CHAPTER THIRTY
RHYAN
I laid in my bed back at Seathorne—my last night here. My last night here ever, if I got my way. I’d been unable to sleep after reviewing all the scrolls I’d borrowed from the library. They filled what space remained on the blankets beside me. I’d been poring over them, over everything I could find, everything the librarian had sent me, again and again. I’d been at it for weeks, since the night of our first meeting. I’d read over every text on forbidden magic, on ancient magic, on God magic. And I couldn’t find anything that remotely described what Mercurial had told me. I still for the life of me didn’t understand what Asherah and Auriel had done to weaken Shiviel. To weaken him to the point that he was altered even now as Kane.
More importantly, I still didn’t understand how that had affected Asherah. How it was tied into Rakashonim. And how I was going to help Lyr now. Every day, I grew more worried. The closer we got to the Valabellum, the more likely she was to call on it again. If we ran into trouble, if we couldn’t get to Jules, or if one of us were hurt, nothing would stop her. I knew that too well.
I’d figured out how to protect her here from my father. I couldn’t stop Kane from touching her, from their dances, from the bruises I knew he left on her arms and shoulders, but the threat I’d made had been enough to keep it contained to that. Contained to the dance floor of our Godsdamned engagement balls. It was bad enough as it was, but I knew all too well, it could have been so much worse.
But once we were in Numeria, I had no idea how to keep her safe. Especially from herself.
“Fuck.” I pushed the scrolls off the bed, and stood, moving to the window. It was the middle of the night, the sky black, a small drizzle of rain hitting the glass. It was officially too warm for snow.
I traced a raindrop with my finger down the pane, and stared through the window.
Growing up in the bedroom Lyr occupied now, I could see the endless horizon of mountains. But from this new room I’d been shoved into, I had a view of the edge of Gryphon’s Mount. Of the white seraphim. And unlike my old room, with its windows that opened to a drop down the mountain, this one was above a small patch of land. Land leading to the statue. To Asherah’s tomb. The tomb that had haunted my dreams since we opened it.
This was my last night near it—my last night to see it again. And if it stirred memories for me when I went to it that night with Lyriana, maybe it would do it again, maybe I could learn what I needed to help Lyr. To save her.
My fingers itched. My whole fucking body did. I was bound. But … I wasn’t that far from the landing. I could jump. Peeking down, I mentally calculated the distance. My legs still worked fine. I could do it. I didn’t need my vorakh.
Gripping the bottom of the window, I pulled, and with a grunt, it slowly began to lift, leaving behind a creaking sound loud enough to reach the City of Harton.
I froze, listening for any signs of movement in the hall. If my night escort didn’t hear that, it was a fucking miracle. I stilled for another moment, my ears perked, but the only sound now came from the rain and the faint squawking of the gryphons on patrol.
Staying by the window, cold mist blew against my face. But when no one barged through my door, and no alarms sounded, I decided to make my move. I slipped on my boots. Then I wrapped my soturion cloak around my shoulders, folding the excess material around my head as I fashioned a hood. A regular belt held the cloak in place.
Then I crawled up onto the sill, swung my legs through, took a deep breath, and jumped. The rain hit my face, pouring harder as I stood up from the landing, my legs wobbling from the impact. There were no torches on the mountain’s edge tonight. And no soturi standing guard.
Now that the indigo shard had been removed, and he’d taken back the key, I guessed my father felt it was of little importance to guard.
But I could see its outline clearly. See the white stone shining in the moonlight, see the rain rolling off its sculpted feathers.
My chest tightened, my heart pounding with each step I took, a reminder that she was there, that I’d left her there. And if I didn’t do something now, we’d be doing this again.
Thunder rumbled, lightning striking in the distance. For a moment, the white seraphim glowed, its wings appearing to lift and flutter. Just like in my dreams. My nightmares.
And then she stilled as I slid through the mud, coming to stand before her. The backs of my eyes burned, my chest heavy.
The rain pattered down and I took a deep breath, reaching out a hand, my palm sliding across her stone beak. Nothing happened. I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead against the stone. My heart began to pound, my dreams, my memories suddenly fresh in my head. Carrying Asherah up the mountain. Building the tomb. Sealing it shut. Seeing Mercurial in his falcon head sneaking up on me. The grief, the sorrow piercing my soul.
A gust of wind blew.
Rakame.
Asherah’s voice. Just as it had been in my memories. In my dreams.
I stared into the lifeless eyes of the seraphim.
My knees gave out.
“Shiviel,” I screamed. “You betrayer.”
“You should have known,” he said, his eyes darkening. “I betrayed Moriel. Betrayed my God, my Arkturion. My king. Why would I afford you any less courtesy? You, who put us here. You, who could not keep your damn hands to yourself. You, who caused the Council to betray and forsake us.”
I gritted my teeth, staring past him. The indigo shard—Moriel’s shard—lay in the temple ruins where we fought. It was just out of reach behind Shiviel. And though he didn’t touch it, it gave him the edge over me. Made it impossible to fight back. Not that it kept me from trying. Not that anything would keep me from fighting for her, fighting to protect her.
“You have taken the indigo now. But for how long can you hold it against his armies? He can still defeat you,” I spat. “He has the other shards.”
“He does not have all of them,” Shiviel roared. “He does not have mine!”
My hands shook as I tried to hold onto my sword, as I prayed to anyone who would still listen to help me keep up my strength. I wanted to call on kashonim. To call on that thread that linked Asherah’s mortal body to mine. That linked her power. Her strength. Her life.
But I wouldn’t risk it. I wouldn’t risk her. If I died here—died so she could live—I could accept that. I would embrace it.
Still, I struggled. My hands had been burned again. I bore the scars across my flesh from holding the Valalumir in my hands. Of the fires that ravaged my skin when I fell, a thief grasping pure light. Shiviel had delighted in my torture, in burning anew the hands that had once touched Asherah, that had touched a Goddess. The hands that caused us all to fall. Only by the grace of the green shard, my own crystal, did I heal, did I survive at all.
But I was weakening. I didn’t have much time left.
“We can take him down,” I said again, more as a distraction than anything else. “We could do it. Together.”
Shiviel laughed. “You cannot lie to me.”
I raged forward, my sword cleaving the air. Cleaving through the brutalizing energy of his aura. But Shiviel easily sidestepped the blow, his blade piercing forward.
I sidestepped, barely escaping his blow. He clucked his tongue, turning the hilt in his hand, the steel gleaming in the fires that surrounded us.
“Too slow, Auriel. Always too slow,” he growled. “Are you prepared to fall again? When I’m through with you, you’re not going back to Heaven. I’m sending you to hell.”
“You forsworn bastard,” I groaned. “I’ll see you there first.”
Regripping my blade, I fought past the way it slipped through my sweaty hands. I could do this. I had to do this. I used all I had left to straighten my body. To stand tall. Then my eyes widened at the sight I wasn’t sure I’d see again. Asherah watched from behind a stone column, her red hair gleaming in the torchlight. Her eyes lit with her own fire, her stave drawn.
She’d come. She’d found me.
Her eyes scanned the room, and then she nodded. The blue light of her magic sparked forth, followed by a glow of red. Asherah’s red, the light of the Valalumir she still possessed.
Shiviel’s eyes widened, his power momentarily weakened.
Asherah rushed forward with a war cry, her stave replaced by a sword gleaming with starfire that she lifted over her head.
“Now!” she yelled, giving the command I’d been waiting for.
I readjusted my fingers along the hilt, my grip finally tight enough, as the fires spread to my sword. Our eyes met, and together, Asherah and I plunged our blades down through Shiviel’s body, cutting through his armor, slicing him in half.
Light exploded in the ruins, blinding me.
My body was flung backwards and Asherah screamed in agony, her cries like a knife in my heart.
I was about to hit the ground and then, something caught me. Stopped my fall.
I gasped, rolling over onto the temple floor, not even bothering to look as I crawled to my knees. Asherah. I needed to find Asherah.
She lay on her back, her arms outstretched, her eyes closed, and her chest plate askew. Her sword lay beside her, just beyond her fingertips.
“Asherah,” I roared. “Asherah!” I crawled forward, my knees, my hands, everything in agony. But I wouldn’t stop until I reached her side, until I pulled her against me, holding her, hugging her. “Asherah! Wake up. Wake up!” I searched for her pulse, the beating of her heart.
She coughed, her eyes slowly opening as she blinked up at me. “Auriel,” she said, her voice weak.
I stroked the side of her face, pushing her flaming red locks from her forehead. “I’m here. I’m right here. You saved me. Again.”
“ Rakame .” Her eyes welled with tears. “Always. I’ll always save you.”
“And I you,” I said, my voice breaking. “ Mekara . Always.”
“Did we do it?” she asked, her hand brushing against my face. I closed my eyes, relishing the feeling of her, and her touch. I’d missed that—missed her.
But there’d be time for that later. Fires crackled around us, and a strange aura was filling the temple. An uneasiness wrapped around me, a force of wild magic, all at once ancient and new. Gingerly, we sat up, still holding onto each other, assuring still that the other was all right.
Looking ahead, Asherah gasped, taking my hand. And then I saw it.
What we’d done to Shiviel.
He lay on the ground where we’d attacked him, unconscious. His body was whole, but diminished. He was smaller than he’d just been, as if the sword had taken inches from his height. His eyes opened slowly, blinking in horror. They were still yellow. But the fires inside them had vanished. The light that had shone from his skin, from his soul, the markings of a Guardian, of a God, the feel of his celestial aura were gone. He looked … human. Mortal. Weak.
On the other side of the ruins was another body. Small. That of a young child. This was the source of the unfamiliar energy I’d felt. It was growing stronger, filling the temple, replacing that which was gone. Shiviel’s celestial aura had vanished. But the energy that made him who he was—the part of him that I’d known for centuries, that contained his essence and personality, that still existed.
Asherah let go of my hand, and crawled forward, moving slowly, gingerly toward the child. And as I turned my attention to them, I could feel that this body was both Shiviel and not-Shiviel. My old friend, my brother, and fellow Guardian—the God I’d lost in this war, almost felt like they’d returned. And somehow, despite the history I could sense, the child’s aura felt as if it had just been born.
I suppose it had. It was a piece of Shiviel’s soul that now lived.
Naked and shivering, the child quickly wrapped itself in a discarded blanket, pulling it tightly around their shoulders.
I stared at the cherubic face, the large brown eyes. The child was innocent, so young it was impossible to see if they were a boy or a girl. My stomach turned with guilt. We hadn’t known this would be the result. That an innocent would come from our magic. But we’d had to do it—Shiviel had to be stopped, weakened.
The child cried out, then shook their head in disbelief. “I … I can feel it. My death. My birth. All at once.” Their breath came in short, panicked gasps. “It’s so much.”
“We had no choice,” I whispered.
“It must feel so confusing” Asherah said gently. “But you’re going to be all right. I swear. You don’t have to be alone in this. I know the role I played. And I’m sorry for it.”
A tear rolled down the child’s cheek as they stared at their feet, poking out from the blanket. Their hands opened and closed in their lap. Eyes widening, they lifted their arms, looking at their skin. Almost pink in its newness. Unscarred, unblemished. Perfect.
“Are you hurt?” Asherah asked. “We can’t stay here. But we’ll take you with us. Protect you. Can you walk?”
The brown of the child’s eyes deepened before their eyebrows lifted into something that felt like surprise, but quickly devolved into anger. They pulled the edges of their blankets tighter around their small body, their hair falling in brown curls around their shoulders. “You said you had no choice. But what is it that you have done? What am I?”
Asherah held my gaze, her eyes watering, before she answered. “You were part of the God known as Shiviel, Guardian of the Yellow Ray. Now you’re not. Now you’re new.”
“New?” they asked, their voice filling with horror. “I’m not new. I can feel it. I’m ancient. I always was. I can feel where you cut … where you cut me apart. I remember. Remember too much.” Again they shook their head. “I can’t be new. I’ve been here for so long. If I were new, I wouldn’t have died. I wouldn’t have felt it. My death.” Their chest heaved, and I began to fully regret what we’d done. Had the price of weakening Shiviel been worth this? But if we hadn’t, he would have destroyed us all. And after his betrayal of Moriel, his power was too great, too uncontained, too wild. Too dangerous.
“You’re right,” I said. “You are ancient. We were brothers once. We protected each other. And I swear I will protect you now. I will amend this. You don’t have to be afraid.”
“Why should I believe you?” They spat, and for a moment, their brown eyes fell on Shiviel’s body. “I sense memories. Of another world. Another plane of existence. Of light. A light that did not burn.” The child shook their head. “But I am not Shiviel. Not anymore. I am … other.” They stared at their hands, before looking up at Asherah. Their eyes flashed with a glowing, yellow light. “What you did, I don’t remember. But I know this much. You’re unforgiven. You won’t survive.”
A light flashed. Asherah screamed beside me. Her body glowed, alight with gold, and red. Until she was the flame. She was the fire.
And I was losing her.
I sputtered, coming to, my mouth filled with rain water, my entire body drenched and freezing. The sun was rising, and I turned over on my side, groaning. Fuck. I’d fallen asleep, I’d spent the entire night out here, sleeping beside the seraphim. In the distance, the clock tower began to yell, alerting me to the late hour. Gryphons soared overhead, their wings like dark shadows in the faint morning sun, and in the mountains, lightning struck.
I grunted, attempting to sit up as thunder rumbled and a fresh bout of rain fell in chilled droplets around me. I had to get inside, finish getting ready. We were leaving for Numeria. But I could barely move. My entire body was stiff from the cold and rain. I needed to find paper, to write this down, to remember. Because finally, finally, I’d remembered something else, something new. Another piece of the puzzle.
Shiviel’s soul had been split in half. That was why he was weakened. The reason why Kane had no vorakh. Somewhere out there, there was an eighth Guardian. A part of Shiviel who had no idea how they were connected to all of this. An eighth Guardian who could potentially power Kane again—if they were united.
“Pray tell, Lord Rhyan, what exactly you are doing outside your room, sleeping out here with the seraphim,” my father’s voice called from behind me. “Tell me. Now!”
I turned around too late. My father had marched out onto the mount, his personal escort behind him. I was surrounded.