Chapter 19
Amara
The void is endless. A world without time, without breath, without light.
Smoke coils and drifts like specters in the dark.
Ashen paces, though I do not know if we move.
There is no way to tell. No point of reference, no sound except the distant echo of my own thoughts.
How long has it been? Hours? Days? I cannot tell if time still applies to me. If I still exist the way I once did.
Tears burn, but they do not fall. My chest tightens, an ache so raw it threatens to break me. And then, for the first time since the darkness swallowed me, I part my lips and let my voice reach into the abyss.
“Daedalus.”
The silence swallows his name whole.
But I call again. Louder. Desperate.
“Daedalus!”
A hand clamps over my mouth as the Golden Son pulls me close. His blue eyes, so piercing, so starkly bright, seem almost too pure for the suffocating dark that swallows us whole.
“Quiet,” he warns, his strained voice still threaded with pain. His gaze sweeps the shifting shadows, muscles taut, every line of him sharpened with tension. “We are not alone, and we do not want to draw attention.”
His hand drags away from my mouth, lingering for just a breath too long, fingers grazing my skin as he withdraws his touch. He tips his chin towards Ashen.
“Can you command this beast to get us out of here?”
Suddenly a fresh wave of nausea twists through me, a deep, curling discomfort that is not just mine. My hand finds my stomach instinctively, fingers pressing against the source of that strange stirring.
The Golden Son notices. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, too quick, too clipped. I grip Ashen’s mane. “You must take us home. Now.”
But Ashen does not obey. He drifts forward, unhurried, his paws pressing weightless against the swirling black, carrying us deeper into the abyss.
The Golden Son’s jaw tightens. “He’s brought us here on purpose. This is a trap.”
“No,” I snap back, defensive. “This is my fault. I asked him to take us home. He is a creature of the void. He only misunderstood.”
“Then make him understand,” the Golden Son growls. “We cannot stay here.”
His words fracture into a brutal, hacking cough. He lurches forward, clutching his throat. A thin, writhing thread of smoke spills from his lips, alive, curling, vanishing into the abyss.
“What the fuck!” he gasps between coughs, voice raw. “What was that?”
My throat bobs, my pulse a wild thing. I shake my head, though my confusion isn’t entirely feigned.
The void is not meant for humans. It never has been.
The Fae can walk its endless dark and survive. I can breathe this air, perhaps because something within me is neither wholly human nor Fae, but something in between. A child of smoke and vine. And yet, even with that possibility, the pain twisting through my stomach is something else entirely.
The Golden Son is right.
We must get out.
Before my body betrays me. Before the void seeps into his lungs and suffocates him. Before the master of this place wakes and finds us trespassing.
I tighten my grip on Ashen’s mane, my voice steady despite the unease curling in my gut. “Ashen. Can you hear me? You must void walk. We must leave.”
But he doesn’t respond. Not to my voice, not to the silent plea I send through our bond. The smoke and shadows have claimed him, twisting around his form, sinking their claws into something deeper than obedience. He is not mine to command. Not here.
“He cannot help us,” I murmur, biting down against the sharp twist in my stomach. My gaze drifts to his paws, gliding effortlessly over a sea of darkness and mist.
If I climbed down, would I find solid ground beneath my feet? Or would I plummet into the dark? I’m not willing to take that risk.
The next wave of pain is sharper, tearing through me like a blade, and I lurch forward, collapsing against Ashen’s neck. He doesn’t react. Doesn’t so much as flinch.
“Don’t tell me it’s nothing again,” the Golden Son growls.
Smoke spills from his mouth, his fingers digging into his chest.
I press a hand to my belly, my breath catching. My brow furrows. It’s impossible, but Souls, I swear it’s larger. Rounder. Firmer. The silk of my gown, once flowing, clings too tightly now, stretched taut over my skin.
No, this is wrong.
We have to get out of here. Now.
I inhale deeply, forcing the pain aside, pushing through the fog clouding my thoughts. If Ashen will not get us out of here. If the void has ensnared him in its grasp, then there is only one other who can wield that power.
Me.
I close my eyes, steadying myself against the inevitable.
“I will open a portal.”
The Golden Son reaches around, pinching my chin between his fingers and forcing me to face him. I snarl, shoving him away, but he doesn’t miss a beat, grabs me again, his grip more forceful this time. Like he wants me to feel it. Like he’s daring me to fight him for control.
“You know what will happen,” he growls. “What it costs.”
I shake my head, defiant. “And what choice do we have? Linger here until the dark takes us? Wait for something worse to crawl out and devour us? If we’re lucky?”
“No.” His voice hardens. He shakes his head once, with finality. “I won’t allow it.”
My jaw tightens. “Luckily, I am not asking for your permission.”
Before he can stop me, before he can rip the words from my lips, I speak them.
“Véthari lios an’thera.”
The void devours them.
So I say them again. Louder. Then again, until my voice is all there is.
“Véthari lios an’thera. Véthari lios an’thera. Véthari lios an’thera.”
But there is nothing but darkness.
Then I understand. Blood.
It must always be blood.
But how?
I have no weapons. And with Ashen under the sway of the void, I’m not eager to force his mouth open and shove an arm inside.Panic coils in my chest as I whirl, eyes scanning the Golden Son.
His bare torso is a map of bruises and shallow cuts, smeared with dried blood, but no blade. Nothing sharp. Nothing useful.
I could claw at myself. Bite down hard and pray a drop is enough.
There’s no time to hesitate. No time to hope for a cleaner way.
I seize my arm, teeth bared, ready to tear into my own flesh. But before I can, a curl of smoke unfurls across my lap.
I freeze. Watching, breathless, as the darkness writhes like smoke, then stills. Solidifies. The shadow evaporates, leaving behind a dagger, its blade glimmering like starlight, its leather-wrapped hilt fitted to my hand, its pommel a clear, flawless jewel.
I stare.
The only one more stunned than me is the Golden Son.
“That’s Fae magic,” he breathes. “But how…”
His voice fades as his gaze drops to my belly just before it jolts, a massive ripple rolling beneath my skin like the swell of a restless sea.
He shrieks, a high-pitched sound even louder than the one he scolded me for, his face contorting into something between horror and revulsion.
“Was that the baby? What’s happening to it?” he chokes out.
“There’s no time to figure that out,” I snap, already slicing the dagger across my arm.
A crimson curtain spills down my skin, warm and fast.
The Golden Son snarls, lunging for the dagger, wrenching it from my grip. But it’s too late.
The blood is already spilled.
“Véthari lios an’thera.”
I close my eyes and think of the Grove. Of home. Of the ancient trees and the Souls that whisper through them. Of the ones I swore to protect.
But this place. This place does not let go so easily.
It seeps into me, thick as ink, curling through my ribs, my veins, my mind. It stains me. Poisons my thoughts until even my beloved Grove turns to rot and cinder in my memory.
My blood drips. My vision flickers.
The void before me rips.
A gash splits through the darkness, stretching wider, inch by inch.
A portal. And despite the cost it demands, despite the truth that my life has been torn apart in the name of this magic, I can’t help the swell of pride that rises in my chest. I’ve done this.
It’s enough to steady me, enough to chase back the fear of what I’ve become.
Within the portal, there is light, faint, dim, but blinding compared to what surrounds us.
The Grove?
I don’t know. But Ashen moves toward it, drawn like a blade to its sheath.
The tear unravels, threads of shadow snapping apart like stretched sinew. At first, the view is muddled, unclear, but as Ashen carries us closer and the portal swells, clarity sharpens.
This is not my beloved Grove.
The land beyond is barren and cruel. A jagged expanse of dark stone, cracked and unforgiving, and there, carved into the spine of a mountain, looms a fortress.
Crooked and rotting, like the corpse of a kingdom long dead.
Fire pits flicker at its base, spitting embers into the sooty sky, casting shifting shadows that dance across shattered ramparts and broken spires.
Then, a screech cleaves the air, razor-sharp and unnatural.
A sky of wings. Black. Endless.
Not Mordorin Fae.
Not the Blades of Baev’kalath.
Worse.
Monsters.
But it isn’t the only sound.
The first growls roll across the land like thunder. Deep tremors that rattle the bones of the world. Then come the screams. Shrieking. Unrelenting. Growing louder with each ragged breath.
And then I see them.
A flood of creatures bursts from the fortress, a living tide of shadow and snarling teeth, crashing down the mountain in a relentless swarm. They pour over the landscape like spilled ink, unstoppable, ravenous, fast as death.
“Amara,” the Golden Son murmurs at my ear, calm despite the chaos, despite the death hurtling toward us. “Close the portal, please.”
A cold weight drops into my stomach. My throat tightens.
“I... I don’t know how,” I admit, heat rising to my cheeks, burning down my neck. “I was never taught that part.”
The Golden Son exhales sharply, muttering, “Because they expected you to be dead by this point, I imagine.”
A bitter truth.
Then, a flicker of luck. The portal stops widening.