7. Chapter 7
Chapter 7
Lea
L ea felt with painful clarity the moment Emma ate the moonflower. Something snapped inside her, throwing her backward into the gently swaying grass. She scrambled to her feet, but for the first time since she died, she felt wholly untethered. Her feet touched the ground, but there was no weight to her body. She breathed in and out, but didn’t feel the rush of oxygen through her lungs.
Instantly, she felt different—she no longer needed to swallow or blink, though she continued to do those basic movements out of habit. She had no heartbeat, no whoosh of blood in her veins. Only the crackling of fire still burning through every inch of her body.
A fire she knew with absolute certainty she would never be able to quell. Never be able to contain. From the moment she’d fully broken through the floor in her chest, she’d known it.
She was wrath. She was vengeance.
Destroy , that commanding voice inside her urged. The one laced with darkness and death. The one growing louder with every breath she took. Flames spread through her blood, her fire growing and her shadows coiling around her, begging her to listen.
Destroy.
Destroy.
Destroy.
But Lea knew she couldn’t. No matter how much she wanted to end their eternal existence. It would only doom them all.
It was always about fucking balance.
Lea turned away from the gods. She didn’t want to look at them, afraid seeing them would push her over the edge and sever whatever tiny thread of control she was hanging onto. They had betrayed her. Had demanded so much of her, all to allow her mate to be killed. They’d led them here, with no protection, as they’d battled Alaric.
Throwing her arms in the air, Lea built a wall of black fire behind herself in an attempt to block them off, furious at their inaction and afraid of their retaliation for the decision she’d made. Blazing heat exploded at her back, and a large, flaming hand wrapped around her bicep, stopping her in her tracks.
"You have doomed them all," the hand squeezed, whirling her around and sending agonizing pain shooting up her arm. "Our people. Your people," the god of the sun roared. A fiery haze surrounded his body, so bright Lea could barely stand to look at him.
But she forced herself to meet his eyes. "I just saved them all." Darkness grew around them, her shadows becoming solid as they twisted around his arm and ripped it from her own. "And you will not touch me without my consent."
The god froze, his fury almost matching Lea’s. But she didn’t care. Couldn’t care. The fire inside her was too much. Too hot. The black, primary magic twisted and expanded, begging to be unleashed, her skin burning with the intensity of it trying to escape.
She couldn’t hold it back. Didn’t want to. She’d lost her mate—twice. Her friends. Her life. Her kingdom.
And so she allowed it to burst free from the swirling, raging pit of power in her chest. Just for a moment.
Darkness slammed into the god of the sun, sending him flying backward, and he roared in fury as black tendrils knocked him down, white-hot fire exploding in an arc toward her. Lea called on the wind, commanding it to whip furiously across the hill as a solid shield of air wrapped around her body.
The god’s magic ripped against it, tore at the shield as it fought to get to her, but there was no way through. It was his own magic she wielded against him. His, and the goddesses. The magic they had gifted her, hoping she could purge the earth of evil, but instead leaving her wholly unprepared for how to control the might of what was inside her.
She held his furious stare, lifting her chin defiantly. " You are the one who did this to the world. You made me choose." Lea stabbed a finger at the god, unafraid. "One of us had to remain. You’d rather unleash this on your people?" Lea let go of the scrap of control she still held over her magic, and the hill beyond the veil exploded in flames. Black fire raced through the gently swaying grass, searing it into embers. The surge of power filled her with warmth, her fire shooting thousands of feet into the sky as her hair whipped furiously around her.
"You are unworthy of the power we gifted you." He lowered his chin, looking down at her with disdain, his lips curling in disgust. "The choice you made today will destroy everything. And only you will be to blame."
Lea raised her hands, her eyes darkening as she called her shadows and flames back into her fingertips. "Leave me," she ordered, lowering her chin. His mouth opened in shock and he threw up a shield, anticipating her attack. His fire grew brighter, his rage evident as he grabbed the moon goddess around the waist and pulled her closer, shielding her.
"You will regret this," he threatened, sparing only a brief look at Lea’s inferno of rage before disappearing in a flash of white-hot light, leaving her alone, finally, to burn in peace.
The earth smoked beneath Lea where she sat on the hill, her knees pulled to her chest and her fingers swirling gently in the thick layer of ash coating the ground as far as her eyes could see. Her gaze remained locked on the patch of hill in the distance where her home should be. But even in the pitch-black night, with nothing but the twinkling stars overhead to illuminate the landscape, she knew there was no house to see. She was no longer in a world where home existed. Nothing was left but her grief, her rage, and the overwhelmingly violent power inside her.
A flicker of fury danced down her spine and into the ground, energizing the flames that draped her like a gown and spread across the earth. Of course, she couldn’t watch her mate and friends. The universe was far too cruel to allow her even a sliver of peace in the afterlife.
It was her village she looked upon, but at the same time, it wasn’t. The land was as unblemished as when the gods had first created it, not a rock or piece of stone out of place to indicate that man or Fae had ever been here at all.
The fire inside her continued to ripple and expand, and Lea attempted to tamp it down.
She’d done what she’d come here to do. Gray was alive, and she didn’t regret her decision, even knowing it had infuriated the gods—that it would infuriate everyone who loved her.
History would call her a fool. But she was anything but foolish. In fact, she was the opposite. Her decision had been every bit as calculated as it was emotional. Gray was the one who knew the land of Desia like the back of his hand. Who knew every inch of the castle and every weakness of his brother. While Lea, on the other hand, knew very little of her kingdom. Only her little village, and the way through the Wicked Wood into Calir.
Gray knew every member of his army—had plans he’d been putting in place for a century. And though she might have more raw power brimming inside her, she didn't know how to control it. This power… It was something wicked and dark, simmering beneath her skin and threatening to consume her whole, something terrifying and vengeful—the ultimate reason she’d forced Gray to return instead of herself.
Yes. No matter how she would be remembered in history for the decision she’d made, in the end, it had been that dark magic coursing through Lea’s veins and pumping through her body with every beat of her heart that had solidified her decision to slip the petal between his lips. The power inside her was wrong . Wicked and overwhelming in a way that made her worry if she were the one to return, that wrath and fury would grow so big, so terrible, that without Gray to help her contain it, she might actually destroy the entire world in her quest for revenge.
She couldn’t protect her kingdom if she was too busy burning it to ruins.
A gentle breeze brushed against her cheeks, carrying with it the scent of honeysuckle, and Lea closed her eyes, inhaling deeply and trying desperately to find a hollow place inside to force her dark magic to hide. It was uncomfortable, the way it butted against her ribs and pushed them outward, as if the magnitude of the power might shatter her from the inside out.
Where her primary magic had once lived in her chest, there was only a massive gaping hole, and with nothing to hold the power back or lock it neatly in place, she couldn’t stop the storm of rage and retribution threatening to consume her. Was this how she would spend the next thousand years? Burning from within from a power so awful, so horrifyingly omnipotent, that she’d be forced to spend every last second and minute and hour fighting the agony of its pull?
The wind blew again, and she leaned into its cool kiss. Azalea , she heard, the soft breeze carrying with it the sound of her name.
"Azalea." Her name again. But this time closer. And not the ghost of a voice, but her mother’s voice. "Oh, my flower."
Lea’s eyes sprung open, her head whipping around, praying it wasn’t just the wind. Not this time.
Had Lea’s heart still been beating, it would have stopped. Only feet away was her mother, exactly as Lea remembered. Her dark brown hair was in a messy, low bun, and her simple linen dress was covered by an apron stained with berries, herbs, and spices. She had soft wrinkles around her chocolate brown eyes and smile lines bracketing her mouth. It was as if she had been plucked straight from her memory and placed here, right in front of her.
Slowly, Lea rose to her feet. "Mom?" Her voice cracked, her lungs constricting with disbelief, but Lea was relieved to feel anything inside her body besides darkness and wrath.
"Oh, my flower," her mother repeated, rushing toward Lea and crushing her in an embrace so full of love that it almost broke through her fiery, black heart.
"Mom!" Lea cried, collapsing into her arms.
Adelaide cupped Lea’s face tenderly, her eyes clouded with tears. "I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you more. That I didn’t tell you more. I should have. I’m so very sorry I didn’t prepare you."
"You couldn’t have known," Lea’s voice sounded foreign to her own ears. More melodic, but also sharper, and tinged with a fury that, days ago, she’d never have thought herself capable of feeling. Not at her mother. Never at her. But this anger was part of her marrow now, just as much a part of her as her own blood and bone. "I know you did all you could." Lea clung desperately to Adelaide, her touch a splash of cool water on her burning skin.
"I’m so proud of you, Azalea," her mother said. "For your strength and your courage."
Lea felt as if she might shatter at the words. She wasn’t strong. Not strong enough to defeat Alaric, or to control the darkness inside her. Not strong enough to save Gray.
She’d failed. Not only herself, but her people. The thought made Lea’s knees weak.
As if sensing her exhaustion, Adelaide grabbed Lea’s hands and lowered them to the ground together, wrapping her in a warm hug as they faced out toward the black night.
They sat together in silence for a while, Adelaide stroking Lea’s hair like a small child as the raging inferno inside her slowly calmed. As if it, too, needed rest. But even in slumber, its embers glowed white hot, ready to blaze again in the blink of an eye.
Lea forced away the thought. "Is this where you stayed?" she asked. "After you died, I mean?"
Adelaide patted her hand, the touch so familiar it made Lea’s eyes burn. "No, my love. I didn’t stay here. And you don’t have to either, if it’s not what you wish. Whatever your heart desires, wherever your heart desires, there’s a way to find it here."
Lea’s dead heart clenched. Whatever her heart desired. What she desired— where she desired—was Gray. The one thing that wasn’t possible.
Adelaide continued. "I spend most of my time in a garden, with eternal sunshine and the richest soil. There are no bugs to eat away my plants, no diseases to rot their roots. No worries. Just the sun on my face and the soil beneath my fingernails. "
Lea wondered what it would be like to join her there. To plunge her fingers into the cool dirt and forget, if only for a moment, but a fist of anxiety wrapped around Lea’s throat at the thought of being further away from Bearswillow. Even if she couldn’t see Gray or feel him on top of this hill, he was here . Unreachable, but nonetheless, here .
Lea shook her head. "I won’t leave him." She looked back toward where she knew, in another world, another reality, Gray would be rising from the ground and beginning his quest for revenge.
Without hesitating, Adelaide squeezed Lea’s hand and settled back onto her elbows. "Then I think I would like to stay with you. At least for a little while, if that’s okay."
A bubble of gratitude settled behind Lea’s breastbone. She wouldn’t be alone. For now, at least. And the relief from that knowledge was enough to allow her a singular, shuddering breath.
Days passed slowly as they sat there together on the hill, the glow from the stars overhead and the fire dancing along Lea’s skin the only source of light in the eternal night in which they waited. It was as if they were frozen in a moment in time, unable to move forward.
Adelaide told Lea everything she’d kept from her in life—about the day she’d found her lying beneath the sun all alone, and the joy she’d felt, mixed with the fear and terror that had flooded every fiber of her being the moment she saw the moonflower birthmark beneath her arm.
She told her of the journeys her father took trying to find her birth parents, trying to find any scrap of information that could prove who Lea really was. She told her that when Lea had turned three years old, it had become obvious that her magic was stronger than was usual. Her mother had given her the ice cold water from the stream that ran from the mountain, the same water that her father and the rest of the villagers drank whenever the royal army came to Bearswillow.
It was why so many with magic had chosen to dwell in their village. Even Adelaide hadn’t understood it, but the water had somehow glamoured their appearance and hid their magic, so long as they didn’t go more than a few months without drinking from the stream. But even the water hadn’t been enough to hide Lea’s power.
While she’d looked fully human after drinking it, within a few hours, her eyes would once again become unnaturally blue, and her features would sharpen. And so her mother had been forced to look for a more permanent solution. Adelaide cried true tears of regret and sorrow as she told Lea what she’d done. Told her how she’d created a potion that would permanently lock down her daughter’s magic, so deep inside her that Lea would never be aware it was there at all.
Within Adelaide’s eyes, Lea could see she was still struggling with the decision she’d made. She’d taken away her birthright. Her ability to protect herself. Her identity. But it had felt like the only way to keep her safe. And so she had given Lea the potion, so bitter that she’d had to sweeten it with two scoops of sugar for the toddler to take it willingly.
And then Adelaide had watched as her light dimmed, as the potion closed off everything magical about her forever. Or at least, until she’d met Gray, and it had once again awakened. Her magic had recognized its mate, its equal, and so her day and night magic had revealed themselves. Slowly, at first. But then, when Alaric and Lea had battled, her primary magic had shattered through the remaining floor holding down her magic.
Adelaide hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t expected for her to have a mate at all, let alone for that connection to overcome her potion’s power and break its spell. She’d underestimated that true love was the most powerful force of all. Capable of anything. Capable of everything .
"I’m sorry," she said again, "for the mess I made for you. For making it so difficult. Maybe if I’d helped you learn to control your powers instead of taking them away, you would have been better equipped to fight against the Black King and Alaric."
"You did your best," Lea repeated, absolving her, because truly, Lea didn’t blame Adelaide. She had done her best. Just as Lea had done her best by choosing to send Gray back in her place. And wasn’t that what they were all trying to do?
"I have been with you," Adelaide said, smiling through the tears spilling over her eyelashes. "When you’re in danger, I feel it. Here." She placed a hand on her chest, right above her sternum. "When you need me, I’m pulled to where you are—"
"The wind," Lea interrupted.
"Yes," Adelaide breathed. "The wind."
Lea’s heart pinched. She had known, in some deep part of her, that it was her mother who had been guiding her. And while she hadn’t been able to save her in her final moments on earth, Lea would be eternally grateful that she had met her here in her first moments in the afterlife.