Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Nova
The green-eyed shade girl was standing on the shore, staring back at me.
I looked around, expecting a horde of other shades to be accompanying her. I saw nothing—but there was still no sign of Aleksander, either. So if more ghosts were drifting my way, I was going to have to face them alone. While naked, apparently.
Perfect.
Well, I’d lived through worse.
I braced myself…but still, nothing else appeared.
Yet.
A minute passed before I chanced movement. Hugging my arms around myself, I waded closer, wondering if I should try talking to the girl. Thalia claimed they were aimless drifters, drawn only to magic…and yet, this one was clearly trying to get my attention for some reason. Clearly following me. And it felt like more than a mindless reaction to my magic; her eyes were too bright, too aware.
She saw me.
I was almost certain of it.
I took a few more steps forward, stopping a short distance away from her.
“Hello,” I said, softly.
She didn’t reply, lowering her gaze, suddenly shy.
“Are you following me?”
She took a step back.
“I don’t mind,” I said.
She paused like a tense baby deer and tilted her head, peering up at me from underneath the messy strands of hair that had slipped free from her braid.
“Really, I don’t.”
She opened her mouth to reply. A sound came out—not a voice, but maybe a whispered impersonation of one. Her inability to form words seemed to confuse her. And then frighten her. Her expression turned to one of pure panic, her eyes going impossibly wide as she looked around as though she had just noticed where she was for the first time.
“Are you okay?”
She dropped to her knees and started to claw into the ground, as if desperate to bury herself in it. Her fingers made little progress, even in the soft mud; her form was simply not solid enough to have much effect. This seemed to be a revelation to her as well—one that threw her into an even deeper panic.
I forgot about everything else—my wariness, my questions, my nakedness—as I rushed to her side, kneeling and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Her body gave like clay beneath my touch, at first. But as I continued to press against her, she seemed to take on more of a definite shape, I thought. I might have believed I was imagining it, if not for the look she fixed on me—an odd combination of surprise, hope, and terror. She trembled like a candle flame caught in a draft. Terrified, yet she leaned into me, as if testing her solidness.
As my arms cautiously circled around her, the woven, diamond-patterned bracelet on my wrist began to vibrate. A stabbing pain struck between my eyes. I tried to blink it away. Instead, I blinked another scene into my vision—something completely opposite of my current surroundings.
I saw this girl… alive.
She was twirling through a lush green courtyard, laughing, carrying batons with ribbons tied on the ends. Dancing, spinning those ribbons to a wild rhythm. Her hair was bright auburn, her ivory skin covered in freckles, her green eyes even more dazzling in the light of a golden red sun.
And she had an audience: An older woman who was clapping her hands and laughing along with her.
An older woman who looked like me.
Frantically, I pushed the girl away. I felt guilty as she looked up with confused, pleading eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to take her back into my arms.
Because I was just as frightened as she was, now.
“Who are you?” I breathed.
She tried again to speak. Again, only hushed, whimpering, unintelligible sounds made it out. A single tear trickled down her cheek.
My magic was swirling to life, suddenly, lifting from my arms like fog over a pond in early morning. Anticipating. Expectant. It wanted to wrap around the girl, and I didn’t know why , and I didn’t know what it would do—but I couldn’t stop it from happening.
The shadows exploded outward, striking her and knocking her backward. She curled up as they violently swarmed around her body, wrapping so thickly that I lost track of her within the blackness.
I desperately tried to control them.
When I finally managed to pull the clawing darkness away from her, the girl’s body had gone perfectly still against the muddy ground.
But that body was also solid and glowing faintly around the edges.
What had I done?
What the hell had I done?
Before I could work up the courage to get a closer look, the trees all around us began to shake.
Wind howled, and with it, they came like a violent, swirling river breaking through a dam—a horde of shades with hands reaching, bodies shoving, voices groaning.
I stumbled deeper into the lake, hoping against hope that the water might deter them somehow.
They hesitated only slightly as they slogged into it. Some didn’t even do that; their lower halves seemed to dissolve underneath the surface, but this only made them faster. In the span of a few frantic heartbeats, dozens of them were upon me, their faces twisting in and out of focus, as if they were trying to make themselves known—to reveal themselves to me—but they were struggling to keep their shapes among the disorderly tangle of magic and all their different energies.
I fought my way free, diving underneath the water where I knew I could move faster, trying to head in the direction of the shore where I’d last seen Aleksander.
Coming up for air, I was met by a trio of shades, their faces horribly clear: three thin, wailing women who looked similar enough to have been sisters.
I managed to dart around them and dive under the water once more. I was still far from the shore when I resurfaced, but close enough that my feet could touch the lakebed. My toes curled into the mud and silt, seeking purchase as I looked over my shoulder and tried to properly gauge the number of ghosts surrounding me.
I watched as several stopped to inspect the green-eyed girl’s body before turning to me and giving chase.
Did they want the solidness I’d given her?
That glow that mimicked the brightness of life…did they think I could give it to them?
Something grabbed me underneath the water.
A fleeting hold that I easily kicked free of, but it made me panic enough that I was suddenly focused too much on what lay beneath the surface; I didn’t notice the shades swirling in behind me until they were already there, surrounding me, their cold fingers clawing into my shoulders.
“Please,” I gasped, thinking maybe they could understand me, connect to me as the girl had. “ Please wait —”
But they were directionless. Mindless, as Thalia had warned. More and more swarmed in from all directions. Grabbing, clawing, washing over me like a wave threatening to drown me from existence. They couldn’t put the full strength or pressure behind their attacks that a living being could have, but there were so many of them that it didn’t matter; I kept being shoved off balance, shaking free of one only to have two more take its place.
My head slipped below the surface.
I fought my way back up.
More hands met me, shoving me back down.
Their shifting faces swam above, further distorted by the dark, muddied water.
They were everywhere .
I kicked. Twisted. Fought for clear water—but there was none to be found. Desperate to get away from the cold touch of reaching hands, I found myself rolling deeper, hitting the muddy bed, sinking in, dragging through it like an anchor.
How deep could I roll?
My arm snagged on something, jarring me to a stop.
The water around me grew warmer. Clearer. I was no longer physically sinking, but I felt like I was falling, all the same, drifting into a strange brightness—one rimmed in darkness, like the kind you saw when you clenched your eyes tightly shut. It grew more and more intense as the seconds passed, until—
My face broke through the surface.
I gasped. Choked. Cold struck me like a fist, and I cried out in misery. In fear. I wanted to go back into the warm water. Back toward the light that was too bright, too blinding to allow me to see anything else. I struggled with everything I had, trying to get back.
A voice growled into my ear, commanding me. Keep still.
I went rigid. And once I stopped, I didn’t seem to be able to start again. Not my breaths, not my heartbeats, not my magic. I was stillness. I was death.
The same voice followed soon after, softer now. Pleading, almost. Stay with me. Just stay with me. I’ve got you .
But I didn’t want to stay. I wanted to let go, to drift away in the comforting warmth.
So that was what I did.
I woke from a stinging pain across my face, and the first thing—the only thing—I could focus on, at first, was cold.
Brutal, unforgiving cold.
Yet, a quick glance over my body told me I was no longer in the frigid water. No longer swamped by dead souls. I wasn’t entirely naked, either; Aleksander had draped his coat over me. The pure, earthy scent of him clung to it, grounding me.
I was still here, still breathing, still functioning.
I situated the garment more fully around myself as I sat up, fastening the buttons from top to bottom with trembling fingers, creating a makeshift dress before I moved to take in more of my surroundings.
Aleksander was kneeling beside the green-eyed girl, looking her over.
I held my breath as I did the same. She was still solid…but the glow around her edges was rapidly fading. What would happen to her now?
Gods, what did I do to her?
Aleksander briefly glanced my way as I stumbled over and fell at his side.
“Do something,” I pleaded. “Help her.”
He gave me a dubious look.
I grabbed his wrist and guided his hand toward the girl.
His muscles tensed, preventing me from dragging him any farther. “I can’t raise people from the dead, Nova.”
“I don’t think she’s entirely dead. Not since I—I don’t know what I did. Something is strange about her. Just… try . Please.”
He jerked his arm from my hold.
But then a miracle occurred: He did as I asked .
Doubt clouded his eyes, but he reached his hand out on his own, letting it hover just above the girl’s pale face. Golden light snaked along the lines of his palm, collecting at the tips of his fingers and growing thicker before falling down like drops of blood, splattering against the girl’s forehead. Lines of gold raced out from the points of contact, spiderwebbing across her skin, drawing warmth into her pallid complexion, little by little.
She took a deep, gulping breath—like a fish tossed onto dry land.
I started to reach for her, but she rolled aside. She was fully convulsing an instant later, caught in the throes of Aleksander’s magic, her body as lost in the flashes of light as it had been in my shadows earlier.
Aleksander hissed out a curse, drawing his hand back, abruptly getting to his feet and stepping away. “I’m making it worse. Let’s just go find Thalia and see—”
I got to my feet as well, grabbing his arm and holding him still.
He stared at the grip I’d claimed on him until a sharp breath from the girl drew both our gazes back to her. She was going still once more, her body turning the color of stone as the last of Aleksander’s power left her.
We should have done as he said and ran away from the scene of this strange disaster.
So why didn’t I move?
Aleksander’s eyes slowly shifted to me. Intense and burning and full of uncertainty. But I didn’t flinch, even as the full heat of his stare settled over me—because in my mind, I saw the aftermath of our collision from yesterday: The world blooming around us. All of it dying just as quickly… except for those stubborn shoots of green grass and budding flowers.
A garden taking root where it shouldn’t have stood a chance.
And here was that moment—that power, that connection—all over again. Except, this time, he was awake .
Awake and looking at me as though I was some combination of pure chaos and pure magic, something he wanted to both strangle and embrace at the same time. I felt his gaze like sunlight settling over my skin. His magic like a current of lightning building in my own body, preparing to leap to his, to weave so deeply between us that I wouldn’t be able to tell where I ended and he began.
I looked to the girl, my pulse racing as I tried again to understand why she had followed me.
Who was she?
What had I divined from her body when I touched her? A memory, I assumed—but that didn’t fit with the explanation Thalia had given me. This girl was a shade, devoid of consciousness, awareness…
Was there life still holding on, deep inside of her, same as there had been green grass buried in the dead soil yesterday? A buried life just waiting for something to pull it to the surface?
My touch slid down Aleksander’s arm, my hand finding his. I interlaced our fingers. His hand felt so warm. So heavy. He shifted, angling his body more fully toward mine. Hesitation gripped me.
This is foolish .
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice low, full of an emotion I couldn’t name.
“Trust me,” I replied—though I didn’t know what I was even asking him to trust me about. I just didn’t want him to let go of my hand. Just like he hadn’t let go of me in the lake. Because it had been his voice, I realized now.
Just stay with me.
I’ve got you.
He’d pulled me from the water, chased away the things holding me down.
And he didn’t let go, now, despite all the strange, terrifying energy building above us, below us, between us. Despite the way his magic cracked jagged fissures through his skin, sending embers of pale golden energy flying outward.
He didn’t flinch, either, when bits of my magic slipped from my veins and collided with his, chasing after it like it was starving, desperate for a touch of light to balance its dark.
More magic was rising from both of us. The air was so thick with it I could hardly breathe. Questions pounded like the beating wings of birds, vibrating in the thin space separating our bodies.
What happens if we let ourselves give in?
What do we do with the mess our tangled magic becomes?
He moved to answer these questions first, the hand not holding mine reaching to trace the shadows peeking out from underneath the coat—his coat—that I wore. His fingers trailed over the swell of my chest, following the lines my shadows painted up across the hollow of my throat. Chasing away the cold of my magic, letting more of his own twist in, leaving a warm buzzing in the places where our powers wrapped around one another.
I leaned closer.
We were breathing the same air, sensing the same possibilities, tasting the same answers just on the tips of our tongues.
My lips never met his. Only his fingertips dragged over the trembling shape of my mouth. But it felt deeper than any kiss I’d ever experienced, the way his power fully dove into me, the warm tingle of his magic spreading out from underneath his touch, parting my lips, pouring down my throat.
That heat continued to circulate, sweeping down over my body—and then beyond it. The ground trembled, tickling my bare feet. The darkness dispelled around us, as if someone had pulled aside a curtain and allowed pure, full moonlight to filter into the scene. Grass shot up in the soft glow—lush, thick, all the way up to my ankles. The ground surrounding the girl’s lifeless body transformed as well, and soon she was cradled by soft greenery and an assortment of colorful flowers rather than black mud.
The section of lake closest to us turned a dazzling shade of translucent turquoise, lapping gently against the increasingly flowery shoreline.
I forced my gaze away from Aleksander, taking my hand from his and walking in a slow circle so I could fully take in the sight surrounding us.
My breaths grew shallow. My hands shook. The world tilted and spun, tilted and spun—a kaleidoscope of colors, a gentle symphony of sounds, a distant mirage of impossible images slowly coming into focus.
And the girl…
She opened her eyes. Sat up shakily. Pulled her braid over her shoulder—her bright, auburn braid—and fiddled anxiously with it.
Aleksander and I stared together, neither of us speaking. Neither of us quite believing—though there was no denying what we both saw. The girl was full of color and breath, as bright as the world around her. A world that was brilliant and breathing, teeming with new energy.
Alive .
This little section of the realm of the dead was alive.
And so was the girl.