Chapter 2
TWO
Nova
The floorboards creaked and groaned beneath my boots as I picked my way through the wreckage of what looked like it had once been a grand library.
Dust coated nearly every surface. The sweltering air was thick with a mixture of memory and melancholy, clinging to my body and making each of my steps feel heavier than the last; its embrace was an odd combination of comforting and suffocating.
Thalia, my near-constant companion as of late, stepped through the crumbling doorway behind me, knocking cobwebs aside as she came.
She breathed out a slow, astonished breath.
Her amethyst eyes widened slightly as she walked to the center of the vast room, taking in the shelves rising all around us.
A thin sheen of sweat coated her brown skin, and her chest rose and fell with labored effort, despite her fitness—more signs of the strange weight this place possessed…
And more reminders that my magic wasn’t enough to insulate us from the heaviness, despite how hard I’d been trying to expand my abilities over the past month.
“Your brother is going to be incredibly jealous when he realizes what we’ve been up to,” Thalia said, making her way to the nearest shelf and reaching for a leather-bound book.
Its cover was cracked, barely holding it together.
Its brittle pages whispered like wind through dry leaves as she carefully flipped through them.
“No doubt,” I agreed. Bastian would have been beside himself just to get his hands on that single tome she held, let alone to be standing here, surrounded by a thousand other books that looked equally ancient and interesting.
“Eamon will be, too. But they’ll forgive us as long as we bring back plenty of material for them to obsess over, I suspect. ”
Nodding, she placed the book gently back on the shelf and proceeded down the row, running her fingers over warped spines, trying to decide which ones to pluck from the hoard.
It was hard to know where to start.
This was my fifth trip to the ruined realm of Nerithys, and its center kingdom of Midna, in the past month—not counting the first, disastrous trip where we’d faced off with a monster known as Lorien Blackvale while vying for control of the life-giving magic found here.
The palace we were currently crawling our way through had been in rough shape before. Now, after having served as our arena during that battle with Lorien, it was worse, each creak of wood, and every shift of light and shadow making us tense for fear it all might give way at any moment.
But at least it was still here.
At least I’d been able to come back.
After our narrow escape from Lorien, the portal into this ruined kingdom had seemingly snapped shut behind us. A violent end to a violent duel.
Except, it hadn’t been the end. Not really.
Days later—while back within my own realm of Noctaris—I’d felt the magic in the middle realm stirring again. Beckoning, almost. Telling me there was more power, more history, to discover here. More to make sense of.
I’d returned alone the first time. Reckless, in hindsight. But, truth be told, I hadn’t expected to actually be able to pass through on my own. I’d only been experimenting with my shadowy magic when it had latched onto…something…and managed to pull me through the veil that separated the realms.
My first visit had been brief. Just long enough to grasp the fact that it could be done, even if doing it left me feeling like I was ripping apart at the seams—a feeling that persisted, even now.
I felt Thalia’s eyes shift to me. “Are you sure you’re okay to keep going?”
“Never better.”
She gave me a long, appraising look.
“Liar,” she concluded, in her characteristically blunt tone.
Maybe I was, but I was going to keep going anyway.
There wasn’t really another option.
As one of the Vaelora—a being responsible for controlling cycles of life and magic between the realms—I was the only one able to carry us into Midna.
This place had once been the center kingdom when the realms of Noctaris and Soltaris were still united, and legends said that the last king and queen who ruled over it had been responsible for creating the Aetherstone, along with the other apparatuses that allowed the Vaelora to more precisely control the world’s cycles of life and magic.
Of course, there had always been two Vaelora. Light and Shadow. Life and Death. Both working in agreement—in tandem. Alternating where the power was directed to. But now…
Now, I was alone here.
And I wouldn’t—couldn’t—think about the Light missing from the equation. Never-mind how unsure or off-balance I felt.
Balance could be improved.
So I would just have to keep improving.
This was the deepest we’d managed to press into the palace thus far. Magic continuously coursed from my body as we moved, as I concentrated on controlling my breathing and my shadows along with it, adjusting my power so it kept the unstable energy in the air at a bearable weight against us.
“Hopefully, I’ll be able to bring Bastian as well, next time,” I thought aloud.
“And maybe some of our other allies, too. It’s only a matter of improving my magic’s ability to fill in the spaces, to even out the power in the air here.
At least, that’s what Eamon said; he thinks the capability is well within my reach. ”
“Hm.”
“…That hm sounded unconvinced.”
Thalia shrugged. “Eamon is exhaustingly optimistic.”
I gave her a slight grin. “He and I have that in common, don’t we?”
A corner of her mouth twitched, as though she’d thought about returning my grin. “Well, hopefully you’re both right,” she replied, though her eyes were clouded over in doubt.
I pretended not to notice that doubt.
And, for as long as I could, I pretended not to feel the constraints of my power, either.
We moved swiftly but purposefully, gathering up as many sources of knowledge as possible.
Thalia had brought along a canvas bag nearly as big as me; it wasn’t long before it was overflowing with books of all sizes, along with several tightly-bound scrolls, scraps of parchment scribbled with notes, and a couple of torn, yellowed maps.
I spotted an interesting looking alcove off to my right, lined with marble busts—a few of which appeared to be mostly intact. Nothing we could bring back to Noctaris, but I was curious about who these statues represented all the same.
As I approached the space, however, the shadows that had been circling protectively around my body suddenly recoiled, slamming back into my chest with a viciousness that nearly knocked me off my feet.
It was too overwhelming, the pocket of other magic hovering here; I couldn’t summon enough of my own to balance it out.
I backed away slowly, studying the way the air shifted and wavered, all too aware of the frustrating limits of my powers.
“This has been a successful excursion already,” Thalia said, making her way to my side. “We should head back.” Her usually stoic expression betrayed a hint of worry; I must have looked even rougher than I felt.
I nodded. Reluctantly. I knew I was fast approaching the current edge of my powers, but that didn’t mean I was ready to quit.
“Ready to take us home?” Thalia pressed.
“Ready enough,” I replied, swallowing down the lump that formed in my throat at the mention of home.
I still wasn’t sure that was the right word for the palace we would be heading back to.
It was where I was born. Where I’d found my brother, after believing he was dead for well over twenty years. And yes, it had started to feel like I might be where I belonged…
But home was more than a place.
For me, home was a person.
And now that person was gone.
Still, Noctaris was waiting for me. Its people expected me. Needed me. So, rolling the tension from my shoulders, I focused on making my way back to them.
We returned to the point where we’d first entered Midna.
The evidence of our arrival still shimmered in the air, spirals of violet-colored energy twisting around like a whirlpool ready to suck us back down to the Below.
The energy was fainter now, moving more sluggishly.
I wasn’t sure how long it would ultimately last. We hadn’t dared to stay longer than a few hours on any of our trips, and we were pushing the length of the longest visit, now.
Even so, I couldn’t help looking toward what remained of the Aetherstone’s chamber.
Thalia let out a disapproving sigh, knowing what I was going to do next, but she otherwise didn’t object. She simply kept watch while I went perfectly still, willing my tired body to manage one last bit of magic.
With a deep breath of concentration, I severed a piece of my soul from my body and shaped it into an apparition.
It was an old trick that I’d been using for years, but it had grown stronger as my true self awakened over the past few months; this apparition was far more solid, aware, and capable than the spirits I used to summon.
I guided it across a partially-collapsed bridge and into what remained of the chamber holding the Vaeloran stone of legend—an artifact that had once been the most powerful conductor of magic in all the realms.
Through the safety of my shadow-self, I took in the sight of what the stone had now become: a blackened, cracked monolith, humming with faint energy. It was still alive, still pulsing with raw, obvious power…but dimmed. Like a dying star.
What would happen if it blinked out of existence entirely?
Nothing I’d tried thus far had brought more life back to it. Nothing increased the flow of its magic that I was trying to feed into the lifestream of Noctaris. No matter how my own powers—and my control over them—grew, I couldn’t seem to gain any more sway over this most vital object.
I could only hope we’d find answers in the things we’d collected from the palace.
With this in mind, I snapped back into my body with a gasping breath, as if coming up for air after a deep dive.
Thalia was watching me expectantly. Most people were unnerved by this particular trick of mine. She wasn’t one of them.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Some power is still flowing from it. I think it’s getting weaker, though.”
“At least it’s not gone entirely dormant. That’s something, isn’t it?”
“It feels like nothing.”
“After all the years I’ve spent in the Below, watching things barely cling to life, it feels like more than that to me.” Thalia shrugged. “Don’t underestimate what a drop of hope can do in an ocean of despair.”
I only managed a nod.
It was true, what I’d said earlier—I had been exhaustively optimistic, once upon a time.
But it was getting harder and harder to see the silver linings around me.
“Maybe I should try pouring more magic into it again?” I suggested halfheartedly.
“Says the woman who currently looks like she’s going to collapse right where she’s standing.
” She poked me toward the swirling, fading portal.
“Let’s go. I’d rather not have to drag your lifeless corpse back to Rivenholt.
Assuming I could even make it back with your dead self, I’d never hear the end of it from your brother. ”
I agreed, but not before casting one last forlorn look at the chamber.
Luckily, returning was always easier than leaving; it was simply a matter of closing my eyes and letting the magic inside of me reach for the energy of that world below us—the one I’d once thought of as Hell.
Like called to like, so I didn’t have to think about keeping my balance; I only had to allow my shadows to reach for the darkness concentrated in Noctaris’s three kingdoms, in its soil, in its very air.
Feeling those energies rush over one another was like slowly stepping into the sea, letting the dark waters rise around me, drench me, then pull me down, down, down.
Once upon a time, I might have been afraid of drowning.
But no longer.
I couldn’t afford to be afraid.
I held out my hand. Without hesitation, Thalia took it in a light grip, and I let my shadows wash over her as well. The portal rippled, dark and velvet smooth.
We sank through it together.