Chapter 53
Nova
I was still screaming when I hit the ground in Noctaris.
The pain was the only thing that eventually managed to silence me. It took so much of my strength as it rocked through my body, that soon I no longer had the energy to scream, or even to whimper.
But I did not die, however badly I wanted to.
My brother arrived soon after me, Grimnor clutched in his hand, blood and bruises covering him. He set the blade aside and dropped to his knees beside me, gathering my battered body carefully to his.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t reply. I just let him hold me, numbly watching as the rest of our army returned.
One after the other, they staggered in. Two of them carried Zayn’s still unconscious body. They were followed by Thalia, who came immediately to my side, her steps uncharacteristically unsteady and her eyes bleary with emotion. She laid a handful of things she’d collected at my feet—my knife; my remaining, unbroken bracelets; a single shard of Luminor’s shattered remains. She pressed a hand to my cheek, a warm, wordless gesture before she turned her back to my brother and me and proceeded to stare off into the distance, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
I watched the fading portal for a few minutes, until I couldn’t stand to look at it—at anything—anymore, and then I buried my face against Bastian’s chest and I wept, no longer caring about appearing strong.
I want to die.
Please, just let me die.
The minutes passed. I kept breathing. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done within an entire lifetime of hard, cruel things, but I kept going.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
“Nova…look,” came my brother’s voice.
The heaviness in my limbs felt almost insurmountable, but I managed to lift my head.
And I saw life .
The portal had faded away entirely, but a new energy was settling over the land all around us. It drifted down from a periwinkle sky like a fine mist, making everything it fell upon shimmer. Some of those shimmering things slowly began to glisten with their own inner light, with their own waking energy.
In the distance, a massive tree bloomed on a hilltop, its flowers unfolding into a bright display of white and gold.
There was still a cast of twilight over it all. The edges of things seemed dark, even as undeniable life pulsed within them. Not a dead world any longer, maybe, but one still fragile and fighting under the threat of decay.
But it seemed all the more impressive for its willingness to live in spite of the shadows, I thought.
Some things bloom brighter in the dark .
Some things were not given a choice.
I stared at that distant tree for a long moment. Imagining its roots—the way they had clung so stubbornly to life. They must have run deep.
So did mine.
My kingdom would bloom in spite of the darkness.
And so would I.
I would find a way to thrive in spite of it—no, with it. And the darkness I was going to unleash on Lorien the next time we met would be unlike anything he had ever seen.
I would not be afraid any longer.
Aleksander and I would not be a tragedy, because I was the one writing the story now, and this was not how it ended.
I would get him back.
Steeling myself, I crawled out of my brother’s protective embrace. I picked up the things Thalia had left at my feet, wrapping what remained of my bracelets around my knife with slow, but steady movements. Then I stood and marched my way to the top of the hill.
Wincing from the pain in my shoulder, I knelt and stabbed the blade into a hard patch of ground at the base of the tree. And this was where I left it—a memorial to what I’d once been. What I no longer was. What I was becoming.
Shadows erupted around my body when I stepped away from it all, and I let them trail freely alongside me as I walked toward my palace without looking back.
Thank you so much for reading this first book in the What Blooms From Death trilogy! If you enjoyed part one of Aleks and Nova’s story, please consider taking the time to leave a quick review.