Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Nova
After passing beyond the outer walls of Erebos, we were taken directly toward the center of the sprawling city. We moved swiftly through the streets. I absorbed little of what we passed; there was simply too much to take in around every corner.
What I did notice were more of those strange blue flames. Every shadowy being we passed seemed to be carrying their own personal fire in some way, much like the soldiers escorting us. There were statues, too, like the ones at the main gate, that held torches or cups or other vessels full of sapphire smoke and flame. A river of strangely dark water crisscrossed through the streets, under narrow footbridges, and even sections of it occasionally flickered with wisps of blue.
Despite calling himself our escort, the scythe-wielding man brought up the rear of our company rather than leading us. He paid us no attention as we walked, either; he was too busy scanning the dark alleyways and houses we passed, one of his blades withdrawn and hanging casually at his side. Anticipating an attack, I thought—which seemed strange if he was the sovereign of this city, as he claimed to be.
Ultimately, no one ambushed us, but we did draw the gaze of almost every wandering being we passed. As Thalia had said, they were indeed different from the shades who had haunted our steps outside the walls—more solid, their voices more clear in tone and weight, though they spoke in a language I couldn’t decipher. And maybe it was my imagination, but the soldiers escorting us seemed more alive, too, now that we were inside the city.
After twisting and turning down more roads than I could keep track of, our destination suddenly loomed before us: A wide path leading to a large manor with gleaming white walls and three distinct, domed roofs. Unsurprisingly, the building was accented with blue flames. In this case, they were concentrated mainly on the corners, in lines of lamps that ran down like waterfalls, cascading into troughs of more fire that swept along the building’s foundation.
As we drew nearer to the manor, the flames attached to the belts worn by our escorts seemed to glow brighter…and the bracelet my father had given me began to tremble faintly.
I had to work to steady my breathing as that trembling grew steadier. Stronger.
Aleksander cut me a curious glance, peering over the head of the revived girl, who remained in his arms; she was awake and seemingly regaining her strength, but she still had little interest in walking on her own two feet.
My bracelet continued to twitch. Now wasn’t the time to draw attention to it, however, so I picked up my pace and ignored Aleksander’s questioning gaze as we made our way into the towering residence before us.
Inside, the air was thick with the palpable weight of things lost and left to rot. Grand hallways led to opulent yet decaying rooms full of furniture upholstered in dust-covered velvet. Faded murals lined the walls, depicting a myriad of scenes, many of which were set in places that reminded me of spots in the world above. I wondered if they were the memories of the dead who had taken up residence here, and if the dead themselves had painted them.
Did they still possess the kind of knowledge and awareness needed to create such things?
As we passed into a narrower, more private-feeling corridor, we were immediately met by a small army of servants dressed in dark robes, their faces entirely covered by deep purple veils, save for a strip revealing their eyes. All of these eyes gleamed in similar shades of blue, but with varying levels of brightness—as though their color had been leaching away at different rates over time.
They ushered our group to the second floor, where we were each assigned a private room to rest and recover in. Even the young girl received her own quarters. I nearly intervened as she was pried from Aleksander’s arms and shown toward those quarters—she looked terrified at the thought of being separated from us—but the servants ultimately moved too fast for me to stop them.
All of this was moving alarmingly fast, and suddenly, Phantom and I stood alone at the end of the hallway, facing the door to our own room.
( They seem eager to get us alone and separate from one another, ) Phantom said, voicing my concerns.
I tried to reassure him with a scratch between his ears, even as I was scanning the area for potential escape routes.
A metal sculpture caught my eye—one of a tall, fierce-looking woman carrying a shield in one hand and a torch in the other. Her torch was empty, missing the blue flames I’d come to anticipate everywhere in this city. She was balanced on a pedestal at the end of the hall, and in the reflection of her raised shield, I watched our host saying something to one of his servants before he turned and glanced toward me with a smile.
“One moment,” he called.
I turned slowly to face him.
“We haven’t truly introduced ourselves, have we?” he asked.
“We haven’t.” I smiled, still determined not to show any of the fear I felt, and I stepped forward, offering my hand to him first. “Bellanova Halestorn. Or just Nova, rather.”
He squeezed my hand. His skin felt even more calloused and rough than it appeared. Up close, I couldn’t help but notice how he seemed much older than I’d initially thought; there were patches of peppery grey within his dark beard, and his face was as rough as his hands, his features hardened in that particular way that came from a lifetime of making difficult decisions.
“Kaelen Drakmere,” he said. “I’ve earned the nickname Reaper around these parts, you might have heard—but it’s very much a misnomer, I assure you. Death is not my focus these days; I’m far more interested in the bits of life we’ve managed to hold on to here in Erebos. I apologize for speaking so roughly to you all before; it was merely part of the act I usually put on while outside the safety of this manor.”
Phantom drew closer, sniffing at the weapon Kaelen still held casually at his side, his hackles lifting.
I introduced the two of them as well. The sovereign of Erebos sheathed his weapon and tousled the fur between Phantom’s ears, placating him for the moment as he said, “You’ll find the rooms well-appointed, I trust. But if there’s anything else you need, don’t hesitate to ask.”
His eyes lingered on me for several seconds, as if there was more he intended to say. But then he left with no more than a polite bow, drawing all but two of the servants with him. These two took up residence on either side of the shield-and-torch-bearing statue. Presumably waiting to retrieve anything else we might have needed—though they felt less like maids and more like spies ready to report our every movement back to Kaelen.
I avoided eye contact with them as I stepped into the room I’d been granted.
It was well-appointed. Stocked with all the basic comforts of home that I’d missed, albeit lacking any of the charm Orin’s place possessed. Plain in decor—but then again, I couldn’t think of why Kaelen would need charming guest quarters.
Or any guest quarters, for that matter.
What had he meant by the bits of life we’ve managed to hold on to ?
And all the blue flames we’d passed on our way here, carried by all those strange beings who were more alive than the shades, yet clearly still ghosts…what exactly was the purpose of this city, and how did its citizens end up here, rather than outside of its walls?
The questions swirled in my head as I circled the room. But I was so thrilled to have a proper bath and clean linens that I eventually forgot most of those questions—if only for a little while. Long enough to properly wash up, to organize my things, and to take a short nap on the bed, even though its mattress was astoundingly lumpy.
That nap was soon interrupted, though, by a fresh barrage of anxious thoughts. Remembering the terrified expression I’d seen on the green-eyed girl’s face, I slipped my boots back on and went to check on her.
She wasn’t in her room.
With the help of Phantom’s nose, I managed to track her down; she’d made her way to the backyard of the manor—a rolling expanse of space covered in grey dirt and dead grass.
She’d finally found someone to participate in her game of tag, too: Zayn. The Lord of the North Reaches was looking rather undignified with his shirt untucked and his cheeks red and flaming as he huffed and puffed for breath.
I took a seat on a stone bench at the yard’s edge, observing them through drooping eyelids, wishing I’d managed to get more sleep.
Within minutes, silent servants appeared and dropped trays of food and drink beside me. They bowed and left again without a word. I stared at the things they’d brought. Like the room I’d been granted, it all felt almost too normal—too good to be true.
Which made it feel dangerous.
Nevertheless, Phantom braced his paws against the bench and helped himself to the tray, sniffing each item upon it before taking some sort of thinly sliced cheese delicately between his teeth, tossing it into the air and catching it in his mouth.
“Are you sure that’s safe to eat?”
( It’s cheese, ) he informed me. ( It’s worth the risk of poisoning. )
“Debatable,” I said, my smile crooked.
He responded by wolfing down the rest of the stack.
I reached for a glass bottle of crystal-clear water myself, cautiously pouring it into a cup and taking a few small sips. When I didn’t immediately expire from the drink, I couldn’t help draining the rest of it in a few gulps. I was alarmingly thirsty, all of a sudden.
Not as thirsty as Zayn, though, judging by the way he was bent over with his hands on his knees, heaving for breath. The girl showed no mercy, despite his position; she launched herself onto his back. He tumbled to the ground—mostly for show, I assumed, given that she couldn’t have weighed more than fifty pounds. He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his coat, waving it like a flag of surrender.
Biting back laughter, I called, “Come drink something before you pass out. Both of you.”
Zayn rolled over and pushed himself up, jogging toward me with a playful smile.
The girl started to follow, but stumbled to a stop when she caught sight of Phantom. Her green eyes went wide. Her hands clenched together, shaking, until—at my prompting—Phantom shifted into a puppy-like size and gave a happy yip .
Her eyes never leaving him, she took the drink I offered and gulped it down, missing her mouth with most of it. Then she was off again, giggling as Phantom gave chase.
While she continued to roll around in the dusty grass with the dog, Zayn collapsed at my feet and stretched out on his back with an exaggerated sigh.
“Children are exhausting,” he said, yawning and closing his eyes.
“So I’ve heard.” I mirrored his yawn. “Partly why I’m more of a dog person, myself.”
He cracked one eye open. “All of the courtiers who had started planning for an abundance of heirs to the Elarithian throne would have been disappointed to hear that.”
My cheeks flamed at the thought. But I refused to dwell on what might have been had my arranged marriage ever taken place. “She seems to like you, though,” I said, nodding at the girl, who was now busy trying to teach Phantom how to offer his paw for shaking—a trick he was pretending to be entirely ignorant about.
Zayn shrugged. “Well, children are easy to impress and entertain. Much easier than the grumpy asshole of a cousin I’ve spent most of the past seven years with.”
My smile brightened, though my stomach twisted at the mention of Aleksander; I’d hoped I might run into the grumpy king in question, but I hadn’t seen him since watching him disappear into his room hours ago.
We needed to talk about what had happened. I should have tracked him down rather than this girl, maybe, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to willingly seek him out.
The girl was equally confusing, but she felt less dangerous than the Light King, at least.
“Still no words from her, I’m guessing?”
“Not a single one.” Zayn’s face scrunched in concern. “Poor thing. Can’t even get a name out of her. I’ve just been calling her Red because of her hair.”
“Very creative.”
“I’m a simple man with simple tastes.” He gave me his usual easy grin, but I couldn’t help noticing how it didn’t light up his eyes the way it normally did. He went back to staring at Red, his expression clouded over in thought…and longing, maybe.
“That wistful look on your face…she reminds you of someone, doesn’t she?” I guessed.
“I have a little sister, back in Elarith,” he said, after a pause. “She was only a year old last time I was there.”
“…So she’d be around the same age as our mysterious Red , now.”
The pain that flickered in his eyes was brief, but obvious. “Yeah. I guess she would be.”
“What was— is —her name?” It was so easy to speak of the ones in the living world in the past tense; even after only such a short time down here, it felt as if my very existence had flipped. Like everything above was now dead and gone, while this strange world around me was my only existence.
“Wren,” he said.
“Like the songbird.”
He nodded, the motion heavy—with regret and memories, I assumed.
I tried to make my smile encouraging. “Hopefully, you’ll get to see her again soon.”
“Hopefully. Though she won’t remember me, of course.” The words seemed to tumble from his mouth before he could stop their fall. He hurried on, as if trying to escape them. “What about you? You don’t have any siblings, as I recall.”
I hesitated. “I did have one, actually. A twin. He died when we were just babies.”
He tried—and failed—to cover up his shock. “Oh. I…I’m sorry.”
I waved the words away; I never knew what to do with apologies about Bastian. I couldn’t even remember my brother. The loss of him was just a part of my identity, as simple as the raven-wing color of my hair, or the way I was left-handed; I rarely gave it much thought.
I wondered if it was the same way for Zayn when it came to his sister. Seven years of time he’d lost with her—but he hadn’t really ever had her. There was an absence there, same as my loss of Bastian, but how did one grieve something they’d hardly known?
“Although, apparently death isn’t as permanent as we might have thought,” Zayn mused, his gaze trailing back to Red. “Not sure if that makes it any less painful to experience. But…it’s interesting to think about, no?”
I hugged my arms tightly around myself, trying to fight off the sudden sense of disorientation I felt.
“No idea how you two did it, huh?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Before—when she was still a shade—she came to me alone. Following me, I thought. She seemed upset, so I tried to comfort her, and I saw something when I touched her. A vision.”
“A vision?”
“Divination is a skill some necromancers possess. I’ve never been very good at it, myself, but the power seems to be awakening more and more since I’ve been in this realm.”
“So what did you see?”
I tried to explain it in as much detail as I could—which wasn’t much; it felt like trying to describe a dream that had fled from my thoughts the moment I’d woken up.
“You didn’t recognize the woman or the location?” he asked.
“Not truly, no. Though I swear that woman looked like she could have been an older version of me. But I’ve never heard of a necromancer divining the future; only the past. And the girl appeared to be the same age as she is now.”
Zayn was quiet for a long time before he said, “Have I ever told you you’re a very strange person?”
I gave him a wry smile. “Yes. You’ve mentioned that.”
We fell silent, contemplating, picking at the tray of refreshments the servants had brought.
My turquoise bracelet was stirring again. Not the subtle shivering of earlier, but a tightening—occasionally clenching so fiercely to my wrist that it cut off my circulation and left my fingertips numb. I did my best to ignore it; I didn’t want to talk about my strangeness any more just then.
“What are the chances at least some of this food is poisoned or otherwise cursed, I wonder?” Zayn asked, lifting a small cake and giving it a dubious nibble. “Or, at the very least, not meant for real, living human consumption?”
“Kaelen seems as alive as we are. I assume that’s why they have this food and water with actual substance to it—though who knows where it comes from. And I wonder if the wraiths eat anything similar?”
He shrugged, his eyes clouding over in thought once more.
“…I don’t think our host wants to poison us, either way,” I said. “He could have killed us outside the city if that was his game. He wants something else from us.” I frowned as I thought about the way his eyes had lingered on me in the hallway earlier. “Something from me.”
Zayn nodded. “He likely wants to figure out your magic—and how he can use it for his own gain.”
“Something I’d like to figure out for myself,” I muttered.
The comment hung in the air until I couldn’t take it any longer; I wasn’t solving anything, sitting here eating cakes.
I forced myself to stand. “I need to talk to Aleksander. Do you know where he is?”
“Off brooding somewhere, if I had to guess,” Zayn said, back to his usual, teasing expression of bright eyes and an easy grin.
“Not helpful.”
“I know he wasn’t in his room when I checked an hour ago, if that helps.”
I thanked him, drained the last of the water I’d poured, and then set off. I thought about using Phantom to help track Aleksander down, but Red seemed more at ease now that she had him to play with, so I insisted he stay beside her.
Part of me wanted to explore the house on my own, anyway. To wander through at my own pace, trying to make sense of its existence in this realm, while simultaneously trying to prepare myself for the talk I needed to have with the Light King.
I wandered up and down all three stories of the manor, taking in its haunting beauty. Though it was dulled by dust and darkness, its grandness couldn’t be denied. More metal sculptures lined the hallways—more figures whose identities I could only guess at. After studying their faces more closely, though, I concluded that they all seemed to favor one another. Several of the peeling and faded murals appeared to feature similar people, too. So this was a house built by—or for—one family. Like a mausoleum, I supposed. Except, there didn’t seem to be any truly dead bodies anywhere…and there were far too many things that no ghost would have any use for.
The longer I spent walking through it all, the more confused I felt.
I wanted to keep exploring. But eventually, I heard familiar voices I couldn’t ignore—Thalia and Kaelen were nearby, having what sounded like a heated conversation. I cautiously drifted closer to the sound, which brought me to a balcony above a wild, overgrown garden. They stood alone on one of its cobblestone paths, their bodies half-hidden by thorny vines and shriveled flowers.
The balcony was massive, protruding out from an airy, open room, with multiple doorways leading onto it. I was cautiously creeping along it, searching for a way to get closer to Thalia without being seen, when I spotted Aleksander.
He was leaning against a column of the balcony, his gaze narrowed intently on the garden below. A tattered curtain hung overhead, casting him in shadows and further hiding him from view; we’d had the same idea of eavesdropping, apparently.
I carefully made my way toward him.