Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
Nova
Itook hold of Grimnor in a daze.
Its weight settled in my hand, undeniably real, but even then, I couldn’t believe what was happening.
Lorien didn’t speak, merely studied me for a moment before turning away.
Phantom got to his feet, giving himself a hard shake. He limped to my side, his ears flat against his head and teeth bared as he observed the threats around us.
Lorien moved to the center of the room, inspecting the place where the shards of his soul had rested. There were bits of both light and shadow twisting through the air above the empty pedestal. With a wave of his hand, he bound them together and then pulled them into himself.
Aleks stood against the back wall, his sword hanging loosely in his grip, his expression eerily vacant as he watched the scene unfolding between us.
The seconds pounded by. My chest felt like it was caving in a little deeper every time I looked at Lorien, my heart oddly heavy and sinking. I kept expecting him to disappear. To go back to being that ghost that had haunted my room just days ago.
But he didn’t. He remained solid and real, rolling the tension from his neck and shoulders. As if he’d just woken from a quick nap, rather than from a centuries-long curse.
“…Impossible,” came Severin’s voice—completely devoid of its usual cockiness. Genuinely shocked. Maybe even afraid. Several more Order members crowded the doorway behind him, trying to catch a glimpse of what had happened.
Lorien glanced toward them. His dark eyes took on a murderous gleam, a look that seemed terrifyingly at odds with the slight smile that curved his lips a moment later. White light gathered around his fingertips, crackling with barely contained fury.
A few had enough sense to quickly back away, scurrying and tripping over one another as they retreated into the hall. The ones that didn’t move paid for it an instant later, when lances of bright light speared toward their eyes, blinding them.
Severin moved with almost inhuman speed, avoiding the attack and rolling into the chamber itself. Several others joined him, drawing their weapons and preparing to fight despite their obvious fear.
I finally broke out of my daze.
While they were all distracted by Lorien, I moved, ducking and weaving through bodies and blades, racing toward the ones holding my brother and Thalia captive.
Ignoring the burning pain radiating through my bloody hand, I swung Grimnor in a sweeping, powerful arc.
Shadows flew outward, wrapping around the throats of the men guarding Bastian.
I didn’t have to put much pressure on them before they were falling backwards, clawing at the darkness, trying to shake off my attack.
Phantom followed my lead. Even with a slight limp, he was still deadly fast as he charged toward Thalia, slamming into the two men holding her arms and knocking them both to the ground.
With our help, both Thalia and Bastian managed to twist entirely free of their captors. They staggered to their feet and ran, hands still bound in chains behind their backs, shouting for me to follow.
I took a few steps after them, but I couldn’t help pausing and looking back toward the vault.
Aleks was still in there.
And Lorien…what the hell was he going to do next?
Phantom whined. (We should regroup someplace safer.)
When I hesitated, his whining turned to insistent growls. He stepped between me and the vault, shifting his form into something larger and more imposing.
As magic flashed and shouts echoed from the vault, I turned and fled. Tears stung my eyes, blurring my vision. It made it difficult to pay attention to where I was running, so I just followed Phantom’s lead through the twisting corridors.
When I finally managed to blink the tears away, I looked up just in time to avoid running into a familiar figure—Zayn.
“There you are.” I breathed a sigh of relief once I’d caught my balance. “Are you okay?”
He glanced from my blood-covered hand to my tear-stained cheeks, frowning. “I could ask you the same question.”
“We don’t have time for small talk,” Thalia said, having doubled back toward us. She gave the chains still around her wrists a little shake. “We need somewhere to hide while we deal with these.”
“…Nova’s office was empty when I checked it a few moments ago,” Zayn said, already starting toward it.
We followed him, finding both that office and the hall outside of it still empty, and we decided to temporarily barricade ourselves inside.
Every instinct screamed at me to go back for Aleks, but I made myself focus on the chains binding my brother and Thalia.
I blinked furiously until I summoned the magical sight that allowed me to see the energy around the metal bindings.
I guided a shadow toward that energy, intertwining the two, then tightened the darker strand until the bindings began to pop.
They were relatively thin, weak chains; it didn’t take much manipulation to shatter them.
As soon as he and Thalia were free, my brother grabbed me and pulled me into a bone-crushing embrace.
“We tried to get to you,” he said when he finally leaned away. “But we ran into Severin and his followers before we could.”
“Phantom said Captain Voss attempted to come back for me, too,” I told them. “But I haven’t seen him, either.”
We fell silent for a moment, wondering what trouble he might have run into. It was hard not to fear the worst.
Zayn straightened suddenly, obvious fear gripping him. “Wait—where is Aleks?”
I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes.
Zayn looked to the door, as though considering whether to rush back out there, but my brother placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
Bastian’s voice was carefully measured. “Aleks is busy. Distracted by Lorien, along with the rest of the Order.”
“…Lorien?”
With a trembling voice, I recounted what had happened in the vault.
“He’s back?” Zayn asked. “As in flesh-and-bones back?”
I nodded.
“How?”
We were all silent, still trying to process it ourselves. Finally, my brother said, “Mind and body…those were the two shards we’d collected thus far…”
“And apparently that was enough to give him life, when coupled with Nova’s powers,” Thalia finished.
Silence stretched between us once more, heavy with questions nobody really wanted to ask.
Zayn broke it with a bitter laugh. “So we’ve revived the bastard, and he’s quite literally heartless. Fantastic.” He folded his arms across his chest, leaning back against my desk and shaking his head. “I mean, what could possibly go wrong with this scenario?”
Thalia cut her eyes toward me. “It was an impressive bit of magic, for what it’s worth.”
I managed a weak, humorless smile. “And yet, for some reason, I don’t feel like celebrating my accomplishments.”
“Will it last, is the question,” Bastian said. “And what happens if he and his magic prove unstable? We don’t know exactly what those shards contained, or how they all work together, but I assume the fact that he’s still missing a piece of himself will make him even more unpredictable.”
Thalia’s expression darkened. “Between him, and whatever the hell is going on with Aleks’s magic, the fallout this palace might suffer could be catastrophic.”
I went to the window, searching the grounds below for any sign of movement. Phantom came to stand beside me, leaning his weight into me. Anchoring me. It was becoming a habit of his, I’d noticed—and the gods knew I needed it just then.
At least a half hour passed while we discussed our next steps, arguing about how to deal with the Order infiltration and control the bleeding. It felt like we were taking hours to discuss these things. Days. Entirely too long to be safe behind a barricaded door while chaos reigned beyond it.
I was seconds away from picking up my sword and charging back into the fray, plans be damned, when a commotion in the hallway made us all freeze.
Slowly, I moved toward the door, listening closer.
Then I heard a voice I recognized: Eamon.
I didn’t wait for the others, throwing open the door and rushing out of the room.
A battle was raging in the corridor. I was relieved to see that most of the ones surrounding Eamon were palace guards fighting on our side, but the situation looked far from under control.
They were struggling against more Drynland soldiers.
Two women bearing Order marks had joined these enemy soldiers as well, wielding curved swords that glowed and crackled dangerously in the confined space.
I stormed forward, followed quickly by the others.
Bastian and Thalia both commandeered swords from fallen figures on the outskirts of the skirmish.
Zayn was already armed, and he wasted no time slamming his blade into the first soldier he reached.
His fear for Aleks must have been simmering toward something explosive beneath the surface; I’d never seen him move with such violence.
Our victory was swift.
Only one of the Order members managed to escape our onslaught; I followed her halfway down the hall before I managed to rein in my fury and shadows, begrudgingly letting her go so I could turn my attention back to a bloodied and shaken Eamon.
I ordered our guards to each end of the hall, having them keep an eye out while the rest of us talked.
It was unsettling to see Eamon’s usually neat appearance so disheveled, with red spattered across his fine clothes and a bruise covering a large swath of his face, swelling up his left eye and marring its usual brightness.
“I thought you’d evacuated,” I said.
“I did. But I decided to come back.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Zayn muttered dryly, gesturing to the carnage around us. “Clearly the party is still in full swing.”
Eamon gave him a sharp look, smoothing the rumpled fabric of his shirt. “I made sure Brynn was safe first. I left her with Aveline, at one of the shelters we’ve established in Tarnath.”