Chapter 49 A Star. A Crown. A Bloody Hand.
A Star. A Crown.
A Bloody Hand.
Lucian
D
esdemona runs toward the mountains, looming beyond the forest at the kingdom’s edge. I follow, despite her leading us away from Folkara’s sanatorium.
Out of breath, Desdemona mutters, “It’s close.”
The mountains grow steeper and more severe as we approach. Desdemona stops before the steepest one, which shoots straight from the ground, rough and streaked with veins of light mineral, unlike the gentler slopes of the others.
Desdemona drops to a knee, her hands tracing along the coarse stone, searching for something.
She sighs, her breath pushing stray hairs out of her face as she clenches her fists and pounds against the rock with senseless determination. When her knuckles begin to bleed, I rest a hand on her shoulder, and she jumps before settling beneath my touch.
“Des,” I say softly.
She shakes her head, keeping her hands on the rock. “Help me,” she says.
I do, dropping to my knees beside her. Her hands move over the rock, and a faint shimmer passes beneath them. Magic, covering what someone wanted to keep unseen.
“It’s glamoured,” I whisper.
Desdemona nods, swallowing hard.
As I’ve done many times before, I unravel the glamour—like spider webs stuck to fingers, every last strand of silk clings until it finally gives. Before me stands a metal door—something Des can’t see. It’s the same as the facility where I found Freyr and the Weapon.
How did Des notice?
I reach forward, and the door pushes open with a creak.
Offering a hand to her, I say, “You’ll have to trust me.”
She nods, her eyes hardening as she takes my hand. We walk through the doorway together, and I can’t help but wonder what this feels like for her. I imagine her body should instinctively seize up, trying to protect itself—yet she steps through without hesitation.
I glance at her. The solid rock should be a threat from her perspective, so why doesn’t she care?
Beyond the rock is a dark hallway, our surroundings barely visible. We look at one another, hardly discernible, yet somehow I know she nods, just as I do.
As we move, a faint glow comes to life in the distance.
Red and blue lights pulse with intensity, illuminating the small, circular room carved into the mountain.
The ceilings are low, nearly grazing the top of my head.
It feels like the air is being sucked out of the room.
I itch to turn around, but as we turn a corner, I spot the contraption sitting in the middle of the room, taking up most of the space.
This must be the Weapon that Desdemona’s mother helped create.
It’s no longer a metal husk, but a living membrane of red and blue, beating like a heart. Desdemona takes a step toward the Weapon, and the pulsing energy intensifies. The room floods with light, the glow burning brighter while the red and blue hues deepen.
“This is my mom’s Weapon?” she asks.
The magic responds to her voice, pulsing brighter with each word.
She continues to walk forward.
I stand back, torn between pulling Desdemona back and letting this unfold. She might not be safe beside the Weapon.
She might be the reason she isn’t safe.
I tried to destroy this Weapon once, but I was too late. My shadows suffocated it, yet I failed to dismantle it. Now, I fear using even a fraction of my power on this beast; the Weapon seems to have a mind of its own.
Desdemona stops before it, extending her hand. Curiosity keeps me from stopping her, but at the last moment, I find the better version of myself—the version that would do anything for this girl.
“Desdemona, don’t!” I shout, recklessly running toward her.
I’m too late. Her hand rests on the Weapon; I don’t stop running.
The room erupts into a violent spin, the world twisting and tilting wildly around me. The force drags me down, and I crash onto my knees. A brutal shove sends me flying backward, a crack echoing in my ears as I’m slammed into the wall.
I push against the surface, trying to step forward, to get to Des before she’s hurt. I can’t move. I fear my spine has broken, but quickly realize it’s the momentum that pins me hard against the cold surface, crushing the breath from my lungs.
Desperation claws at me as I watch Desdemona, longing to reach her. The room jerks violently once more, and she falls forward—her head striking the Weapon with a sharp thud. Her footing falters, wobbling dangerously. Moments before she’s thrown backward, she grasps the Weapon tightly.
As she does, small fragments of the room vanish, dissolving into darkness one by one, until I’m engulfed in an absolute blackness.
I’m no longer pinned to the wall. My body is given back to me, and I step forward, spotting a light in the distance. I run toward it, realizing now what I’m seeing: a vision.
I’m in the castle of Ilyria, the windows shattering behind me, raining broken glass on the crowded room and the twin thrones—each cracked down the middle.
The ceiling ahead crumbles, cascading down like a shower of stars, the castle falling apart—just like Visnatus did.
I run to a cluster of people, helping up those who have fallen.
Blood drips from their arms and hands, shards of glass embedded in their skin.
The ceiling groans above, so loud I can scarcely hear as someone calls my name from the other direction.
I twist, spotting a crown teetering on the edge of the broken building.
“Lucian!” they call. “Help me.”
From the other end of the room, out of a pile of rubble, comes a hand, blood dripping from all five fingers and pooling in the palm as it reaches for me.
It’s Desdemona, I realize now with stunning clarity.
She’s trapped beneath a pile of marble, the red of her dress peeking through the gray like blood in the snow.
I move, desperately trying to reach her. Each step in her direction sends the castle groaning, fissures spiderwebbing outward. The crown teeters on the marble, screeching in my ears as it threatens to fall off the precipice.
Every fiber of me screams not to move forward, to stop, to save everything. I know touching her hand will finish what every vision has foreshadowed, yet I’m of no consequence. Desdemona is in danger, and I have no choice but to reach for her.
The moment her hand is in mine, the room goes dark.
A bolt of lightning flashes. As I look up, the sky shatters, dark red trails racing through the blue like tendrils of blood dripping from Desdemona’s hands.
The red twists, turning black, as if darkness from beyond our universe is sinking its claws into us.
Then everything slips away.
All at once, the room comes back into focus. Desdemona clutches the Weapon, and my body is strapped to the wall by nothing but momentum.
The room slows, pockets of air pressing between my back and the wall before I crash to the ground.
Desdemona falls as well, blood threading from her nose, while bruises bloom across her fingertips—evidence of how fiercely she clung to the Weapon. Her breath is ragged and heavy.
As I push myself up, something in my side gives—like a blade between bone. My breath catches, refusing to come. I can barely draw air into my lungs.
The moment I twist toward Desdemona, pain detonates beneath my ribs.
I curse under my breath, get to my feet, and walk to her—careful to keep my torso forward.
When I inhale, something clicks inside me, a small, sickening grind.
I grit my teeth and keep moving anyway, one hand pressed tight to my side.
I drop beside her, gently gripping my ribs on the way down. I clutch her close, brushing the hair out of her face as her hands wrap around my torso. She crushes my ribs, and I grimace, resting my head atop hers.
“Are you okay?” I ask, my breath tangling in her hair.
Her chest rattles before answering. “Yeah.”
It doesn’t sound like the truth.
“What happened?” I ask, pulling back to look at her. Tears catch in her eyelashes, and she shakes her head. I hold her cheek. “It’s okay.”
Desdemona keeps shaking her head. Finally, she says, “I know.”
I don’t know what more there is to say.
“Sorry,” she mutters, wiping her tears. “I didn’t mean— I really don’t know what that was. Let’s just get out of here before…”
I glance at the Weapon.
“We’ll come back for it,” Des says, reaching out and grabbing my hand. “Let’s just leave. Okay?”
I nod, following as she all but drags me out of the room.
?
We decide to rest beside a running river, where fireflies glisten in the warm Folkara night. I wince as I sit, and Des glances at me.
“Let me see it,” she whispers.
I haven’t told her about the wound, though I’ve been wincing our entire walk here.
“I’m all right.”
Des scoots closer, resting her hand gently on my torso, inches from my rib. I feel the heat of her skin through my clothes, the subtle tremor in her fingers.
“They’re cracked,” I say. “No use in worrying about it yet.”
Her eyebrows crinkle, and she leans closer, the red of her irises glowing brighter than the fireflies as heat prickles beneath her hands, beneath my own skin even. Her power swirls blood around my bone and muscle, moving it like alcohol in my veins—intoxicating.
Her fingers hover just above my ribs, and I’m acutely aware of every inch of her closeness—the warmth, the weight, the life pulsing through her hands. I want to tell her to stay, to never pull back, even though part of me knows I can’t.
“Something is wrong,” she says. “Inside.”
She stops suddenly, her hands shifting to the hem of my shirt as she tugs it up. Beneath my shirt, there’s a large bruise—purple, blue, and green. Desdemona gasps.
I know she cares. Seeing it in action is something different.
“Internal bleeding, most likely,” I say, teeth clenching against the pain as Desdemona presses her hands against the bruise.
My blood dances beneath her fingers. My chest continues to tighten, though I’m unsure if it’s from pain or wanting her to stay close, to memorize the minutiae of her power—said to destroy, yet healing me.
My blood flows, obedient to her, as the purple fades to the color of my skin, the bruises slowly retreating beneath her hands, the pain with them.
She lowers her hands, glancing up. “Better?”
I’ve seen her kill, and now I’ve seen her save. I want to reach for her hands again, to fold myself into their warmth, but I hesitate.
Tears burn in my eyes, and I swallow the ache of wanting her closer. “We can turn around right now and kill Cynthia,” I say.
“Trust me,” she sighs. “I thought about killing her many times.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Desdemona’s lips flatten into a line. She shrugs. “What if she’s the only one who knows the truth about me... What if you need her one day?”
She didn’t kill her—didn’t take the Soul Ruby and restore the memories—for me? It’s not fair. None of it is.
I’m unsure if it’s truth or lie as I say, “I don’t need Cynthia.”
Des shrugs. “She cares for you.” Her fingers twirl through the grass. “Everyone needs a mom.”
“I have enough experience without one.”
“Same.” Her voice is low, sad. She stays silent for a while before saying, “I don’t have that many people who’ve forgotten me anyway. They’re probably better off.”
“Don’t,” I mutter.
She glances up, eyes narrow. “What?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t compromise.”
“What other choice do I have?” Desdemona scoffs. “Even if I had options, which I don’t, what are the chances the Soul Ruby is responsible for memories? You heard what the headmistress said.”
“Cynthia could be lying,” I whisper.
“I don’t think she did.”
I’d like to argue—yet Des is right. Cynthia has never lied to me, even if she sent me down odd roads.
Desdemona speaks quickly, saying, “Look, if I end up doing something terrible, it will be easier for the people I love not to remember me.”
I remember you, I want to say, though it feels like the truth beyond it might be what undoes me. And I want to remember you, no matter what you might do.
She could turn terrible, become the worst thing imaginable, something I should not be able to follow.
And still, I would.
I am hers.
And the girl I belong to would never choose to disappear so easily. Not while there is still something left to fight for.
For the first time in ages, Desdemona’s eyes find mine and hold. Her brows knit slightly, and she frowns as though looking through me rather than at me. “You’ll save Olwen’s wife,” she whispers. “Then you’ll find your sister. Help her take the throne.”
I nearly shake my head—but I refrain.
Rather, I ask, “And what will you do?”
Her gaze slips past me, toward the river behind us. The light there makes her expression look briefly unsteady. “I’ll find a way to move on—”
Desdemona cuts herself off when something cold hits my shoulder. She looks up, and I follow her gaze to the stars and the dark blue stretching endlessly above.
Then Desdemona’s breath catches, and rain cascades down. I glance back at her.
No, it’s not rain. Snow falls to the ground as if we were in Ilyria.
“Has this happened before?” I whisper. Snow on Folkara is thought to be impossible.
Desdemona’s gaze drops as a tear falls. Her lashes stick together, and her lower lip wobbles.
And she whispers, “No.”