Chapter 15
feel like Cygnus just punched a hole through my chest.
My legs collapse, and I pitch forward, knees slamming against the rocks. I can hardly feel it. I can’t feel anything—my whole head is roaring—I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
My chest heaves, trying to force air into unyielding lungs.
“Lyria…” A hand touches my shoulder.
I yank back like a wounded animal, howling, “Get away from me!”
I’m not angry at Cygnus. I’m warring with every inch of my being to keep my Talent from obliterating him…and every other living thing in this cave. I feel ten thousand pounds of iron pressing down on my chest, and my vision goes completely black. On all fours, I start dry heaving, still gasping….
“Lyria…” Cygnus’s voice is pained, but he doesn’t draw closer.
It’s a long time before I can get down a real breath. Even longer before I can sit back up. Gradually, the attack eases. My trembling slows, and I find the will to draw back my infernal Talent, until it’s a manageable fire under my skin.
There are Elves under Crown City. The Evermoreans live.
I’m not alone.
My throat is raw. One word is all I can manage.
“How?”
Cygnus’s eyes spark, and I know he understands what I’m asking. “You know about the fyres at the end of the Long War?”
I wobble a nod.
“Well, Verdish history doesn’t tell the whole story,” he says.
No shit.
I’m too raw to retort, so I just wait for him to elaborate.
“When Verdin took control of Evermore, he made sure that every account of that battle reported zero survivors,” Cygnus explains.
This was the version of history I grew up with.
The fyres were the decisive end of the hundred-year Long War, when Verdin used dragons to raze the Evermorean capital.
In a single day, the fyrefleet leveled an entire city.
Magical fyre doesn’t burn like regular fire; it melts rock into liquid and can swallow a home in an instant.
It’s impossible to know how many thousands of Elves were lost in the fyres.
But it marked the single most horrific act of the conflict.
A whole generation, an ancient dynasty…gone in a day.
Mother won’t talk about it, like so much of her life, but I recall once when she had too much wine, she described the horror of seeing ash fall from the sky and the clouds turning crimson as the fyrefleet soared over the mountains… .
Wait. I feel like an idiot as it hits me: How could she have seen the fyres? How did she get out?
Cygnus’s next words answer my unspoken question.
“What the history books leave out is what was under the capital. In the cavern around the Everwell, there’s an ancient city where our people once made pilgrimage to worship the Old Gods.
They call it Ruin. And it was reinforced with spellcraft to protect the most sacred, well-guarded resource in the world. ”
The name draws only faint recollection, like something I’ve heard in a lullaby.
Cygnus leans in. “So, on the day of the fyres, Queen Soleste led a host of Evermoreans underground to take shelter.”
“Queen Soleste was never executed?” I say. Cygnus nods. My chest seizes. “And the Evermoreans survived?”
“Some of them did, yes.”
I’m burning with shame from my ignorance.
Carried with it is rage toward my mother for not telling me any of it.
She was there. She had lived through every horror Cygnus was describing.
How could she think it wasn’t important for me to know?
If there is a secret Evermorean stronghold, why didn’t she take me there?
“If there are Elves underground, why haven’t they come to help?” I finally ask.
“Because once the Evermoreans fled to Ruin, they never returned. No one knows why.”
I gaze out into the mottled darkness, trying to sort through my internal chaos. How many times can a person’s paradigm be shattered? I must be approaching a record. “If there are really Elves living under Crown City, how is it possible that nobody in Verdinae knows?”
“Because King Verdin worked hard to wipe out the truth,” answers Cygnus.
“He couldn’t destroy the Everwell, but he could destroy evidence that it ever existed.
It’s been hundreds of years since the fyres.
The only people who can remember are Elves, and he’s effectively eliminated their presence in the Hartlands.
People believe what they’re told to believe.
He wanted all memory of Ruin gone, and he’s nearly succeeded. ”
My head churns with follow-up questions about Ragglestaff and Queen Soleste and Sandria and how all the fragmented parts are connected. One rises above the rest, and I turn back to Cygnus. “Have you been there? To Ruin? Is that where we are now?”
“No,” he says. “But I’ve tried. I came down here once, last year.
I found a book at Belshire that told me about the Everwillow and realized the tree in the garden matched the description.
So I went out to test it—by myself, since I’m apparently an idiot.
Zero preparation. You can imagine what happened when I touched the trunk.
It’s nothing short of a miracle I hit the water feetfirst. And then obviously, I got swarmed by skakabri.
They chased me back to the water, and I was able to hide in the rocks, but not before they stung me here, and here.
” He taps his back and thigh. “The poison worked fast. I’m still not sure how, but I managed the climb to the surface.
I was half dead when I made it back. Fortunately, Ragglestaff was the one to find me.
He knew what had happened at a glance because he’d tried the same thing years ago.
So he treated me with antivenom, and he told me about the Goddesses’ Gates. ”
“What gates?”
“The Everwillow portal is only the first line of defense.” Cygnus points toward the void.
“Down there is a maze, which leads to a series of portals that they called the Goddesses’ Gates.
Ragglestaff said there should be three of them—one for Elowyn, one for Nocturn, and one for Rashielle.
If you can get through all three gates, you should be able to reach Ruin.
But neither of us could make it past the skakabri. ”
All this feels like too much to take in. My Talent prickles under my skin as my confusion builds into despair. How much of this information does Mother know? How much has she kept from me? Why is this ten-minute conversation with Cygnus more enlightening than eighteen years with her?
Yet again, I agonize: Why can’t she just trust me?
“What’s the point of all this?” I finally ask, forcing myself to take a calming breath. “What was your grand plan in dragging me down here?”
“I thought it was obvious.” He blinks. “We should work together to get through the gates.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “Are you insane?”
“No?”
“Cygnus, did you miss the part where the skakabri kicked our asses?” I grow heated. “We need to get the hell out of here as fast as we can! There’s no telling what else could be lurking down there. We are lucky to be alive!”
“People die every day in this war!” he pushes back.
“You don’t always have to watch it, but I do!
I don’t get the luxury of looking away. I’ve had to tell boys younger than me that they’re never going to walk again.
I’ve had to physically tear mothers away from their children because they can’t accept that they’re dead.
Some of the things that I’ve seen—” He breaks off, dropping his head in his hands.
Cygnus’s shoulders rise and fall through a few deep breaths before he tips his face back up.
“People will keep dying and suffering unless someone stops the imperial machine.” He jerks a hand toward the void.
“Someone has to at least try and get through to them. There could be a whole army of Evermoreans down there waiting to fight!”
I’m watching him carefully. “Cygnus, if it were easy to get through the gates, someone would have done it already. Those gates are probably sealed by spellcraft. If they are, there’s nothing we can do.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Magic doesn’t have negotiable rules. You’re saying the Evermoreans have been down there for, what…hundreds of years? And no one has been able to reach them? You and I aren’t going to change that.”
“So you’re not even willing to try?” Cygnus snaps back. “To be clear: I don’t want to die down here any more than you do. The difference between us is that I’m not convinced we will.”
“Well, I commend your self-confidence.”
“It’s not myself I believe in,” he counters. “It’s you, Lyria. What you just did to the skakabri is unlike any magic I’ve ever even read about. If anyone can make it through the gates, it’s you.”
I shake my head. He’s either lying or more stupid than I thought.
“Then that would be your first mistake,” I say.
Cygnus exhales hard in frustration. “I don’t know what your mother did to make you so self-doubting,” he says. “Maybe it’s just something you do to yourself. But it’s not helping anyone. We have a duty to those people, Lyria. Our people.”
My throat wobbles.
Gods-damn him.
I choose my next words very carefully. “Say that I did decide to help you get to Ruin. What, exactly, would that entail?”
“Simple. We try to get through the gates. If we get stuck, we start over.”
“And if we die?”
“Commend our souls to Nocturn, I suppose,” he says easily.
I scoff. “Your life doesn’t mean much to you, does it?”
“I’m the fatherless son of a traitor.” He shrugs. “My life doesn’t mean much to anyone.”
I scowl in disagreement. But I can sense his desperation and—reluctantly—understand it. This is personal for Cygnus.
He’s not just fighting for the Evermoreans; he’s fighting for himself. His future.
I know how it feels to long to be a part of something bigger, to ache for belonging so badly it becomes a physical pain in your chest. I know the sorrow of a stolen future.