have fallen when we were sealed off from the realm, but it didn’t because its magic does not come from here.
It comes from Sarrow.
Wiggling my fingers, I seek a spark of my magic.
It is tempered by the barrier, but it is there.
It is in my blood. There is no losing it, even when it becomes distant.
Even if it is but a speck. As Isolde told me when Hazel grabbed my arm and nearly drained me to nothing: “It is not infinite like you might think—within this realm or your blood—but it can always be replenished if there is but a kernel left to water.”
King Malachi tried to cut off that water, but he made a mistake. He drained the magic from the stone, and he blocked us out from the magic of the realm. Of the leaves and trees. Birds and animals and blood. But that is not where my magic comes from.
I look up at the stars.
My magic might be born of the heart of this realm, but it does not come from here. It whispers to me in the night, even through the thickest clouds covering Alyssium. It sparkles against the darkness. It sings where the sun’s shine doesn’t reach.
I do not answer to magic only of this realm. I wield more.
I’m endless.
I reach up and let the stars burn through me. I feel along the endless chasm of darkness until I reach a single thread. A star hanging just within reach. A kernel of power, like the heart of Lyrichia. I wrap myself around that bit of bright white light, and I pull it down.