Chapter Eighteen Nox
Screams echo around me as the sensation of falling tugs on my stomach harshly.
Despite a phantom wind tousling my hair, I feel weightless—like I’m floating on water.
My chest aches with a hollowness I can’t define, and I don’t think I’m breathing, unsure my heart is even beating, as the space that houses my normally writhing power sits empty.
Unused. Desolate in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
A sharp awareness drags over my spine, stiffening it vertebrae by vertebrae as my consciousness tries to narrow in on where I am.
Minutes or hours, perhaps even days, pass, and I still continue on in the same manner.
My mind wanders to something that might ground me, might pull me out of this terrible existence, and I inevitably land on the image of Rhea.
I picture her honey-blonde hair and the way it rests down her back.
I feel the warmth of her body against mine, how we fit together so seamlessly.
Our connection is one that was formed the day I walked into her tower for the first time, and since then, there has been a constant tether between us.
Except for now.
Threads, golden and blazing brightly as they flutter in the space around me, draw my attention. I know where they lead—where they should lead—yet when I try to tug on them, they don’t bring her to me.
A voice sounds in the distance, light and silvery, comparable to the soft chiming of bells.
I pull again on those threads, watching with growing horror as their light begins to flicker.
Shadows move in from all sides, smothering them until they go out completely, and I’m left alone, once more plunging through darkness.
Nothing but an empty vessel without the presence of her.
Stillness. There is a heavy stillness around me, one made more obvious by the way it pushes on my chest. My heart beats rhythmically behind my ribs, the sound of blood rushing in my ears intensifying the pain throbbing between them.
“How is he here?” The question is asked by a soft voice.
“It should be fairly obvious,” someone else answers, his words melodic and deep—laden with power that somehow rattles my bones. The woman growls, and he laughs. “Where she is filled with the sun and moon, he carries the stars. But it is all made of the same energy. All of the same cosmic origin.”
“What the fuck.”
It isn’t until an uncomfortable silence lingers, feeling as if the eyes of thousands are upon me, that I realize I spoke the words aloud.
The male chuckles, and I pry my eyes open.
The sky above me is filled with a smattering of bright stars, their silver light flaring.
It isn’t just stars but swirls of other things that dot the sky in colors of purple, green, blue, and red.
“Seriously, what the fuck?” Turning my head, I find that the scenery above is the same all around, my body somehow floating in the middle of this fathomless space.
The Middle… Rhea’s description of where her magic sometimes pulled her to and the name of the woman who resides here—one who acts almost as a seer of sorts, though that word isn’t one that is common in our vocabulary anymore—pushes to the forefront of my memory.
“It is an old word indeed, not one used for centuries but one that fits. In a roundabout way.”
Blinking, I look around for the owner of the voice that I know to be Selene as the scent of something flowery suddenly punctuates the air. Cold trepidation spikes when I realize I hadn’t spoken the seer comment aloud. Shit, hadn’t Rhea also told me Selene could hear thoughts?
“Welcome, Nox Flynn Daxel, Crown Prince of the Mage Kingdom, Prince of Stars, and Protector of the True Queen. I am Selene, and it is an honor to finally meet you.”
It takes a monumental amount of effort to bring myself up to a sitting position, as if there is a disconnect in the command from my mind to my body.
Once I’m finally up, I draw a leg in and rest my elbow on it, cradling my aching head in my hand.
“Just Nox is fine. That many titles is entirely ostentatious. And also incorrect.” Her laugh is gentler than the male’s was, and I swallow against the knot that forms in my throat at how much it reminds me of Rhea’s. “Should I be concerned that I’m here?”
“No.”
“Really? Because you certainly seemed concerned speaking to whoever that guy was,” I counter.
“It is unusual that you are here. He was correct when he said your magic is made of the same celestial power that Rhea’s is, but I never thought…” She clears her throat multiple times. “It is just unusual,” she repeats.
“And who was that male?”
“Another who resides here.”
An unhelpful answer, but one I choose to ignore in favor of a different question. “Where is Rhea?” I can’t imagine that if I am here, she wouldn’t be as well.
Selene is unnervingly quiet for so long that I wonder if she has left me, but eventually, she says, “I’m afraid I cannot tell you.”
Unsurprising. Rhea had complained about how the woman in the Middle often provided more questions than answers.
Still, in this instance, it only grows my frustration.
“It is easier for her to access this place while she is sleeping,” I muse, lifting my head from my hand and gazing at a particularly brightly burning star.
“So if she isn’t here and I am, what does that mean? ”
“What is your last memory?”
I lift a brow. “In general?”
Amusement seeps into her tone. “With Rhea,” she clarifies.
I open my mouth, prepared to pull from what should be a flood of memories, only to find that they are fragmented. “I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?”
“It could be the magic that holds you here. Or it could be something else. Go further back until you can draw up a moment of the two of you that is unobstructed.”
Following her instructions, I finally land on a full memory.
“The ball,” I murmur, furrowing my brows.
“No, wait, it was just before that. When she said ‘yes.’” Yes to marrying me.
Yes to a lifetime of her at my side, as my queen.
Another memory flashes. The temple covered in flowers—a cobalt blue flame. “Not just my queen, but the queen.”
“Yes,” Selene says softly, the scent of jasmine thick in the air around me. “Her reign will be one of heart and of blood.” I don’t know what to make of that. “What else?”
“We told my parents and the council about the engagement. The latter had summoned me and my father for a meeting on the matter. I found her after the meeting adjourned, and we danced.” I tilt my head to the side, trying to recount what happened next as a haze begins to creep in on the edges of my mind. Fuck, why is this so difficult?
“What else?” Selene prods gently. “Take the memory one frame at a time.”
It takes a stubborn amount of time, the throbbing between my temples growing the deeper I pull the memory free.
Dancing at the ball.
My tongue giving her pleasure.
Cass interrupting us.
Tienne—an involuntary growl leaps from my mouth at the death of a woman I knew to be good. At the perpetrator I knew was responsible.
And then…
As if I’ve tossed a spool of thread, the rest of the evening unravels piece by horrifying piece.
I watch in stunned silence at the signs I missed—at how easily I allowed myself to be distracted.
I can feel the salty air of the beach and sand beneath my knees as I collapsed onto it, a harrowing cry bellowing from some broken place deep within me.
Then there is only darkness. “Where is the rest?” I ask in a panicked rush. Selene doesn’t answer right away. “Selene! What happens next? Where is Rhea?”
The stars flash—white, then gray, then black—and I slowly push to stand, preparing for a threat that I fear has already passed.
Selene confirms it when she answers, “With him.”
“No.” The single word is wrapped in both command and plea. “She can’t be.”
“I’m sorry,” she says solemnly, but the tone of her words isn’t so much laden in regret as it is resignation.
“You knew. You fucking knew this would happen.” I run a hand through my hair, tugging on the strands as I try once more to draw my power up.
I need to get back to consciousness—to my real body—so that I can get to her.
It has only been, what, a day? Two at most?
I can make up that ground easily if I leave now. I can—
“Nox.”
I ignore Selene, just as my magic seems to be ignoring me. A dull ache flares across my back, followed by a prickling sensation that sends breath hissing through my teeth. Fine. Perhaps I can’t access it here like Rhea can. All the more reason to leave.
“Nox, listen to me.”
Closing my eyes, I focus on the mental picture I have in my mind of home, hoping that I can just will myself there.
It starts with the shape of the palace and morphs into something more detailed—my room and then the bed within it.
And then her, always her. Her knees drawn up as she reads, early morning light playing against the crown of her head.
Her eyes lifting from the pages to meet mine, joy and longing and love all expressed in one quick glance.
Gods, I love her. I fucking love her.
“You cannot get to her.” Like a blade slicing through flesh, the image splits, and I’m once more plunged back into the Middle when I open my eyes.
“Of course I can—”
“No,” she says, a finality to her voice that I don’t at all like. “Your magic has weakened, Prince, and your kingdom is in turmoil.”
“I don’t fucking care.”
“You should. She would.” Some distant part of me knows she’s right, but my anger—my guilt and sorrow and utter, absolute rage—doesn’t care.
She is gone, and I will sacrifice anything, stop at nothing, to get her back.
“I don’t blame you for your anger, but you must not let it blind you.
Rhea would not want you to ruin many just to save one. ”
“Fuck you, and fuck that.” Selene may be a goddess or whatever, but she doesn’t know the way Rhea’s eyes sparkle when she’s learned something new.
Selene doesn’t know that when Rhea is nervous, she chews on her bottom lip.
Sometimes to the point that it brings her pain.
She doesn’t know that inside the woman who has only just begun to build herself up from the horrors that she has endured is a heart so perfect and precious that no one deserves to have it, least of all me.
But it is mine, she is mine, and I will damn this entire continent before I let her uncle take anything more from her.
There is no other choice. It is lunacy to believe otherwise.
I teeter on my feet, my balance faltering before outright failing and sending me to my hands and knees. Those wisps of my magic within me began to tug, invisible tethers pulling on me.
“Fate can be fickle and cruel, but it is not set in stone. You may feel like little more than a pawn, Prince of Stars, but you hold within you the power to bring about change. You are not made of shadows and darkness but of starlight. Remember that.”
The world tilts, and what once felt solid beneath me disappears until I’m careening down.
Stars whiz past my face at startling speeds, my stomach unsure of which way is up or down.
Rhea’s name leaves my lips—a whisper or a scream, I don’t know—but I want to believe that she can hear it, wherever she is.
That maybe it can be a sign that lets her know I am coming.
Darkness swallows me whole, and in its infinite embrace, there is only silence.