Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nova
Even more eyes followed me as I made my way through the palace this time.
Still, no one spoke to me or approached me. Oddly enough, it felt like I was back in Rose Point as a child, merely existing in a world of splendor and intrigue, surrounded by endless chatter, fascinating lives, and unfolding stories…yet somehow entirely set apart from it all.
Phantom followed closely at my side, but even he eventually abandoned me—distracted, as he so often was, by the scent of food. He was gone the instant I took my eyes off him, darting into what appeared to be a pantry of some kind. Just before the swinging doors settled shut behind him, I caught a glimpse of several servants frozen from a combination of fear and curiosity at his approach.
My stomach growled, urging me to follow him. But my heart resisted; it didn’t want to be forced into awkward small talk with any of these palace dwellers who were working so hard to avoid me.
Instead, I carried on alone—the way I was used to doing—and eventually flung open the door to the room I’d woken up in earlier, slamming it shut behind me. I was so caught up in trying to escape everyone outside that I forgot, for a moment, who was waiting for me inside.
Aleksander was awake and shrugging into a clean shirt when I turned away from locking the door. He eyed me curiously, but otherwise continued to button up the shirt—as if it was a common thing between us, this coming and going into the same space. Like we shared a room all the time.
I kept my head up and tried to pretend everything else was normal, too, ignoring the way my insides felt like they were unraveling, twisting and turning and trying to put themselves back together in a way that felt right.
I wasn’t sure anything would ever feel right again.
Nevertheless, on the outside I smiled my usual optimistic greeting, hoping it would be enough to fool him until I was alone again and I could crumble in peace.
We had clearly been spending too much time together, though, because he glanced up at me while rolling up his sleeves and asked, “What’s wrong?”
I ignored the question, making my way over to a silver tray centered on a desk, piled high with the food Aveline had promised earlier. Rich, delicious-looking food—bright fruits, thinly-sliced meats, buttery bread and some sort of spice-sprinkled spread to go with it. I wasn’t sure I could truly stomach any of it at the moment, but I pretended to be deciding on a feast for myself so I could avoid answering Aleksander as he stepped closer.
“Nova?”
I picked up a bright red berry and proceeded to study it, counting every seed visible in its shiny skin. “Nothing is wrong.”
“Liar.”
I breathed in deeply through my nose.
A corner of his mouth inched upward. “And here I thought raising the dead together would have brought us close enough to share a secret or two.”
I tried to mirror his smirk with the same confidence he carried, but my attempt fell flat.
He watched me expectantly for a moment, but when I didn’t answer, he focused his attention on the platter of food as well. Seeing an opportunity to distract him, I quickly handed him a plate and insisted he eat something.
He accepted the plate and carefully, neatly filled it, but didn’t take a single bite of anything he’d grabbed.
It was a habit of his, I’d noticed—being more concerned with putting his food into perfectly neat, even piles than with anything else. He never ate all that was before him, was slow to eat what he did, and he had a tendency to silently re-count and size it all up after he swallowed down each bite—like he was preparing to ration and hoard it. It seemed like a strange mannerism for a prince who had undoubtedly had more food than he knew what to do with, growing up in the Elarithian Palace.
“Well?” he prompted, glancing up at me. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or not?”
His voice made my heart skip a few beats; he sounded genuinely concerned. Not the strangest thing I’d heard today…but it was high on the list. And it pulled the truth out of me.
“The ones we raised weren’t truly dead,” I blurted out, voice trembling a bit despite my best efforts to keep it from doing so.
“…What are you talking about?”
I placed my fruit back onto the tray. I was hungry—starving, really—but I strongly suspected anything I ate was only going to come right back up.
“The ones we revived weren’t really deceased,” I told him. “They were…” I shook my head. Tried again. Failed again. After several false starts, I managed to repeat a condensed version of the information my brother had given me.
When I’d finished, breathless and still trembling slightly, Aleksander took a seat on the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees as his head bowed in thought.
A minute later, the sound of voices outside reached us. His eyes narrowed on the door. We both tensed, likely wondering the same thing—were we truly safe here?
“Do you think they’re telling you the truth?” he asked, once the hall had gone silent again.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
His brow furrowed.
“Though I think I’ll be more inclined to believe them once they show me to Luminor,” I said. “Thalia claims it’s here. If she can keep her promise about leading us to it, then maybe…”
His eyes flashed with renewed interest at the mention of his sword, and I recoiled slightly, remembering for an instant how we had started this journey: As enemies .
What a strange, twisting path we’d taken to get to this point.
And if what my brother said was true, it was only going to get more twisted. Because Aleksander and I were from two entirely separate worlds—worlds that were not able to exist in tandem. So what happened to the Above if the Below was successfully revived?
What happened to the world I knew best, and to Aleksander and his kingdom?
To us ?
More importantly, why the hell was I thinking of us as a collective entity?
Gods, I needed to stomach some food somehow; I was clearly getting lightheaded and delusional.
“I’ll believe they actually have the sword when I can hold it again, and not before,” Aleksander said, snapping me back into awareness.
“Agreed,” I said, pacing the room. “And this is what I came to this world for; I’m not sure why I’m hiding in here, now, instead of marching myself down to whatever place the sword is being kept in.”
He muttered a simple explanation, his eyes glazing over in thought once more: “Because this is not how you imagined the end of your quest would go. It’s gotten more complicated than expected, hasn’t it?”
I didn’t want to admit he was right— how did he know me so well, all of a sudden? —but I couldn’t deny his words.
Quietly, I said, “I don’t want to be a savior of this world. I don’t want any crown this palace has to offer. I’ve never really wanted any of those things, even in the Above.”
“You were always royalty, even in Eldris,” he reminded me.
“Yes, but it never really felt that way. My mother was the queen, but I was just…” I swallowed down the emotion trying to rise up, shaking my head. “Just a shadow that no one really wanted.”
He blinked, his intense gaze shifting, focusing more fully on me. I fought the urge to squirm, wishing I’d just kept my mouth shut about that last part.
Even if it was irrevocably, painfully true.
Deep down, I think one reason I’d been so desperate to brave the depths of what I’d believed was Hell was so that my kingdom might remember me as something other than a nuisance. I wanted to prove myself worthy of being seen. Of existing as something more than a mere shadow blocking the light of my parents’ reign. And then I could have died here, even, and maybe left a legacy worth something. Yes; a very real part of me had been willing—maybe even ready —to die here.
Now I was being asked to live , instead, and to bring life to an entire dying world?
A much scarier prospect, somehow.
Aleksander’s usual grumpy expression had melted into something softer—but clearly uncertain. He didn’t respond to my painful admission, though he looked like he was searching for a way to do so; I half-expected him to offer me an awkward pat on the head and wish me good luck with my feelings.
Praise the gods, he did neither of these things—he merely watched me with that uncertain concern for a long moment before he cleared his throat and said, “You’re bleeding.”
“Hm?”
“Your shoulder.”
“Oh.” I looked, and he was right; the bandages wrapped around it were soiled, dampened enough that the blood had started to leach through the sleeves of my shirt. I tried to wave it off, but he stubbornly beckoned for me to follow him over to the vanity, where a fresh bowl of water had been left by someone, along with healing supplies; Aveline had intended to redress this wound in addition to bringing food, it seemed.
I didn’t particularly want either of them to tend to my wounds, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue for once. So, I let Aleksander work while I fixed my eyes on the bit of courtyard I could see through the half-drawn curtains.
I tried not to think about his touch.
But it was impossible not to.
It was light. Precise. Perfectly clinical. But as he shifted my shirt out of his way to better assess the bandaged wound underneath, I couldn’t block out the flood of vivid memories—images of the last time he’d skimmed his fingertips along my skin. The moments spent together in that loft in Erebos. The way his touch had explored me so hungrily, so confidently. The heat and magic that had risen between us…
I was holding my breath, I realized—and for a moment, so was he.
Was he remembering it all, too?
How… unfinished we’d left things?
It had felt wrong in Erebos. But now, everything had changed. Again. His touch felt familiar, and yet altogether new, the connection between us relentlessly shifting, forever threatening to knock me off my feet…but suddenly, there was a part of me that didn’t completely hate the idea of being swept off balance by him. At least he was an enemy I knew.
And, at the moment, he didn’t feel like an enemy at all.
“They told me you didn’t leave my side the entire time I was unconscious,” I said, quietly, as he snapped out of the stillness that had overtaken us and went back to his precise re-bandaging efforts.
“…It’s a large palace. It seemed simpler to stay put.” His voice was frustratingly flat. Guarded.
“Simpler?”
“Yes.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Nothing about us is simple , Aleks.”
He didn’t reply. He finished redressing my wound in complete silence, and then he crossed to the other side of the room, gathering up his coat that was draped over a velvet-trimmed settee. His gaze was distant; I could only guess at what he was thinking.
I shouldn’t have wanted to know.
I had plenty of my own thoughts to worry about.
“You came back for me in Erebos,” I heard myself say.
“And?”
“You followed me into the battle outside of it.”
He tilted his head toward me. “I did.”
Even at an angle, his stare was intimidating. Even at a distance, I felt like I might catch fire if he kept his eyes on me for much longer.
Curiosity seemed to grip him, turning him further toward me rather than toward the door. He debated a moment before indulging that curiosity, closing the space between us once more. His gaze skimmed over the work he’d done on my shoulder, then flashed up to my face, questioning. Expectant. “Your point?”
“My point is that I…”
I’d had a point when he was on the other side of the room; where had it gone?
He stepped closer. Only half an inch closer, at most—not even touching—yet it felt like he was pinning me in place by the sheer force of his presence.
I still couldn’t remember what I’d been trying to say.
“You what?” he prompted, a hint of a smile curving his mouth—just enough to make his dimples more pronounced.
I don’t understand why you keep saving me .
Was it merely because he needed me and my magic to survive in this world?
Or was it something else?
Fate seemed to have drawn us together. Our magic had tangled us up more completely. But my magic was perfectly calm at the moment, as it had been since I’d woken up in this protected palace. It wasn’t blindly edging me toward him, this time.
I was fully aware of what I was doing.
Too aware of the heat and need spiraling through me, of the choice I made to stretch onto my tiptoes, to cup his strong jaw in my hand…
His lips parted, a hint of shock registering in his golden eyes. But he didn’t pull away. He leaned forward, branding me with the faintest of kisses, one filled with equal parts anticipation and electricity. Static skipped over my skin—the warning before the lightning strike.
“Chaos,” he whispered against my lips. “This isn’t going to make us any simpler.”
“No. It isn’t,” I agreed. And yet, I was angling my mouth more fully over his, desperate to plunge deeper into this mess we were making, fully aware it could all end in disaster.
As I cradled his face between both my hands, he grabbed my hips and jerked me closer. I gasped at the violence of the motion, and, at the sound, his hands moved on top of mine, pressing against them, pulling my mouth even closer to his.
Then he was kissing me like I’d never been kissed before, the force of it causing me to stumble back against the wall. His fingers wrapped around my wrists, pulling my hands away from his face and pinning them above me instead.
His strength was breathtaking. His tongue was commanding, relentless as it pushed deeper into my mouth. His lips were warm, pulsing with the faintest hints of his magic. I wanted that magic to explode. To surround me. To drive into my body, my blood, my soul.
I wanted it to swallow me whole.
He pulled away far, far too soon, leaving me panting and shaking.
His gaze fell immediately to my mouth, eyes burning with unmet lust—but he didn’t move.
My lips tingled with a similar lust. Yet, I kept as still as him, forcing a slightly dazed, crooked smile. “Is this revenge for leaving you unsatisfied back in that loft in Erebos?”
I tried to make my voice sound unaffected.
I don’t think I succeeded.
He chuckled humorlessly. “No. I can be a vengeful bastard, it’s true. But leaving me was the right thing to do back then. If you hadn’t, I would have…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
Every nerve ending in my body was suddenly alight again, aware of his every breath—of every twitch of unspoken emotion—and desperate for him to finish his sentence.
I wanted to know what he would have done to me in that loft, had we not been interrupted by my vision.
He let out a small cough. “I’m curious, though, about what truly interrupted us that evening. You pulled away from me as though you’d seen a ghost. And then we were distracted before we had a chance to talk about any of it.”
I averted my eyes; it made it easier to stop thinking about what might have been. “I…I had a vision. My unpredictable magic at work.”
He nodded slowly, knowingly. “…I suspected that might have been it. Zayn told me you saw something when you touched Red, too.”
“In the case of the loft, it was some sort of performance that I believe took place in Kaelen’s manor at some point in the past. Which I guess lends credibility to what Bastian claimed—that Erebos was once a thriving city in this kingdom called Rivenholt.”
He pulled on his jacket, fastening its buttons with elegant precision despite his thoughtfully distracted gaze. “So many unanswered questions,” he said, more to himself than me. “We’re going to have to stay here until we figure all of this out, aren’t we?”
“It looks that way.”
I absently reached for my shoulder. It ached dully, but not as badly as before. Some balm he had put on the scars—or maybe some faint show of his magic at work? I’d heard that some wielders of Light magic could use it for healing, though I’d never witnessed him or anyone else doing it; it was a very advanced facet of such power, allegedly.
“Thank you, by the way,” I said.
“There’s no need,” he replied.
“There is—for saving me in Erebos. And for…for the bandaging and everything.”
He acquiesced with a wave of his hand. “I don’t know the answers to any of the things your brother said, or about where we go from here. But I know how to tend to wounds; I’ve had plenty of practice at that, at least.”
“Because of your experience tending to the ones on your back and chest?”
He went very still.
“I…I’m sorry,” I said, quickly. “I didn’t mean to see them, I just…I was checking on you, and…” I swallowed hard. “To be fair, you were half naked in my window when I woke up. It was difficult not to stare and…um, to see.”
He shrugged, trying and failing to roll away the obvious discomfort he felt. “I ran out of energy to finish changing.”
“…You did seem exhausted.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw, a flex from holding back whatever he’d started to say.
He headed toward the door. I assumed he wasn’t going to say any more on the subject, or otherwise acknowledge it at all.
But then he drifted toward one of the room’s two ornate, standing mirrors, pausing to study his reflection in it, pulling his jacket and shirt down so he could more clearly see the highest of the marks on his chest.
He noticed me staring. Without taking his eyes off his reflection, he said, “When I was six years old, I came down with an illness that nearly killed me. A spell or some rare poison snuck into my food by some enemy court, we suspected—we never truly figured it out. The doctors tried everything to oust the sickness from my body. The only thing that seemed to have any effect at all was bloodletting. That’s where the first row of these scars came from.”
“…And the rest of them?”
“I carved them myself, after being left alone for too long. I woke in a feverish panic and grabbed one of the ceremonial knives on display in the hall outside my room, I’m told. I don’t remember any of it, but I likely would have bled to death that night, had some of the servants not found me as quickly as they did.”
That explained why the ones on his back were messier; he hadn’t been able to reach there as easily.
“A bright light alerted them to my alarming state, they claimed, though I don’t really remember that, either.”
“A light…your magic?”
He nodded. “I assume. After this incident is when it first emerged.”
“You weren’t born showing signs of it, you mean?”
He shook his head.
“…But you’re an innate magic wielder, I’ve always heard. A legendary one, at that.”
“That’s what everyone in my kingdom was told, too. And perhaps it’s the truth; maybe it was always inside me, only waiting for something like that infection and fever to trigger it. I’m not sure. I just know something strange happened that night.” He ran his fingers through his pale hair, magic softly lighting his palm and making the strands shimmer like frost in the moonlight. “I still have nightmares, sometimes,” he said. “Shapes I can’t make sense of. Blood covering my chest and back. A voice calling my name until I wake up.”
“That sounds…horrifying.” I stepped closer, until our reflections were side-by-side.
He glanced my way for half an instant before fixing a determined stare back on the mirror. “They’re only nightmares. I know they aren’t real.”
I could hear the thinly-veiled fear in his voice in spite of his obvious efforts to hide it. I wanted to know more about his nightmares and all the other scars he’d collected as a child, but I didn’t want to force him to relive those things—or to admit, out loud, that I was curious about any of it.
“…I should go find my cousin,” he said. “It’s never a good idea to leave him unsupervised for too long.”
I couldn’t think of an excuse quickly enough to keep him. And he was probably right, besides; the gods only knew what sort of trouble Zayn was getting into.
Aleks hesitated one last time before stepping away from the mirror. His expression was difficult to read, hinting at a thousand different things he might have said. But he only nodded toward my shoulder and told me, “Be careful with that. The wound is deep.”
“I’ll be fine.”
He was gone a moment later.
Gingerly, I touched the bandage again. The ache underneath was almost completely gone. I was more convinced than ever that he’d soothed it with his magic. Something that must have been exceptionally difficult to do given his exhaustion, especially under the weight of whatever protective spells surrounded this palace.
Two days , Aveline had said. Two days I’d been asleep. Two days he’d been in here, comforting and watching over me. And now he’d tried to heal me, too.
But that was inside of this room.
Outside, the pressures of our separate worlds awaited, and I could already feel their weight threatening to crush the fragile truce we’d started to build.