Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Aleksander
The first dawn of our third week at the Rivenholt Palace arrived, heralded by a blood-red sunrise sneaking through my window and the sounds of eager preparations being made outside my door.
Twelve days remained until the Equinox.
Time was running out. The air was thick with a growing sense of fear and unease. To counter it, the would-be saviors of this world had an ambitious goal for today: Reviving an army that could give them a fighting chance once they opened the gate to Nerithys.
And Nova would be leading the way.
She’d informed me of the plan late last night; it had been well past midnight when she crept into my room, unable to sleep. I’m not sure she ever did end up sleeping. But I’d dozed off with her in my arms at some point, only to be nudged awake to find her watching me with a haunted expression and a quiet plea on her lips—
Promise you’ll come with me.
And despite all my lingering questions about us, our separate worlds, and the duty I owed to my own kingdom, I’d promised.
I couldn’t let her go alone.
So, shortly after waking, I was securing saddlebags and adjusting tack while ignoring the questioning, concerned stares of the soldiers who would also be accompanying Nova during the day’s mission.
“You’d think we were the ones who had personally cursed their world, based on the way they stare,” Zayn said under his breath, before swinging onto his horse’s back. “Also? Given the recent murders of our own allies, we should be staring right back, shouldn’t we?”
I didn’t comment on this as I hoisted myself onto my own horse. I didn’t want to think of those murders; I’d only just managed to stop seeing Rowen’s severed tongue every time I closed my eyes.
After an hour of riding, we found ourselves atop a hill covered in grey dust and pebbles, overlooking a large clearing wedged between columns of dark forest.
The trees of that forest were strange, their trunks charred black, as if a fire had roared through but somehow left them otherwise perfectly intact—intact, tall, and strong, swaying and creaking in the slight breeze. Ash-colored dust swirled across the hillside, and the air had an undercurrent of smokiness in it, too.
In the center of the clearing were several rows of barracks flanked by walls of black stone. There were waves of white moving between these walls, and filing in and out of the buildings. Like a swirling ocean of fog from a distance, but as we rode closer, I was able to pick out individual bodies, occasional faces— shades .
More than I’d ever seen gathered in one place.
They moved with slightly more precision than the ones we’d encountered in the past. Regimented, almost. Most of them carried a small sword, as well, clinging to it as if it were the last weight anchoring them to life. And perhaps it was ; the blades of those swords occasionally flashed a pale, greenish blue—part of the blessing Calista was said to have laid over these soldiers in life, maybe.
Their surroundings occasionally seemed to pulse with a similar-colored glow, as well, though it could have been a trick of the poor lighting; whatever magic Calista had laid over this area, it didn’t extend to the sky. The frozen “sun” was a pale coin, lost in a sea of grey, its feeble glow struggling to pierce the heavy canopy of clouds.
I watched the soldiers for a long moment, transfixed by their quiet, relentless repetition. They marched endlessly back and forth through the bleak barracks, their feet making no sound against the earth, their motions synchronized like clockwork.
It was somewhat unnerving, to think of them potentially spending an eternity going through these same motions, all preparing for… what ? Their minds were likely too faded to even realize what they were doing, or why they were doing it. It wasn’t loyalty that kept them marching this way; it was magic. Magic that might have felt like a blessing in the beginning, but now looked more like a curse.
We dismounted, tying our horses to the most intact stretch of fencing we could find, a safe distance away from the area Nova would be targeting.
We moved silently toward that area—myself, Zayn, Nova, Thalia, and Bastian. Phantom, who had just shifted from a horse-like creature into a dog-like one, was immediately distracted by something in the distant forest; he gave chase despite Nova’s protesting. A dozen soldiers from the palace accompanied us as well, led by Eamon, the young man who had been responsible for much of Nova’s training these past weeks.
Nova and I remained side-by-side as the others walked the perimeter of Graykeep’s grounds, discussing their strategy.
The two of us didn’t speak right away. Nova’s gaze was set, her hand tight on the grip of Grimnor, which hung in an ornate sheath at her hip.
I could sense the sword’s power, a deceptively soft humming that felt poised to erupt at any moment. I could sense her power as well, though the feel of it was closely intertwined with Grimnor’s. Being amplified by that sword, clearly. As the seconds ticked by, and her focus increased, it became harder and harder to tell their two separate energies apart.
There would be no talking her out of what she was about to attempt, I knew—though I had a sudden urge to try.
Her brother beckoned her toward him.
“Wish me luck,” she said, somewhat faintly.
Luck won’t keep you safe among those ghostly fiends , was my immediate, anxious thought. But I held my tongue in a way I wouldn’t have weeks ago. For her, I could feign optimism, knowing she needed that more than she needed anything else just then.
“You don’t need luck,” I told her. “You’ll be fine.”
She gave me a small smile, but the confident mask she usually hid her emotions behind didn’t fully settle back into place before she made her way over to her brother. They spoke for several minutes, sizing up targets and reciting plans, and then she turned and started down the hill.
It was an automatic reaction, the way my body turned to follow her; I only just managed to stop myself. But the few steps I took after her didn’t go unnoticed by Thalia and Eamon, who had just moved closer to me.
“She can do it on her own,” Thalia told me, her gaze fixed on Nova as she spoke. “You don’t need to worry.” Her words somehow sounded like both a reassurance and a threat…a reminder not to intervene.
But it seemed foolish, not to worry—and on her own was not entirely correct, either. They had created another tool for her to wield alongside Grimnor. A jewel hung from her neck, one that was at least partially comprised of elements stolen from Luminor.
I was, of course, skeptical of its power.
And afraid it might lure her into a false sense of security, or otherwise unbalance her and end up doing more harm than good.
Thalia and Eamon kept perfectly still, as did Zayn. Bastian paced restlessly after making his way back to us. I was somewhere in between, managing to remain calm until I felt the magic around Nova fluctuate, at which point I would have to force myself to breathe slowly, to keep still, to just keep watching the scene unfolding below.
Nova stopped right outside the main gate to the barracks. Without a second of hesitation, she pulled her sword from its sheath, pointing its tip at the barrier of ivory and twisted metal. The blade was as black as the charred trees flanking the area, and the sword brought to mind fire, as well—maybe because of the red veins of gemstone inlaid in its dark hilt, flashing like embers in the muted lighting.
Even from a distance, the sight was arresting.
Nova handled the sword as though she’d trained with it her entire life. Like it was an extension of her. Shadows soon began to bleed from its blade, and then from her arms, intertwining with precision and elegance, creating a solid wave that flowed over all the ghostly figures she was drawing toward her.
Those shadows within her and her blade were made of the same energy, I’d been told—the same energy that also made up the very world we stood in. Which meant it could be channeled into a pulse that gave the shades life. And the pendant of Light magic Nova carried would help balance the shadows, preventing the force of them from overwhelming the ones being brought back to consciousness.
Simple enough, in concept.
Nova made it look simple in execution, too—like a perfectly choreographed dance. Her shining blade and dark magic alike swept through the air with a fluid grace, each movement flowing seamlessly into the next.
She was…incredible.
There was no other word for it.
And, one by one, the spectral soldiers began to awaken, shedding their grey, muted appearances like snakes slipping free of their dead skins.
They shook the stiffness from their limbs, stumbling for a few moments before stepping into their renewed strength—into an awareness that was obvious even from a distance. Their swords glinted in the hazy daylight as they lifted them with reborn dexterity, twisting them this way and that. A swell of voices rose and fell—from confused whispers, to an excited clamor, then back to an awed hush.
One of them pointed his blade toward the sky, as if in salute. Others followed his lead. All of their gazes remained fixed on Nova; soon, she was surrounded entirely by them, nearly lost in a forest of lifted, shining swords.
Her brother and the rest of his circle moved closer, dividing up, preparing to help organize their waking army.
I stayed in place beside Zayn, a sudden heaviness in my limbs making it hard to think about moving. “It’s…working.”
“Seems like it.” I could hear the frown in Zayn’s voice; I didn’t take my eyes off Nova.
I had two very different, conflicting feelings about her success.
Relief, because it meant she was still safe where she stood among that shifting army.
Dread, to think of what it meant for everything that came next.
“And so they’ll move to the next part of their plans,” Zayn said, quietly enough that only I could hear him. “Which means we might need to reconsider our options. Back to our original idea, maybe.”
The thought cracked through me like lightning splitting a tree, leaving a dead, aching hollowness inside.
Because the original idea, of course, had been to leave her behind. To collect Luminor and use it to help carve a path back to the Above, no matter the cost to her and this world I’d found myself trapped in—because I hadn’t cared about those things, weeks ago.
“She knows how to access the chamber, now, according to the whispers I heard in the palace this morning,” Zayn pointed out.
I cut my eyes toward him.
“So it should be easier than ever to get to Luminor.”
“You’re suggesting I use her to get into that chamber?”
“I’m suggesting survival,” he said, even more quietly. “Because surely you realize: If the rulers of this realm have no need for your magic, we have no leverage here.”
“So we return to our world and see how this impending war plays out…meet her on the opposite side of the battlefield and hope for the best? That’s your suggestion?”
He gave me a tired look. “Not my favorite plan I’ve ever come up with, admittedly.” He was quiet for a few beats before adding, “But you’re only going to make things more difficult for her by staying.”
This last point was the only thing that gave me pause.
I wasn’t worried about what might happen to me. Survival was not a concern of mine; I’d been surviving my whole life. I doubted there was much this realm and its rulers could do to me that I couldn’t endure.
But Nova had the eyes and expectations of an entire realm upon her now. I couldn’t exactly ask her to turn her back on these things, or to put her future at risk for my sake.
So maybe it would be easier to part ways before we were forced into a much messier ending.
I could see the logic in Zayn’s reasoning, yet I couldn’t bring myself to answer his expectant stare. Instead, I turned my gaze back to the waking army and its commander.
Still an incredible sight to behold.
But the longer Nova worked her magic, the more often I felt it fluctuating, like the ebb and flow of a tide losing its rhythm.
There were too many soldiers who still retained their ghostly forms, flickering with an unsettling instability. The sea of them was relentless; no matter how many she revived, more still flooded in, wave after wave thrashing against the nets of her power, demanding more from her.
Bastian and the others had stopped midway down the hill, where they balanced hesitantly, apparently not wanting to interrupt the process so long as Nova still remained on her feet making any progress at all—even if that progress was slowing.
Nova continued to spin and sweep her sword through the air, dauntless and unwavering, but a sick feeling started to take root in my gut as I watched her.
“I still think they’re asking too much of her, too soon,” Zayn muttered, voicing my own concerns.
I tried to veil the uncertainty in my tone. “She agreed to this,” I said, “knowing their time is running out.”
We continued to watch, but only a few more minutes passed before I couldn’t take it any longer; it seemed like the horror I’d witnessed in Erebos, developing all over again. I’d nearly taken too long to get to her side that day.
I couldn’t let it come that close again.
I walked quickly toward her brother. Another ripple of magic emanated from Nova, overtaking the wave of shades nearest to her—but her steps seemed to be getting more sloppy, the weight of Grimnor dragging her a little farther toward the ground every time she swung it.
“Stop her.” I didn’t realize I’d said the words out loud until Bastian shifted his gaze to me, tension crackling like a palpable thing in the air between us.
“She’s nearly finished,” Bastian said.
“She’s done enough.”
“A moment more—”
“ She’s going to hurt herself .”
He took a deep breath. A frustratingly calm, deep breath. I could see the concern in his eyes…yet he didn’t move.
“Stop her,” I growled, “or I will do it myself.”
He seemed to be debating his options—but he was debating them far too slowly.
Magic rose from my skin before he could make any decisions. Jagged light flashed through the air along with a hiss, a crackling—a warning .
He shielded his eyes from the growing brightness with one hand while the other made a sharp, diagonal cut through the air. A signal. In my peripheral vision, I saw both Eamon and Thalia move, along with several others.
As powerful as the light building around me felt, I knew my magic was at a disadvantage in this realm. I was outnumbered, too, and fighting them all would waste time.
I didn’t think beyond this.
I simply abandoned my magic and swung my fist instead.
The punch crashed into Bastian’s face, sending him stumbling back in surprise, clutching his nose.
While he was distracted by the blood streaming from his nose, I moved past him without another word. Soldiers swarmed after me, trying to cut me off. But I was looking far beyond them, all my focus on one singular point in the distance.
Nova had collapsed on the ground.
Her body was quickly disappearing within the relentlessly swarming shades.
I withdrew my sword, prepared to do more than simply punch the soldiers trying to stop me. Several of them drew weapons, as well, forming a half circle before me.
“Let him go,” came Bastian’s sharp voice, before any of us could take a single swing.
They hesitated, but ultimately obeyed, exchanging uncertain looks as they stepped aside.
I sheathed my sword and broke into a run. Though I tried to suppress it, magic once again rose around me as I drew closer to Nova. Bands of golden light streamed toward her, wrapping tightly around her body, as if seeking to comfort her fallen form until I could reach it. Those bands became almost solid, lifting her from the cold ground and rolling her into my arms as I dropped down beside her.
Dozens of the revived soldiers crowded around us, many of them still dazed-looking, leaning on one another for support. Despite their shocked state, they seemed to be trying to shield Nova from the waves of shades still attempting to push their way toward her magic.
My eyes fixed on Nova’s face. There were more of those bruise-like shadows covering it—the same kind she’d gained throughout her trainings these past weeks. They looked much more disturbing out here under the pallid, dead sky. I carefully shifted her more fully into my lap, brushing a strand of hair away from the darkest of those bruises.
“Open your eyes,” I whispered.
She didn’t.
The pendant of Light magic lay shattered on the ground beside her, I noticed.
I curled one arm around Nova, holding her more securely against me while reaching with the other and running my hands through what remained of the pendant. They had been fools to assume such a trinket would be enough. Fools to risk her this way. And as my fingers trailed through the sharp dust, feeling the faint, useless hints of magic clinging to it, a burning fury unfurled in my chest.
I knew the plans Zayn and I had made. I knew the mess I was headed toward, should I choose to go the other way.
But I would let both worlds fall to ruin before I left Nova here alone.
Another surge of magic coursed through me. I didn’t bother trying to suppress it, this time. It rolled from my body, bolt after bolt of light lashing out, spinning and pulling Nova’s scattered shadows toward it.
I watched, still holding Nova tightly against me, as our power collided and tangled together, twisting up into a column that nearly brushed the corpse-grey sky before collapsing back toward the dusty earth. It stretched wider as it fell, creating a vast, fluttering veil of magic that was neither fully light nor shadow—one that settled over more of the shades surrounding us, wrapping them in its embrace, bringing more of them to life.
The air vibrated with a palpable hum of energy. The ground shook, and soon it was returning to life, too, the dust giving way to shoots of green grass, tiny dots of pale-yellow magic hovering over it like fireflies.
Nova finally stirred in my arms and opened her eyes, looking up at me from under her lashes. “I…tried to tell them you would be better than any magical pendant,” she said, the words slurring a bit. “And I was right.”
My jaw clenched. “This was a dangerously foolish way to prove a point.”
A predictably chaotic little grin inched up a corner of her mouth. “I knew you’d find your way to my side,” she said, attempting a shrug that made her wince.
“Must you always be so damned optimistic?”
“It’s a curse, honestly,” she mumbled—her last words before her strength seemed to fail her completely. She went limp against my chest. Panic briefly seized me. I placed a hand over her heart and forced my breathing to slow so I could watch hers until I was satisfied that it was steady enough.
Securing her in my arms, I rose to my feet and turned to find her brother, Thalia, and a handful of others racing down to meet us and the risen army.
The air had turned warmer. The scent of dust and ash was fading, giving way to the sharp, almost electric scent of new growth. Bodies moving, life unfolding…the scene was astounding, I vaguely realized. But I felt too numb to take in much of it, my eyes narrowed on the Regent of Rivenholt, and the Regent, alone.
Blood still streamed freely from his nose.
I didn’t regret a drop of it.
I wished I’d done worse.
We stared at one another for a long, tense moment. A protective urge that bordered on feral wound its way through me, tightening my muscles, drawing Nova more completely against me. There were a thousand choice words I could have said to her brother, but all I managed to grind out was, “You better hope she makes a full fucking recovery.”
I didn’t wait for any response.
Without a backwards glance, I carried Nova up the hill to where my horse waited.
I climbed into the saddle and, with Zayn’s help, dragged Nova up as well, carefully situating her in front of me. Once we were fully balanced, she finally opened her eyes again, gazing up at me without lifting her head from my chest.
She said only one more word—only my name. It sounded like a complete sentence from her lips. A complete plea. A complete surrender.
“You’re safe,” I said, tightening my grip on her once more, gazing one last time at the magic laid upon the land behind us.
Despite all she’d brought to life, death still hovered at the edges. There were still hordes of shades who hadn’t been revived. The sky was still streaked with bruise-colored clouds that matched the ones on Nova’s face. The patch of green grass we’d created seemed small and insignificant, an island in an ocean of darkness, reminding me of how vast this world was—and how much more it would take to save it.
How much more they would ask of her before the end.
She curled closer to me, her hands clenching into the front of my coat.
“You’re safe,” I repeated.
Even though it felt like a lie.