What Blooms from Death

Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-Four

Nova

I didn’t make it far before I heard a scream.

It was such a sharp contrast to the blissful quiet and peace I’d experienced in Aleksander’s bedroom that it took my mind a moment to accept what it was hearing, to jolt me entirely back into the reality of the world and wars I was now a part of.

Following the scream—and the rising babel of other voices that followed it—led me to the bedrooms where Rowen and Farren had been staying, which stood across from one another in the hallway running perpendicular to Aleksander’s chambers.

The doors to both rooms were open. Servants and guards rushed back and forth between them, hurriedly exchanging words and harried looks. I caught a glimpse of a bloody blanket wrapped in the arms of one of the servants. Another left a trail of scarlet footprints in her wake.

Chaos further enveloped the space as I stepped into it, my arrival drawing multiple gazes. Heads bowed. Bodies shrank away in uncertainty. Most voices dropped to a whisper, but they were joined by the voices of more arriving onlookers, and so the overall clamor in the narrow hall grew louder still.

The frantic march between the rooms continued. Several people were soon calling for someone to fetch my brother, their voices booming to be heard over the panicked chatter.

There was so much noise that I didn’t realize Aleksander had joined me until I felt his hand press against the small of my back. I knew it was him, even without turning around, as there was magic in his touch—a warm burst of comforting light amidst the mayhem. It sank into my skin, briefly transporting me back to the moment where I’d rested in his bed, wrapped in the warmth of his arms.

Had that really only been minutes ago?

The warmth didn’t last.

Before I could find my voice and demand answers from any of the people before me, Zayn strode furiously from one of the rooms, his hand tightly gripping the sword hanging from his belt. He looked as though he was considering unsheathing it and silencing everyone around us with a few precise swings.

I’d never seen him look so upset.

Aleksander stepped away from me, cutting his cousin off before he could do anything drastic. He held tightly to Zayn’s arm, speaking in a low voice, trying to calm him down; it took several moments before Zayn seemed to realize he was even there.

While the two of them discussed something in the language of their own kingdom, I gathered my courage and walked numbly toward one of the open rooms.

Worried expressions followed my every movement, but no one tried to stop me.

The room was dark, lit only by a lamp in the connecting washroom that spilled a weak glow into the space. Two candelabras were lying on the floor, along with an assortment of other objects that looked to have been knocked from the top of a dresser. The room smelled of wax and smoke…

And blood.

Making my way around to the other side of the bed, I quickly found the source of that sharp, metallic scent: a body. Its throat had been slashed wide open. The face was horribly mangled, but after a moment of staring, I managed to make out a familiar pair of eyes, wide open with the haunting, unseeing gaze of the dead.

Rowen .

Something told me Farren was sprawled out in an identical scene across the hallway.

“Fuck…” Aleksander muttered, coming up behind me.

A crowd had gathered at the door. Now that I was present, they all seemed to be halting there, waiting on me to give them orders. But I still didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t even speak. I could only stare. First the guards murdered at the swords’ chamber, and now, this.

What next?

Aleksander managed to move before I did. Carefully, he picked his way over splattered blood and the scattered objects from the desk, kneeling at his soldier’s side. My gaze followed his as he examined a chunk of flesh on the floor beside Rowen’s head…

“That…that’s his tongue, isn’t it?” I whispered in horror, moving toward the dresser, fumbling to grab onto its edge as my balance swayed.

Aleks averted his eyes, his breaths growing shaky and uneven, his usual stoic demeanor starting to crack.

Zayn pushed his way through the crowd at the door. Fury radiated from his body. Even in the low lighting, I could see it—the twitch in his jaw; the fire in his eyes; the tense coil of his muscles, ready to snap. His voice was sharp, each word cutting through the air like a blade, as he said, “Someone clearly didn’t want them to be able to talk. They must have seen something they shouldn’t have.”

I gripped the dresser more tightly, my head throbbing with the implications of this latest bloodshed.

“Yes,” said Aleks. “The question is, what ?”

Five more days passed.

Every corner of the palace was searched, every person in it questioned, but the investigation yielded no answers. The murders and the attempted break-in remained a mystery.

When I wasn’t helping with that investigation, I spent every second I could trying to master more of my magic, or else mentally preparing myself for balancing the weight of Grimnor in my hands.

After most training sessions, I collapsed in exhaustion on my bed, not moving until one of the servants tempted me with food or a warm bath—or, more and more often, I sank into Aleksander’s bed and all the different temptations of him .

He relaxed me, more than anything else this palace could offer. It wasn’t merely about physical release, either. Somehow, when I hadn’t been paying attention, he’d gone from a source of white-hot irritation to one of undeniable comfort.

The evening of the fifth day found me alone in my bedroom with my face buried in a pillow, wishing Aleks was much closer than he was. Phantom was sprawled out beside me, hogging the majority of the bed, one errant movement away from knocking me onto the floor.

Aveline trundled in soon after my head hit the pillow, her arms laden with trays of food. I could smell her cinnamon cookies—one of my favorites—but I was too tired to show much interest beyond rolling toward her.

Phantom, on the other hand, was up in an instant, clambering off the bed and sitting expectantly at her feet.

“Nothing here for you, little scamp,” she said, shooing him away.

He slipped under the table and proceeded to lay down and sulk, settling his head on his paws with a loud huff.

“I expected you’d be in the Light King’s room, but no one answered his door,” she said, ignoring the pouting dog and turning to me.

“He’s still at the training grounds,” I informed her.

Zayn had insisted they keep going, even after I’d stopped. I’d wanted to stay as well, but my body had fought against every attempt I made to prove I could keep practicing magic, turning me into an embarrassing, stumbling mess—until both men had insisted I needed to go lay down.

Aveline considered me for a moment. And then, in her blunt, matter-of-fact tone, she said, “Well, that gives me a chance to talk to you about this in private, at least.” She held up a small glass bottle full of a pale blue liquid with herbs swimming in it.

“And what is that ?”

“Something to prevent accidents , if you two are going to insist on messing around every chance you get.”

I sat up, cheeks burning slightly. “We haven’t done anything that would warrant the need for such a tonic, thank you very much.”

She looked skeptical.

“It’s true,” I insisted.

And it was. Though, not for lack of desire. Something always held me back. Fear, I guessed; I’d never been one to consider sex particularly sacred, but things felt… different with him. And it terrified me, the thought of giving myself so completely to him, knowing all the things waiting in the wings, ready to rip us apart.

Besides, he had proven very… creative , and more than capable of using other methods to help me relax.

“Well, it’s only a matter of time before you do,” Aveline said, unfazed. “Anyone who’s spent more than a minute in the presence of you two can see that much.”

“I have a few larger concerns than who I’m sleeping with, and to what extent,” I mumbled, flopping back against the pillow.

“No disagreements there,” she said with a sympathetic click of her tongue. But she plopped the bottle down on my nightstand all the same.

I sleepily watched the herbs rising and falling in that bottle while Aveline hummed to herself as she laid out my dinner on the nearby table. The scents that wafted over to me were a strange combination of nauseating and enticing.

“Eat, my love,” Aveline encouraged, rubbing my back for a moment before dismissing herself. She tossed a handful of cheese slices to Phantom on her way out, putting an end to his pouting session.

I rolled from my bed and stomached what I could—which wasn’t much. A couple morsels of cheese, a bit of peppered turkey, a few crumbs of those cinnamon cookies that I normally devoured by the dozen. But I couldn’t even find the energy to bathe after eating, as I normally would. Sleep proved elusive, as well.

Eventually, I staggered out of my room and went in search of Aleksander. Phantom stayed behind, happy to have my bed all to himself—and to polish off all the food I’d left on my plate.

As I made my way through the halls, I kept my thoughts only on Aleksander; everything else was too exhausting to think about. My mind soon filled with images from the previous night, when the two of us had relaxed together in the massive tub that stood in the center of his washroom, sipping on sweet wine. Thoughts of repeating this activity proved more enticing than cinnamon cookies, even, and somehow my tired feet kept moving.

But he still wasn’t in his room, unfortunately. And he was no longer at the training grounds, either—nor anywhere else I looked.

It wasn’t Aleksander I ultimately found, but Zayn. I rounded a corner and nearly collided with the Elarithian lord; he was standing beneath a portrait of Calista, studying it with a frown and a pensive gaze.

Since our arrival in this palace, we hadn’t seen much of one another outside of occasional shared training sessions. I’d seen even less of him since the murders of a few days ago—and we almost never found ourselves alone together. I suspected he was avoiding me. That he disagreed with how close Aleksander and I were becoming, but he wasn’t one to argue if he could help it…so he was simply trying to pretend I didn’t exist, instead.

Nevertheless, he greeted me warmly, this time—maybe because it was too late to get away. We stood together for several minutes, engaging in a pleasant enough, if shallow, conversation.

As that conversation trailed off, his gaze shifted between me and the portrait he’d been studying.

“You favor her a bit,” he informed me. “Of course, they say that all the Vaelora of a given affinity favor one another, even though there’s no blood between them.”

I favored Queen Isolde, as well; there were several paintings of her hanging in the hall outside of my room. I had to pass them every day, and every day the weight of her eyes seemed to grow. And I couldn’t help but think of how my own eyes were the same color as the Queen of Eldris’s, too, even though we apparently shared no real blood.

All these powerful women with personal ties to me...

Why did I feel so weak, so uncertain, so small within their shadows?

I gave Zayn a half-hearted smile before fixing my eyes on the painting of Calista. Though she had never been a true queen, she was the very picture of regal grace. Her eyes were dark green, a stunning compliment to her raven-black hair. Her gaze was intelligent. The slight tilt of her head conveyed a sense of quiet dignity, while her lips were curved into a slight, mysterious smile, as if she was well aware of her own power and waiting for someone to dare to challenge it.

As I stared up at her, my turquoise bracelet tightened slightly against my wrist. I slipped my fingers between it and my skin, trying to relieve the pressure without taking my gaze from Calista’s.

“I don’t see the resemblance, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe you will once you take up your sword?” Zayn offered.

The words flooded me with a myriad of confusing feelings—and questions.

Did he want me to take up that sword, knowing it would only make the relationship between all of us that much more complicated?

The last hints of warmth between us seemed to flee as the seconds ticked by in silence. I realized how much I missed the relationship we’d been building before the complications we’d found in this palace, and a question escaped me before I could stop it: “You told Aleks to be careful of me and that sword, didn’t you?”

“I tell Aleks to be careful of everyone. He’s a notoriously bad judge of risk—thinks he’s invincible, that one.”

“Be serious, Zayn.”

He was quiet for a minute, back to studying the portrait. His chest rose and fell with a deep sigh. “It was quite the tragedy, wasn’t it? The story of Calista and Argoth, I mean.” He tilted his face toward me. He wore his usual, carefree smile—close to the one I’d been missing—but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I guess I’ve just never been one for tragedies.”

“…I suppose I’m not, either,” I said, quietly. My lungs felt like they were shriveling up, preventing me from taking a proper breath no matter how hard I tried.

Silence threatened once more, but Zayn broke it with a brighter, more determined smile. “I am a fan of evening strolls through the gardens, though.”

It felt like a peace offering, so I couldn’t help but take it, even though I was still curious about where Aleksander had gotten to. Zayn didn’t seem to know the answer to that question, either—but I was soon able to put it out of my mind as we slipped back into a comfortable rhythm of conversation, the heaviness between us easing a little more with every passing minute.

We walked together for an hour, at least, through rows of rose-dotted hedges, over weathered brick paths, along a babbling stream. The air was crisp, filled with the invigorating scent of citrus and jasmine.

My tiredness was eventually forgotten, and I was in relatively good spirits when we returned to the front of the palace to find my brother standing with one shoulder leaning against a column, gazing into the distance as if watching for something. He was merely standing there, yet there was a gravity surrounding him that I couldn’t explain; one that put all my nerves right back on edge.

“He always appears so serious,” Zayn whispered, a crooked smile flirting with the words. “I feel like I’m in trouble every time he looks my way.”

“We very well might be in trouble,” I whispered back, trying to keep my tone light.

“I’ll distract him if you want to run,” he offered. “I provided that favor to Aleks a few times when we were growing up.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I said, returning the smile he gave me. I looked back to my brother to find his watchful gaze now fixed on me. With a sigh, I added, “Thank you for the company and conversation, but it seems I’m due back to the serious business of saving the world and such.”

He chuckled and gave a little bow, bidding me good night and offering my brother a curt nod as he made his way inside.

Despite the laughter we’d shared, as I watched Zayn go, I found myself thinking, again, of the troubled expression he’d worn as we spoke in the hallway earlier, and of the long shadows cast by Calista and all the others who had shaped my life.

I’ve just never been one for tragedies.

I took a deep breath, trying to convince myself I wasn’t walking toward a tragedy as I climbed the steps to my brother.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Bastian said. “We need to talk.” He sat on the top step and gestured for me to take the space beside him.

I sat, hooking my arms around my legs and drawing them up against my chest, trying to ignore the restless fluttering in my stomach.

“I’ve been discussing your training progress with Eamon and Thalia,” my brother continued, “and we all agree that it’s time you took up your sword—at least for a trial run.”

“A trial run?”

His gaze lifted to the distant horizon once more. “There’s an army that needs reviving, as we previously discussed. The soldiers we have at the palace and in Tarnath are limited in number; we won’t last long on the other side of the Nerithys Gate without reinforcements.”

“You have specific targets in mind for this revival, I assume?”

He nodded. “Tomorrow, if you’re willing, we can follow the road that leads east out of the city. A relatively short ride will bring us to Graykeep and its barracks, a place historically used for the staging and training of our kingdom’s finest warriors. The shades there are… different than the ones in other places.”

I realized now that this was what he was looking toward—those distant barracks.

A distant possibility of hope.

“How are they different?” I asked.

“Though most of the people who have turned to shades now drift aimlessly through the Deadlands, the ones who were at Graykeep when they began to fade have yet to leave that fortress behind. They were marked by Calista well before her death, given an extra blessing and protection from her magic—as were the grounds of Graykeep itself. It seems this shared blessing has tied the warriors to that place. Fated them to remain loyal, even now…and we’re hoping this will make them easier for you to awaken. That their loyalty might transfer to you.”

I sat up straighter as I tried to picture it: An army at my back as I opened the Nerithys Gate and stepped through to whatever fate waited on the other side.

The vision was still blurry, but the outline was there. Maybe it would all grow clearer once I had my sword in my hand, as Zayn had suggested.

Bastian was watching me carefully. Expectantly. I was struggling to put my thoughts into words—a recurring problem over these past few days.

“We have very little time to work with,” he said, “but if you’re at all uncertain, then maybe…”

“No,” I said quickly, before doubt could sink its claws into me. “I’m not uncertain. I can do this.”

I had to do this.

The cost of failure was too difficult to even think about.

He exhaled a held breath, his smile relieved—though his eyes were a bit pained, as though he ached to think about how we’d come to such a desperate place.

After a bit of quiet deliberation, he stood, decisively, and offered me a hand up. “You should first learn how to access the chamber of the swords, then. Someone aside from me should know how to do this, anyway, just in case something happens to me.”

He said those last few words like an afterthought as he turned and started into the palace, but I couldn’t shake the foreboding feeling that settled over me as I hurried to catch up with him.

We made our way to the chamber doors. Two guards stood outside of it, their bodies so still they might have been statues. I wondered what was going through their minds every time they heard anyone approaching their station—how often they had thought of the murders that had taken place right where they stood, mere days ago.

The walls, floors, and the doors themselves were all spotless once more. Yet, everywhere I looked, I thought I saw blood at first—at least until I blinked, making it disappear every time. The scent of it lingered, however, no matter how I tried to make it go away. Whether memory or reality, I couldn’t say for sure.

The guards bowed to my brother and me, stepping aside without a word. As they took up a new position a short ways up the hall, I wandered closer to the doors. The bracelet my father had given me began to shake, just as it had the last time we’d visited this chamber. I’d been too distracted to pay much attention to it before, but now, its buzzing seemed to echo in the quiet air—loud enough that Bastian tilted his head toward the sound. I held it up for him to see.

“It’s reacting to the doors?” He stepped closer, fixing a curious gaze on the jewelry.

“It did this before, too.”

“…Reacting to the magic that seals this chamber shut, I suspect—as it’s pure Vaeloran magic. In fact, you can likely follow its promptings and figure out how to break the sealing spell yourself. Go ahead; try it and see.”

Tentatively, I reached my hand toward the doors. The bracelet rattled more violently as I did so, but, other than this, nothing happened right away.

I closed my eyes, blocking out all sensation except the movement of my bracelet. I soon felt an odd pressure in my chest, like someone taking hold of my heart and squeezing it. A sudden, rapt awareness of my body followed—like I could feel every individual drop of blood in my veins, every whisper of breath in my lungs. I was hyper-aware of every bump of gooseflesh on my skin, too…and what felt like ghostly fingertips lightly brushing my arm.

Those fingertips trailed down the length of my arm, collecting into a greater pressure at my hand. Then it was like someone else taking that hand and guiding it—showing it which symbols to trace on the doors. Which ones to avoid. Where to press, and how hard or soft to make my touch.

My eyes opened to see nothing more than a hint of darkness swirling beneath the surface of my skin, so faint I wondered if I was imagining it. Yet, the pressure in my hand continued to build, the ghostly guidance heavy and insistent.

I did my best to let this apparent new facet of my powers lead me, but I almost panicked at the bizarre sensation more than once.

Bastian steadied my hand every time it started to drop, guiding it along with my magic. Within moments, the etchings in the steel were glowing—as they had the last time we’d been here—and the doors swung open.

My bracelet continued to shiver as we stepped inside. I clenched my hand around it, breathing hard. I’d been trying to channel some sort of power through this bracelet for years .

But now that I’d done it, all I felt was… strange .

The hyper-vigilant state it had induced persisted, making me entirely too aware of my every labored breath and twitching nerve, to the point that it made me feel almost paranoid.

My brother seemed to pick up on my discomfort. “Your ties to Vaeloran magic are what will allow you to wield your sword properly as well,” he said, encouragingly. “You’ll get used to the sensation; the bracelet should keep it from becoming too overwhelming, in the meantime.”

I tried to take slower, calmer breaths. “I’ve been clueless about what this piece does for years now; it’s only reacted to a few things since I’ve had it, and I could never pinpoint what it was reacting to, or what sort of magic it was encouraging me to do.” I absently spun the beads of it around, thinking. “It seemed to wake in Erebos, too, when it got close to the vivaris flames.”

My brother didn’t seem surprised by this. “Those flames were originally created by a Vaelora,” he said. “Not Calista, but one of the Shadow Vaelora who came before her. There have been sacrifices from Aetherkin and the like to keep them going over the years, but those blue fires were originally born of a higher, purer magic.”

I turned this over in my head a few times before settling on a theory. “…So, whenever it reacts, there’s likely powerful, pure Vaeloran magic at work nearby?”

He nodded, gingerly taking my hand and lifting it so he could better examine the bracelet. “That would be my guess.”

“…What do you think would happen if I took it off?” I don’t know what made me choose that moment to ask him such a thing—except that it was a question that had always lingered in the back of my mind, but it had been getting louder and louder over the last few days.

Bastian’s expression was equal parts curious and troubled as he considered his reply. It was a long moment before he said, “You are part of a long line of Vaelora, and, in a way, all of the past manifestations of them are a part of you. As your powers have awakened with age, so too have your connections to them and all the magic they laid upon this world. Without anything subduing it all, I imagine your journey through Noctaris would have been even more dangerously overwhelming. But there will come a time for taking the constraints off, I suspect.”

I shoved down the pessimistic, intrusive response I had to this— what if that time never comes?

What if I fail before we reach that point?

My brother turned the beads around a few times, situating them so all the symbols were facing him. “The letters on it are an ancient script; in our modern tongue it would be pronounced avelian. It’s an old Noctarisan word that means something like kindred spirits , or souls that are bound to one another .”

While he turned his attention to the floating swords, I clenched and unclenched my fist, trying to think of the magic that had guided my hand as something kin to me—reminding myself that I was not a stranger in this strange land any longer, even if I still felt like one.

A thrum of power radiated from the center of the room, drawing my eyes to the swords.

My gaze fell first on Luminor. The idea of touching it—of reading the memories contained in its glimmering blade—struck me again. Yet, even now, as close as I stood to it, I couldn’t bring myself to reach for it. I knew what I wanted the truth to be. But I was still afraid of being wrong.

So, instead, I focused on Grimnor. It looked as heavy and daunting as ever, its velvety dark blade shining dully, like a blackened mirror that only occasionally caught the light.

“Kindred spirits who have all wielded this sword at one point or another…” I thought aloud.

The look Bastian gave me bordered on proud. “Exactly.”

Another stab of pressure struck my hand. It didn’t frighten me as much, this time. I tried to imagine all my predecessors within that pressure point, each laying their hand upon it, and I took a step toward the pedestal in the center of the room.

Grimnor stilled in the air as I drew near, its slow, subtle movements coming to a stop with its grip lined up almost perfectly with my hand. As if inviting me to grab it.

Part of me still expected resistance when I reached for it.

But there was none; before I knew it, my fingers were already closing around the obsidian hilt. Drawing it away from the pedestal felt like pulling a heavy tree limb from a muddy river. Once I took a step back, though, its weight seemed much more bearable.

The turquoise bracelet rattled once more. I closed my eyes, briefly, and let the ghostly pressures take over my wrist, leading me into a series of swipes and thrusts.

For several minutes, I went through the motions like I would have during any practice session, while my brother watched with a contemplative look on his face. It felt oddly mundane—like I’d done it a hundred times before—in one moment, but breathtakingly momentous in the next. Like a mountain beneath a deep sea, only the tip of the sword’s true strength was obvious—but so much more lay hidden underneath the surface.

Once I felt relatively comfortable with the weight and feel of the weapon, I slowly walked it back to the center of the room. I didn’t want to let the sword go; it felt like leaving behind an old friend. Yet, it also felt safer—smarter—to leave it here until I was ready to truly use it.

My hand slipped from the grip, and the sword took it from there, lifting on its own to float back into its suspended spot above the pedestal. I marveled at it for a minute longer before my eyes were drawn once more to its counterpart, and a troubling question reared its head.

“I can wield Grimnor, but what about Luminor?”

Bastian avoided answering me, instead making his way over to a small chest in the corner of the chamber. It sat on a pedestal similar to the one the swords hovered above.

Another spot protected by the same kind of magic?

“Aleksander wielded that sword in the Above,” I pressed, following him across the room. “He’s been training as hard as I have these past weeks to get his magic acclimated to this palace and everything around it. And every time I’ve revived any of the shades, he’s been right there. We should consider what he might be able to do alongside me, with the Sword of Light in his hand. I’ve told you this from the beginning.”

“A lot has happened since then,” he insisted.

It was true—four dead bodies, and an ever-growing sense of desperation and mistrust. Still, I stubbornly said: “True revival requires balance. You’ve told me that yourself. And I know you’ve been trying to create some other source of Light magic, but—”

“And we’ve done it.”

“…You have?”

His fingers worked deftly over the lock on the chest for a moment, and then he opened it and pulled out a necklace—a thick cord with a long, shimmering pendant attached to it. Walking back and offering it to me, he said, “We’ve been working on this for some time. A potent jewel made from a piece of Luminor’s blade, honed into something any skilled magic user should be able to use with little difficulty.”

I took the necklace, unable to stave off my curiosity. It hummed softly in my palm. A marvel, I knew—the end result of dozens of scholars and magic-users working tirelessly for a solution to their dying world.

But it was nothing compared to the warmth and power of Aleksander’s magic. And holding it brought none of the certainty I’d felt when holding Grimnor.

I gazed up at my brother, fighting the urge to crush the jewel in my fist. “You’re never going to trust him, are you?”

He took the pendant again, fastening it around my neck. “This is the safer route. The more predictable one.”

“Safer doesn’t always mean better,” I argued. “And how can you expect to win any war for this world if you aren’t willing to take any risks?” My tone came out harsher than I meant for it to, but I didn’t take my words back.

He fixed me with a hard look, a rare glimmer of anger simmering in his grey eyes. “Almost everything I have done for decades has been a risk. To survive in this world is a risk in and of itself.”

I shuffled my weight from side to side but held my tongue. Furious—yet freshly reminded of the things he’d had to bear without me for so long.

He exhaled deeply through his nose. “Let’s just see what happens tomorrow.”

My heart was ready to go to war with my thoughts, but I somehow managed to silence them both and continue to hold my tongue.

Perhaps I owed it to my kingdom to try and follow through with this task without questioning it. To put its needs first. To protect it from the complications of tying myself to Aleksander—and, by extension, to his dangerous kingdom and its Keepers.

No matter how badly I wanted something else to be true, there were two sides in this war.

And I could not fight for both.