Chapter 50
Chapter Fifty
Nova
Daylight and dust filtered down over my battered body.
The opening my collision had created was large enough that I could have crawled through it—could have gone for help, maybe.
But I couldn’t make myself move.
I couldn’t even find the energy to speak.
The sounds of clashing steel and thundering voices drifted up from somewhere, and I vaguely remembered the battle waging below. My brother. Thalia. All the soldiers who were desperately fighting down there. The last hope of our dying world.
I’d failed them .
With a painful twist in my gut, I realized that Lorien had been right to taunt me earlier.
It wouldn’t be enough.
I wasn’t enough.
My attempts to change the fate of my world felt pathetic in the face of his power, in the wake of all the destruction surrounding me.
I tasted blood on my lips. I smelled it in the air, along with the tang of magic. So much chaotic, ruinous magic. Mine, or his —it didn’t seem to matter. We were intertwined, and so our fates seemed to be equally tangled, a knot that only grew tighter when I tried to pull it loose.
And if anyone could have stopped him, it should have been me.
When I laid my head against the cold stone and closed my eyes, trying to make the throbbing in it go away, he was there. A splinter beneath my skin that I couldn’t ignore. I sensed him moving back across the room. Getting closer to the Noctaris orb, I suspected. No—I knew , somehow. As if that orb was his current, all-consuming thought, and I had no choice but to be aware of it through our connection.
He was going to destroy it if I didn’t make myself move . If I didn’t somehow take back the sword he’d ripped from my hands and the very breath he’d ripped from my lungs.
Tears squeezed from my eyes as I shifted onto my side and tried to lift my head, searching for something, anything that I could use. Every tiny twitch of my muscles was agony, but I kept searching. And searching, and searching for…
Nothing .
There was nothing here to save me.
Nothing except my knife, which had fallen from my hand when I’d struck the door. It lay on a piece of the broken door, shining in the faint bit of light trickling in from outside.
I took a deep breath. Gritting my teeth, I crawled to the knife, taking it in my trembling fingers. Then I held up my wrist, sliding the blade between my skin and the beaded turquoise bracelet.
It no longer felt like enough to merely take that bracelet off.
With a swift jerk, I severed the cord holding it together. I gave my wrist a shake, sending the beads scattering. Every one that bounced across the floor seemed to coincide with another thundering beat of my heart, and then…
With shadows.
Another shadow exploding for every beat and breath, until I was surrounded by them—that protective shield I’d been trying and failing to summon earlier. I kneeled within it for a moment, gathering my strength.
A cool breeze brushed the hair from my bloodied, sweat-streaked face.
Lifting my head, I caught a glimpse of Calista standing above me. She was there only for a moment, just long enough to offer her hand and pull me to my feet. Then she was gone.
I stood alone in front of the broken door, my shadows blocking out the day.
No—not alone.
Aleksander was on his feet as well, standing on the opposite side of the room. Light surrounded him, steady and pulsing, revealing his figure even through the chaos. His light was different than Lorien’s. Warmer, more golden.
The light of a sun rising, reminding me that we were not finished.
He still held Luminor. Somehow, he was still holding on. His eyes were still seeking mine, and as they found me, I thought of his voice, a whisper between the nightmares, within the cold, dark waves— I’ve got you.
I ripped the rest of the bracelets from my wrist, letting them fall to the ground behind me. With every one that dropped away, I felt another surge of my power rising. Each one slightly different than the last. More dangerous than the one before it. And every one hovering just barely within my control.
But I only had one target left.
And I was in control enough to strike it.
Whatever it took, I was going to going to strike it.
I took those shadows shielding me and used them to hit the doors behind me first, tearing a wider opening. As the section of stone and wood crumbled away, the hovering haze of violent energies in the room was sucked toward the open air, leaving a clearer battlefield before me.
And I spotted Lorien precisely where I’d expected him to be: Preparing to strike the Noctaris orb. He paused as the light and magical remnants around him shifted, looking toward the opening I’d made.
His eyes narrowed as he lowered them to me.
I focused on my sword—which was back in his hand—with a single word pounding through my thoughts: Mine.
I searched for the familiar pulse of Grimnor’s essence, finding it easily. Wrapping my focus and power around it, I clenched my fist and pulled.
The blade soared toward me, leaving a shimmering trail of dark energy as it came. That same energy continued to build around it once I caught it and balanced it in my hand. It wound up my arm and over my shoulders before cascading down, draping around me like a layer of armor forged from a dazzling night sky.
Lorien turned more fully to me. His eyes seemed to take on a reddish glow as the mark of the Vaelora flared to life on his arm. I felt another prodding against my mind, a whisper that quickly took on a physical weight—but I’d been prepared for him to try that.
I wasn’t listening.
I focused on preparing my next strike to drown him out, holding my ground as he stalked closer. Just as I’d done with my sword, I sought the center of his being, that pulsing beat that I could possess and control.
And I felt… two .
A gasp slipped through my lips as I realized that Zayn was clearly still in there—but I didn’t let it distract me for long. That second essence was much fainter, buried beneath the tumbling, violent being that had overtaken it so many years ago.
I exhaled a slow breath, and I imagined my magic constricting with the inhale that followed, closing around the powerfully beating heart of Lorien’s life-force.
He stumbled. Froze. His eyes dropped to his stomach, his hand grappling over it and then up to his chest—as if looking for the blade I’d stabbed him with.
“There is no blade,” I informed him. “There is only me .”
He started to reply, but I gave a vicious twist of my power, pulling my hold tighter, choking him into silence.
His magic rose in furious response, coming precariously close to overpowering mine.
Sensing an impending eruption I might not be able to contain, I looked past him and quickly found Aleksander’s eyes once more. “Ready your sword!” I cried.
Any doubt and fear about this plan we’d only hastily discussed disappeared in that moment. His expression mirrored mine—grim determination and acceptance.
We moved now or never.
As I squeezed my own sword more tightly, letting its power wash over and steady me, Lorien stumbled a few steps closer—close enough that only I could hear his whisper.
“If you take me, I’m taking Zayn with me.” His smile was back—savage and slightly unhinged. “And don’t forget the connection I share with Aleksander. Maybe I’ll drag him down along with us.”
“No,” I growled, taking a step even closer to him, refusing to cower. “ You won’t .”
I didn’t listen to his reply—I was done listening, determined to never hear his voice again.
I wrapped my power more tightly around him.
And I held.
I held, even as his magic tried to break me. As my entire body shook and waves of nausea rocked through me. As pain and exhaustion blinded me. As his voice battered against the walls of my mind—not just words, but awful, inhuman screams, hissed threats, wild roars.
I couldn’t focus on much beyond steadying my own magic, but through my glazed over eyes I saw light lifting from Aleks. From the sword he held. I focused on that light with every ounce of resolve I had left, knowing my shadows would call to it, that I could lead him to the monster, to the bitterly black heart I held in my control.
Lifetimes seemed to rise and fall before I finally felt it: A warm current of magic fighting its way in, relieving some of the pressure against my insides. It circled the cage I’d made around Lorien’s life-force, like a serpent preparing to strike.
Hold it steady , said a voice, deep in the back of my mind. My own, or Aleksander’s, or some ancient entity trying to guide me—I didn’t know. But it was calm and certain, and I couldn’t help but listen to it.
Hold , it whispered, over and over. Hold!
And so I held, and held and held, until Lorien gave a final, guttural cry as he was thrown from Zayn’s body.
That body collapsed. For a moment, Lorien’s essence appeared like a phantom before me, a volatile shape of the man he had once been. It was gone in a blink, gathering into a smaller, more solid shape that immediately shot off toward the shattered doorway.
I caught it in ropes of quickly-summoned shadows, dragging it back.
It fought, twisting and writhing with enough force to drop me to my knees. But even as I hit the ground, my magic held firm, shadows coiling more firmly around all that remained of Lorien Blackvale, reducing him to a mere wisp of red-tinged energy.
And then my shadows found their way back to the light—back to Aleksander and the sword he held at the ready.
Carefully, I guided our prisoner into Luminor’s blade.
The steel turned solid black, trembling violently, and for a moment, I feared we’d made a mistake, thinking it could hold him.
Aleks kept his hands tightly wrapped around the hilt just the same, fierce concentration furrowing his brow, drops of sweat mingling with the blood drying on his face. The blade slowly shifted from black, to the reddish-colored energy of Lorien, to the warm hue of Aleksander’s magic.
Another minute passed before it finally began to pulse with its normal shades of pale gold and soft blue.
It stopped shaking.
I managed a breath.
Finished .
It was finished.
Aleks let Luminor clatter to the ground, and only then did he let his body give in to the obvious pain and exhaustion coursing through him. He tumbled forward, barely catching himself before his face hit the stone floor. But before he’d even caught his breath, he was already moving again, crawling to his cousin’s side and checking him for life.
I swallowed hard. “Is he...is he…”
“…He’s breathing, at least,” Aleks confirmed.
I fought my way over to him, settling at his side. We leaned against one another for support, after both trying and failing to stand. I found his hand, intertwining our fingers.
Zayn’s chest rose and fell steadily—he looked as if he might have merely been sleeping.
I still couldn’t believe we were all alive.
We had only a moment more to take in our victory before the sound of footsteps racing across the bridge reached us. I braced myself for the worst, my hand slipping from Aleksander’s and reaching toward my sword.
When my brother’s face appeared in the doorway, I had to choke down a sob.
He rushed to my side, Thalia and several soldiers following soon after. While they assessed wounds and staunched bleeding, we recounted the battle that still didn’t feel as though it had happened.
Luminor remained on the ground several feet away. Its energy was still calm, yet no one touched it—and it was a long time before anyone dared to approach Zayn, either, as if some wicked essence of Lorien might still be lingering within him, too.
“We’ll take him back with us and do what we can to heal him,” Bastian said, directing two of our soldiers to carefully pick up his unconscious body. “I’m sure he’ll have some…interesting information to share once he wakes up.”
If he does wake up , I couldn’t help but think.
“Can we get back to Noctaris the same way we came?” Aleks asked, fighting his way to his feet.
“We don’t need to,” Thalia said.
“What do you mean?”
“Come see for yourself.” Bastian helped me stand, then beckoned us to follow him back to the bridge.
Looking down from the center of it, I took in the aftermath of what appeared to have been a bloody battle. One we’d been victorious in, but at the cost of at least ten soldiers—that I could see . There were at least as many of our enemy scattered about, but somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.
Of the living, only our soldiers remained in the yard, now. And most of them were gathered around an area of strangely wavering air in the center of the yard. Occasionally, clear images formed within this shimmering air—glimpses of Noctaris, I realized after a moment.
“Energy started to gather there during the middle of our battle, right about the time one of the symbols along the bottom of the room lit up,” Thalia said. “Whatever you did, whatever you channeled, it seems it was at least enough to create a temporary link between this realm and ours. We’re hoping that passing through it will take us home.”
Home .
The word settled warmly over me, and for a moment, all we’d done actually started to feel like a victory. Because whatever happened next, I had created a path home.
And Aleks and I were going to be able to walk it together.
“Though that makeshift portal has gotten fainter just over the past few minutes,” Thalia said. “So we should hurry.”
I looked to the Aetherstone’s chambers. The pull of home was fierce, but the pull of duty proved stronger. “I need to see the Stone and the orbs again, first—a moment to study it all in peace before we head back.”
Bastian hesitated, his gaze darting briefly to our fickle route out of this realm, but he nodded. “We need to more fully secure Luminor, too. Though I’m not sure how—maybe something within that chamber can help.”
Despite my aching body, I jogged for that chamber, determined to gather as much knowledge as I could, as quickly as I could. The war for our world wasn’t over, but I was confident I could make my way to the next step, now. I just had to keep going.
That confidence faded abruptly as I made my way deeper into the room, and I realized…something was wrong.
Luminor wasn’t where we’d left it.
Instead, it was floating high above the Aetherstone’s pedestal. Its blade was black once more—but now there were fissures of red light spreading from its center. The sound of metal expanding and beginning to crack echoed in the stillness.
I managed only a single, breathless cry before it shattered.
The blackened shards flew in all directions, but with controlled, deadly aim—as if they were arrows loosed from a skilled archer. At least one of them landed upon the dais, striking the groove where Luminor had once stood as a proud conduit of magic and life. Another struck the Noctaris orb. Both triggered a violent crackling of energy, and I was still staring at it all in frozen horror when I realized there were more shards hovering in the air, taking aim.
In the next breath, they were hurtling toward me.
Aleks moved faster than I could.
He knocked me to the ground, shielding my body with his.
They missed us.
Gods, they should have missed us.
Except, it was clear, now, that the remains of Luminor were being controlled by the very demon we’d tried to trap within it.
And one after the other, those shards turned in mid-air and struck again, impaling Aleksander’s body, each strike sending a current of magic rippling through it until we were both swallowed up in a raging sea of cold light.