Chapter 53
Wilder
Elorie is deathly calm as she stands beside me, listening to Malachi rant and rave. He’s always been slightly sadistic, but there’s more to it as he praises himself for what he’s done. Something different pulses like a current around him.
I look down at Elorie’s pale cheeks—her parted lips.
I tried everything to protect her. If it had come down to it, I would have let her choose her realm, no matter how it would have destroyed me.
I tried to keep my distance at first, making sure she was safe at the palace in preparation for the Rite.
She was always going to make her own decision, and I accepted that it would mean my kingdom would fall. It was a burden weighing heavily on us both these past few weeks.
But then this thread knotted. She continued to draw closer, unable to resist me like I was unable to resist her.
My mate.
She glances up at me like she hears me say it. Silver spears stab me cleanly through.
Malachi laughs, and then her expression changes. Something dangerously peaceful moves through her. Before I can reach through the thread, she takes a step back. Her hand releases mine, and I’m instantly colder.
Her silver eyes glimmer as she looks up to the stars, and it’s as if she calls the moonlight through the clouds. They part, opening a mouth of starshine above us. Her fingers reach, and I realize what she’s doing.
Elorie’s magic isn’t from the ground below. It’s not like mine, even if they’re both celestial. I summon my power from the essence of all things. Life. Being. Aether. But Elorie… her magic is rooted in creation, which begins with nothing. With darkness. With fate.
Elorie calls to the stars.
The flecks on her cheek sparkle as starlight slowly begins to spread across her skin. A flush of light turns her into the moon. It dulls the color of all else around it. Her fingertips glow, and star flecks climb her wrists, her forearms. She’s no longer a flicker of magic. A whisp of light.
Elorie is starfire, brightening the night sky.
White wings sprout at her back. A wave of glittering starlight feathers, fluttering in the breeze.
Most Fae have wings, but they only appear when summoned. When burrowing into the heart of our magic. They’re all unique.
Elorie’s appear now.
Her white wings frame her body as her magic swells, until she draws inward and they vanish as quickly as they emerged. Her magic condenses.
Around us, murmurs turn to screams. The ground begins to quake.
Trees shake free their leaves, and creatures scatter.
Elorie wiggles her fingers searching for something, and only when she finds it does she still.
She blinks once, and then her eyes meet mine.
Perfectly calm and peaceful. And then she summons her magic down in a pillar of white fire that sears through the shell that contains us.
The moment we’re free, I immediately grab her and pull her from the altar.
Her skin is so hot she scalds my palms, but there’s no time to feel the pain. No time to think as Malachi unleashes the Guard on us.
My mother betrayed me. She led me into a trap to wake my mate’s magic. And while I understand her reasoning for wanting to save the kingdom, I refuse to be taken down again. Not when they’ll take Elorie down with me.
The Guard closes in, two aiming for Elorie.
I dig my fingers into the ground, feeling the stir of what was distant just moments ago.
My mother was right that I manipulated my magic to confuse others.
I let them think I wielded lightning, and I shaped it as such.
Elorie is the first person I’ve admitted the truth to.
But now, all has been revealed. There’s no more hiding.
No holding back. I’ve been careful not to let anyone see just how powerful I am.
But as Malachi’s army descends on my mate, I let go of every tether that reins me in.
I cling to the bond that ties us together, and I barrel into the realm, clinging to every bit of aether in Lyrichia.
With a swift pulse, I stand, sparking my magic at my palms. It forms a tight ball that condenses until there is no more containing it. No more containing me. With a flick of the wrist, I let it go, and half of Malachi’s Guard turns to fragments.
Elorie’s eyes widen as she takes in the scene. She stumbles, pulling herself to her feet, and I wrap her in my arms to steady her. She isn’t used to calling upon as much magic as she just did.
I brush her hair out of her face. Her freckles glow brighter than ever.
“I’m sorry,” is all I say.
Two words that are utterly insignificant after what’s happened. But if she hears nothing else from me in this life, she needs to know that I am sorry for what I’ve brought on her. My actions have leveled kingdoms. Started wars.
I’ve never apologized once for what I’ve done in the name of my crown. Not until her.
“Did you do it on purpose?” Her eyebrows pinch.
“Yes. No.” There’s no good answer. “I was trying to protect you, but I never meant to take your choice away. It just…”
“Happened,” she finishes my thought, understanding whether she likes it or not.
From the moment her voice trickled through the screams tearing me apart in the prison, this path was inevitable. Our bond unbreakable.
For centuries I hoped I’d never meet my mate. I didn’t like the idea of the gods or the Luminess deciding my path for me. Until I saw Elorie, and I understood there was no path without her.
No light.
No future.
She is the other half of my heart, even as it beats too quickly—too mortal. I was incomplete, and now I’m whole. I don’t deserve her, but she’s mine.
Her silver eyes set on me, hearing every thought. Understanding me in a way I’ve never understood myself.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“I know.”
The ground shivers, pulling my attention back to the battle. My gaze settles on Malachi, who is still standing in place while Hazel whispers in his ear. Selia brews a storm over Callum, but he easily wipes it away with his magic.
“Don’t.” Elorie grabs my arms when I focus on Malachi. “I know you want to go after him, but you can’t. There’s something wrong. He’s too strong. It’s not natural.”
She’s right, and I have a feeling it has to do with that orb around his neck. I wish I knew where he got it so I might know its limits. He started wearing it religiously a few hundred years ago, and he’s slowly changed since then.
“We need to get out of here.” Elorie glances to her left. “But I’m not leaving Greer or Callum.”
Reaching into my pocket, I snag the small seed Lochlan left for me in Solace. The last bit of hope if all goes as planned.
“What is that?” Elorie asks as I drop the seed to the ground. The stones part as the realm drinks it down.
“Hopefully, backup.” So long as Atlas made the arrangements we discussed. “I need to get to Selia.”
Our mother gave up on us. She used us. But I refuse to leave my sister.
“Go,” Elorie says, squeezing my arms.
She stands back, burning up, until her blue hair turns pure white, glowing like snow reflects the sun when the blizzard wanes and morning comes. She shines in the center of the madness and casts a path of starlight out around her, sending four guards to their knees.
“We’re going to circle back around to how incredibly hot that is, Starfire,” I say, and she smiles.
But not right now. Right now, I need to get to Selia, and Hazel stands in my way.
Elorie runs to help Callum and Greer, who are taking arrows and trying to fight them off with spits of magic and daggers. Selia has them cornered, but Elorie manages to push her back with a burst of a blue shining wave.
Malachi’s eyes are closed, and it’s unnerving. He twists the orb between his fingers, somewhere in his mind instead of here.
“Get out of my way, Hazel,” I warn her when she steps in my path.
She smiles, shadows crawling up her arms. Not that they’re actually shadows. They’re dark voids of magic. Simply being around Hazel is worse than any obsidian. She moves her hands, and her magic dances around them.
With the swiftness of a viper strike, she sends one darting for me, and it nips at the wall of my magic.
“We’ve done this dance before, Hazel,” I remind her. “You lost then, and you’ll lose now.”
I weave a bolt of aether for her, but she catches it with a shadowy maw, drinking it down.
“We were on better terms then. You weren’t trying to kill my brother.” Her eyes narrow.
“You approve of his plan to destroy the realm? Even you aren’t that evil.”
She grins, but there’s nothing friendly about it. Dark wings sprout from her back, dripping with death. Not her true wings, but an illusion of them. A wave of emptiness she slings at me.
I barely manage to deflect the attack, while she catches a few of her own guards on accident. They stumble to the ground, choking on their magic. Sparks foam at their mouths as their eyes bulge from their heads.
She’s gotten stronger.
Like she can read my thoughts, her expression hardens. “I can make it painless, Wilder. One blink, and you’ll be gone.”
“I could do the same.”
“But you won’t,” she points out. “Do you know what the dead whisper? What’s come of the Collision? Of the death of the Arch to Sarrow?”
She circles, not taking her eyes off me.
I never knew she could hear the dead, but that’s unsettling. “What do they whisper?”
“That it’s closed even in the spirit plane.
” Her voice drops to nearly a whisper. “Even souls can’t enter.
They hang around us, consuming the very magic we scrabble for.
They drink as much as the Well, until they go mad like—” She holds up her hand, watching the shadows curl between her fingers.
“Many things are escapable, but death is not. Then or now. And staying here, in this state, will not end well for any of us. Malachi will save us from that fate.”
“By destroying everything.”
“To make is to unmake something else.”
My fingers tense as I wrangle the magical barrier between us. “And what has he promised to remake for you, Hazel? A prison of obsidian that he’ll lock you away in like he does now?”
“No.” She shakes her head, her voice cold and low. “He will not remake me at all. If I help him, he’ll let me go from existence. No After. No risk of reincarnation or these shadows swallowing me whole. He will unmake me entirely.”
Her voice is peaceful. She’s resigned to her fate. Worse, she wants it, and I can’t help thinking it is part of Malachi’s continued manipulation.
“Fae shouldn’t play gods,” I say, weaving my magic around her, looking for a striking point but not finding one.
“That’s easy to say when you wield the ability of one.” Her shadows strike back with every attack, big or small. “You cannot win, Wilder. Not when you fight for so many.”
“I don’t need to win; I just need to get past you.” I can fall in this battle so long as I can get to Malachi first. So long as Elorie lives, my fate is inconsequential. “Nothing you do will stop me.”
“Really, nothing?” Hazel’s eyebrow tics, and her gaze darts behind me.
Her magic weaves in and out of the Guard.
Malachi’s army grows as more guards spill from the palace, flooding the courtyard and trapping us.
Elorie is tangled in a mess trying to fight beside Greer and Callum, and they are barely making progress.
A shadow forms at the back of the line, near the archers, and I watch as Hazel reforms—a mirror of herself that whispers in a guard’s ear.
Her darkness caresses over him, and his attention turns to Elorie.
The archer pulls back on his bow, ready to strike, and Hazel steps back, grinning.
Elorie doesn’t even see it coming. The silver spear pummels through the air. And I abandon everything to get to her.
Moving faster than thought, I cut through the crowd. I leave Malachi to his rambling and abandon my battle with Hazel. Nothing matters except reaching Elorie in time, just like in that prison. Or on the beach. Everything circles back to her.
I grab her by the hands and spin her until I’m between her and the arrow, and we’re moving in slow motion as her hair hangs suspended around her shoulders. Her scream rips through the fabric of the fates as the arrow pierces my back, spearing straight through me.
We’re back where we started.
Fate is always a blessing and a curse. It takes as much as it gives.
The arrow lodges through my chest, nicking my heart, which is already beating too fast.
Elorie’s mouth is still open as she processes what happened. Her fingers reach for me. And even if I’m imagining things, I swear I see the thread that ties her heart to mine. I hear her cry echoing in a chasm that’s becoming far too wide.
Her fingers stretch, glowing with starlight. And then her eyes turn pure white, and she doesn’t just grab the stars, she becomes one.