Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Nova
“Look at this,” said my brother, waving me over to him.
We were pacing along the outermost wall that surrounded the palace—one connected to the main gatehouse. It was late, though I couldn’t gauge the exact time of night, as the sky had been the same color all day: Dark, dreary grey. This dreariness had apparently washed over the palace shortly after Lorien disappeared, and it hadn’t cleared ever since. Between that and the strangely thick fog rolling across the landscape, I didn’t expect to be able to see much.
I braced a hand against the battlement, nonetheless, peering in the direction Bastian was pointing in.
Fear squeezed the breath from my lungs as I caught sight of ghostly white figures in the distance—shades. They had gathered in countless groups along the expansive fields encircling the palace, their ethereal forms twitching with unnatural movements, dancing like pale ribbons caught in a restless wind.
“They’re getting closer every hour,” Bastian said. “The wards that Calista put into place are beginning to fail, and now they can sense the life we’ve been protecting within our oasis. They likely sense you and your power, as well. I doubt they understand what’s happening here, but it draws them in, all the same.”
An unsettling question occurred to me. “How did they end up outside of these walls in the first place? How did Calista—and the leaders who served alongside her—decide who would be protected within this sanctuary, and who would be left out?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve spent hours scouring all of the literature and notes we could find about the shades, but there’s nothing conclusive about her decision-making process.”
The question continued to eat away at me, until a horrible sound—a low, unearthly hiss—rose from the crowd of shades, jolting me back into the present.
“There are so many out there,” I said, hugging myself against the chill that rippled through me. “Enough to cause problems if they get inside, even if they aren’t sentient and organized...”
My brother nodded in solemn, silent agreement.
It explained why both the gatehouse and the rampart we stood upon were more heavily secured and guarded than I’d ever seen them.
Such defenses had been unnecessary ever since Calista’s magic had made this refuge impenetrable and impossible to overtake, or even find . As a result, the structures themselves were in varying states of disrepair. All day long, there had been a flurry of activity around them—attempts to reinforce crumbled sections, to cover openings, to shore up weak points. Not just against the shades, but against whatever other calamities awaited in the days to come, whether by Lorien’s hand or otherwise.
The preparations continued, even now. The thumping and clanging of tools echoed in the eerie, foggy night, along with the sound of footsteps and the shouting of orders and plans.
It made me want to imagine this palace in its prime, back when Rivenholt was a proper kingdom surrounded by other proper kingdoms. It must have been a grand sight, at one point—all these towering walls, majestic arches, and imposing fortifications. I wondered briefly at the history of Noctaris and all its secrets, the untold stories woven into ancient stones like the ones we walked upon. There was still so much to learn about what had been lost, and what we might still be able to salvage in the future.
Yet my gaze never strayed far from the present situation. “Our walls are being reinforced here, but what about Tarnath?” That royal city would be overrun in no time, should the shades manage to flood into its streets.
“The citizens have been warned not to leave their homes. Eamon and a few of the other feyth like him are heading up efforts to reinforce things. There are old, lesser remedies to fend off shades, too—special herbs and salves that can be burned, charms that can be fashioned from blessed obsidian and bone. They don’t last indefinitely, but they should buy a little time.”
My gaze drifted back to the shades, whose movements seemed increasingly desperate.
“What will become of them, even if we manage some sort of victory?” I wondered. “They’re different from the wraiths who are partly sustained by the flames in places like Erebos, or the more protected shades we revived at Graykeep, right? They’ve been wandering in the Deadlands for so long, bereft of all magic…will they be able to return to human existence, if so much has been lost, even with the aid of the Aetherstone’s magic?”
Bastian didn’t answer right away, but I could tell by the way his jaw tightened and his fingers twitched restlessly against his crossed arms that he was giving the question serious consideration—and the tired lines around his eyes suggested it wasn’t the first time he’d wondered about it.
“It’s…daunting to think about, isn’t it?” I said, my voice hushed.
“It is.” His eyes closed for a moment, as if he was searching his mind for some last lingering shred of optimism. “Brynn came back, though,” he eventually said.
“Yes, but she didn’t wander out in the Deadlands for very long, compared to many who have been out there since the initial fall of Noctaris. And she had Aetherkin parents, besides.”
Bastian sighed, but he didn’t disagree. He watched me for a moment before giving my shoulder a comforting squeeze. “We’ll find a solution for all the fallen beings of our kingdoms, whatever their state, when we reach that point. One step at a time, hm?”
“I suppose.”
His troubled gaze swept over our surroundings. “The sky is honestly the more disturbing thing to me at the moment. And also… that .” He directed my attention to a distant stretch of ground, where I saw a crack starting to form. Still small, barely noticeable, but it seemed to grow even as we watched.
The very world threatening to break apart, right under our feet.
I gripped the stone battlement more tightly. “The darkness, the breaking, the failing wards…is it all simply because Grimnor has been stolen from us? Was so much of Calista’s protective spell truly reliant on that blade? Or do you think Lorien has done something else within Nerithys…something to speed up the decay of this realm?”
Bastian shook his head. “I wish I knew. I think both things are likely playing a role, but to what extent…I can’t say.”
Neither of us could.
We were only guessing at what we truly faced, and it was maddening—like trying to suit up for battle in an armory that was pitch dark.
But I’d told him everything I knew, at least. Everything Lorien had tauntingly shared while in the swords’ chamber.
And, in exchange, Bastian had released Aleks from the dungeon. Although he’d refused to let the Light King move freely through the palace, as he once had, we’d reached a compromise: Aleks was now considerably more comfortable, tucked away in a small room in a forgotten corner of the palace. That room was still heavily guarded, but at least he was safe. He’d been moved covertly, too, so most of our would-be allies still believed he was in the dungeons.
Of course, I would have preferred him by my side.
And he would be back at my side, before long—I wouldn’t be marching into any battles without him.
But I could only fight so many things at once, and knowing he wasn’t suffering made it easier to focus on the bigger picture alongside my brother, for the time being.
“I don’t think we can wait for Equinox,” I told Bastian. “The Aetherstone may be easier to manipulate during that time period, but I think the pressing thing is to get into Nerithys and do what we can, while we can. The longer we wait, the more time Lorien has to lay traps and further destabilize things.”
Bastian nodded slowly, the movement heavy and resolute. “Agreed.”
The decision hung in the air like a stone.
“We’ll only be two days early, if that,” I muttered. “Close enough, right?”
“Let’s hope so.”
I hugged my arms against myself, searching the sky for the moon that had been lost within the foggy darkness. “Will the other Noctarisan leaders follow us into battle?”
“Most will, I think. They have no real choice, after all. This is…” He trailed off, inhaling a sharp breath, as if that stone in the air had landed on his chest.
The end, I finished in my head.
But neither of us said it out loud.
It went without saying, really. What else could we do, now, aside from march to our inevitable ending, whatever it was? Lorien had made his intentions clear. Either we stopped him, somehow, or the world we stood in was finished.
A terrible feeling squeezed my heart as I thought of Tarnath, of all its people smiling and waving at me. Of the army I’d raised, and how hard they’d been training and trying to organize on my behalf. Of the palace and its people—Aveline, Brynn, Eamon…all these things that had started to feel the tiniest bit like my true home. My true life.
All of it in danger of just being… gone.
“I’m sorry I led him here,” I said, quietly. “I’m sorry I brought this end upon you all even sooner than you’d feared.”
Bastian shook his head. “Thalia led you here—and on my orders. We missed the danger right under our noses, too, and Thalia is the most discerning person I know. No one could have seen the truth about Lorien; there’s a reason he has survived for all these centuries. A reason he managed to murder Calista all those generations ago. He’s a cunning snake.”
I kept my eyes on the distant crack in the ground, unconvinced.
“We knew there was something strange going on with the Light King and his brethren, besides,” he insisted. “We should have investigated the whole situation more thoroughly to begin with.”
I tilted my face toward him. “I did wonder about that. When I first met Thalia, she seemed surprised that Aleks and the others were awake and with me, but not particularly surprised that they were all in this world.”
“We found them all shortly after their fall—well, we found Aleksander and a few of his soldiers, anyway. The one you called Zayn was nowhere to be seen at that point. Aleksander was close to death, as were the others with him; we assumed they all would perish in the decaying air of this world, given a little bit of time. Especially once we took Luminor.”
“So, you took the sword and left them for dead?” It seemed a cruel choice, even if Aleks and the others were clearly in league with the Light Keepers—clearly enemies.
Bastian shrugged, though the movement was heavy, making him seem less indifferent than he was trying to appear. “Traveling outside of this palace and its immediate surroundings is dangerous enough on its own; we didn’t need to drag the extra weight of them with us.”
The back of my neck prickled at him calling Aleks extra weight , but I held my tongue.
“Their deaths should have been quick. They shouldn’t have been able to survive for years like they did…and when some of them did survive, we opted to secure the area and occasionally send people to study the magic at work, instead. Our curiosity got the better of us, I guess.”
“How different things might have turned out, if you’d killed them,” I mused.
“Yes; I think about that often.”
I leaned over the wall, staring again at the fissure in the distance. Imagining all the different paths this world could have followed, as if they were branching cracks in the ground—some far more destabilizing than others.
“I still have a lot of questions about what Lorien was doing over the past seven years,” my brother said. “How he came and went, how much of his power is tied into Luminor and Aleksander. But, in hindsight, the fact that you ended up being drawn into the grove where they all were should have made us all wary.”
“…Because the Vaeloran are always connected and drawn to one another.” Recalling Lorien’s words—how he had felt me the moment I was born, I shivered.
I didn’t want to be connected to him.
And now that he’d drained my magic and left these scars on my body…just how deep did our bond go?
Could he feel me at this very moment?
Could I have felt him , if I’d tried to?
As if he could sense my distress, Bastian added, “I suppose it gives us some hope, that your connection to Aleks seems at least as strong as any connection you share with Lorien. Maybe the amount of magic he retained from Lorien’s attempt to overtake his body will give us the edge we need to tip things in our favor.”
“Hopefully.” I tried to sound optimistic, even as a voice in the back of my mind whispered— but at what cost?
I couldn’t imagine any scenario where Aleks and me being so connected to Lorien didn’t end poorly.
Tragically .
My brother’s voice remained solemn, his eyes troubled, as he said, “Anyway, my point is the end was coming soon, either way. So there’s no sense in wasting your time apologizing about it.”
I forced myself to talk a step back from the wall, to stop obsessing over the breaking ground. We were quiet for a few moments before Bastian spoke again.
“Although, as long as we’re apologizing…”
I glanced over and saw him studying the scars along my face and neck.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said. “I should have stayed closer to you the other night. I should have kept you safe.”
I waved the apology away, same as he’d done with mine. “You’ve kept this palace and everything around it safe for nearly twenty-five years,” I pointed out. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s time you gave yourself a break.”
He chuckled softly. “You think we have time for breaks?”
I grimaced. “No, I guess not.” I tilted my face toward his. In a quieter, more serious tone, I added, “But I’m here, now, at least—so it isn’t all on you anymore. You don’t have to do things alone.”
He exhaled a long, slow breath, his gaze fixed on the cloudy sky, before acquiescing with a slight nod.
I elbowed him in the side and added, “But you do have to stop bossing me around—and stop trying to protect me so damn much.”
He rubbed at the spot where my elbow had jabbed him, his mouth curving in one corner. “I’ll try.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
We stood for a while longer, watching the lighting shift under the strange sky, discussing potential plans and battle strategies. It was growing darker. Quieter. The air itself seemed to be pulling in around us, like the world was inhaling one last time before a deep, dark plunge.
I yawned, and—just like that—the concerned demeanor overtook my brother once more as he nodded me toward the palace. “Go get some rest.”
I arched a brow.
“Or don’t,” he amended, grinning as he held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry. Old habits.”
I laughed, declaring him a hopeless cause before bidding him goodnight and making my way down through the gatehouse and heading into the palace.
There was only one place I would be able to rest, I knew—and it wasn’t my own room. I risked drawing attention to Aleks if I went to his makeshift prison, but I didn’t care; I needed to be near him.
The guards outside that prison tensed as I approached, their breathing quickening, their eyes narrowing.
I drew my shoulders back and fixed them with the most queenly stare I could manage. “I’ll be staying in here tonight. You won’t disturb us unless I summon you.”
They exchanged a quick look. The tension in their limbs held for only an instant longer before they bowed and stepped aside.
My heart pounded. A simple command…but it had worked. They kept their gazes lowered respectfully as I passed, silently and obediently falling back to their posts as I closed and locked the door behind me.
I’d never been one for commanding people, even when I’d reigned as the Princess of Eldris. It would take some getting used to, this role I was expected to step into—assuming both this world and I survived the next few days.
My mind had started to spiral, thinking of all the reasons we might not survive, when I caught sight of Aleks emerging from the attached washroom. A soft, relieved sigh escaped me. My racing thoughts slowed, all my questions about the future fading into the background, leaving me to focus on just… him .
He looked as if he’d just finished bathing; his hair hung around his face, water droplets shining on the ends; his shirt was unbuttoned and hanging open, parts of it clinging to his still-damp chest. It was amazing how different he already looked, after just half a day removed from the dungeons. But then, I supposed he was used to bouncing back quickly from hellish situations, given the world he’d grown up in.
His eyes immediately brightened at the sight of me. We didn’t speak at first—we had no shortage of things to talk about, yet words didn’t seem important as he stepped to meet me, taking my hand and drawing me closer. His other hand cupped my cheek and guided my mouth to his, and for a few, blissful moments I was aware of nothing beyond his scent; his taste; the warm, buzzing thrill of his tongue dancing with mine.
Then he pulled away and asked, “You spoke with your brother?”
I nodded, quickly filling him in on the things Bastian and I had discussed outside.
As I finished speaking, Aleks went to the window, studying what he could see of the disturbing gloom I’d mentioned—though it wasn’t much, as this room opened only to an interior courtyard, which was shaded from the sky by a ceiling of tinted glass. He stared at it all for several minutes, lost in thought, while I moved restlessly over the scantly-furnished space, picking up a few books from otherwise bare shelves, flipping through them only to set them back down without reading anything.
“There’s something Lorien said that I can’t stop thinking about,” I said.
Aleks glanced over his shoulder at me, listening.
“You are the only one who has ever managed to force him out of your body. And your magic is still deeply connected with his, somehow. So I wonder…”
I let the thought hang in the air.
“If we can use these things to our advantage?” he guessed.
“…What if you could force him out of Zayn, too? Maybe seal him back into Luminor, where he ended up after you ousted him from your own body.”
He turned away from the window, making his way to the chair by the unlit fireplace and slowly lowering himself into it, his expression troubled.
“And perhaps I could help, too,” I pressed. “I can use my abilities to possess objects, so if I could gain control of his energy, his life-force, and make it an easier target somehow…”
“He’s not an object,” Aleks pointed out, frowning. “And his energy is far more powerful than anything you’ve ever tried to control. It’s also… messier . We don’t know what his actual powers are at this point. The Light Vaeloran have always had somewhat predictable abilities, as I understand it, but what abilities has he stolen from you and Calista? And if he’s in Nerithys, like we believe, and he’s been in contact with the Aetherstone…”
Every point he made was like another stone piled onto my shoulders, until the weight became painful. Frustrating. But I knew he was right. I was just grasping at threads—at something, anything resembling a plan.
“It’s not a bad idea. It’s just…” He raked a hand through his hair, sinking farther down into the chair cushions.
“A dangerous one.”
“Yes.” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, his brow scrunched in thought.
I went back to my restless wandering. But my gaze kept finding its way back to him. Kept getting caught on the thoughtful part of his lips. The rise and fall of his chest as he took deep, calming breaths. The way his body folded over the chair, his form a beautiful study in contradictions—relaxed yet poised, graceful yet powerful.
He must have felt me staring, because he eventually cracked one eye open, a ghost of a smile appearing on his lips.
He beckoned me toward him.
I moved as if connected to his hand by an invisible chain, crossing the room and settling into his lap. I curled into all the arcs and edges I’d just been admiring, exhaling a soft, contented breath at the way my body molded so perfectly to his.
His arms slipped around my waist, drawing me more fully into his embrace.
For a few minutes, I merely relaxed there, letting his strength envelop me. But soon I found myself intimately aware of every breath he took. Every heartbeat. Every move of his fingers as they grew bolder, more deliberate in the way they touched me.
“I thought of this while I was in the dark,” he mumbled against my shoulder. “Of your body, pressed against mine. My hands on your skin.” He slipped one of those hands beneath my shirt, the cool, rough pads of his fingers making me sigh as they caressed my stomach. “It helped keep me sane in that prison, thinking I had to hold on if I wanted to have you in my arms like this again.”
My heart clenched at the thought of him locked away in the darkness.
But he seemed to have escaped that hopeless place—at least for the moment; all of his focus was on me. The intensity of his gaze was nearly overwhelming, stealing my breath, bringing every nerve in my body to life.
“What a tragedy it would have been,” he said, fisting the fabric of my shirt and gently pulling it downward, partially exposing my chest, “to never witness this perfection again.” He pressed his face into the valley between my breasts, dragging a trail of kisses through it, then upward over my throat. My head tipped back, granting him better access, my elbows balancing on the wide arm of the chair.
“And we are not a tragedy,” I whispered, recalling his words from the balcony a few nights ago.
“Exactly,” he replied, shifting a hand under my back, holding me steady so he could kiss me more passionately, more fully.
His mouth eventually settled against the hollow of my throat, tongue flicking against that sensitive spot. I moaned softly, and a shiver went through his entire body in response.
“ Gods , that sound,” he breathed, the words hot against my skin.
“Something else you thought of to save you from the dark?”
“Yes,” he said, with a rough little laugh. “Though, it’s dragging me back toward madness at the moment.”
I lifted my head, fluttering my lashes at him. “Both your salvation and damnation, rolled into one?”
He smiled, trailing his fingers over the warm spot his mouth had left on my throat. “We’ve been a contradiction from the start, haven’t we?”
Light followed his touch, coaxing my own magic to the surface. I didn’t resist its rise, relaxing against him and letting my shadows out to play, watching as the light and dark wove around one another.
Slowly, we began to mirror their intimate waltz: bodies pressing closer; limbs tangling tighter; hands clasping together and fingers intertwining until there was no beginning or end—only the single, magical force of us .
He brushed the back of his hand across my cheek, then into my hair, gently weaving his fingers in among the waves. As they tangled deeper, he tilted his face closer, letting his lips hover just above mine. The brush of them brought a shock of warm power with it, as if he were somehow directing all of his magic to this single point where we collided.
Again and again, we collided, each kiss growing firmer, hungrier. His teeth nipped at my bottom lip, adding to the bite of electricity already tingling through me. Another soft moan escaped me, a breathless whisper of need spilling directly into his mouth. His fist tightened in my hair, and his entire being coiled with the same motion—an attempt at restraint. At focus.
“Tell me to stop if you want me to stop,” he said, drawing back far enough to meet my gaze. “We can keep discussing our battle plans, if you’d rather.”
It did seem foolish, with the world falling down around us, to be thinking of anything other than those plans.
Or, maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe it was exactly what we needed to do. To rebel. To refuse to let Lorien dominate our every thought and feeling. He had taken so much from me already. He was threatening to take so much more.
But he wouldn’t take this.
He wouldn’t take us.
“Don’t stop,” I said. “I don’t want to think about all the possible ruin awaiting us. I don’t want to think about anything else at all.”
Aleks shifted me from his lap to the chair and stood, watching me for a moment with a mischievous little smile on his lips. In the glow of our still drifting, dancing magic, he looked…otherworldly. Like something from a dream I never wanted to wake up from.
He shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it aside. Then he reached for my hand, pulling me to my feet as well, drawing me in so close our noses touched. His fingers traced my mouth, parting it. His tongue swept over his lips, and I trembled, desperate for it to caress my lips next.
“Please…” I whispered. “ Please don’t stop.”
“Oh, Chaos.” He spun me around, pulling me flush against his bare chest. His fingers snaked along my throat and then higher, gripping my jaw, tilting my face so his mouth brushed my ear as he said, “The pleading is unnecessary. Because it will be a privilege to fuck you into a state of oblivion.”