Chapter Fifty #2
The Cycle and fate are referenced so interchangeably, I had brushed it off to mean something more like, this was always meant to be your fate .
But that isn’t what he meant at all. He was truly referencing the mystical force known to wielders and scholars alike as the Cycle.
The unknowable power that moves, redistributing the energy all magic possesses.
Even the oldest of magic cannot truly die.
At some point, the energy it carries—its essence tying it to our lakt?—is redistributed.
Whether at random or by some grand, divine plan depends on the scholar you ask.
Still, what could have made the journal so important that my mother asked Sterling to retrieve it? And just as importantly—why was Sterling so adamant I read it?
There is only one logical answer I can come up with to those questions. And it’s that, in some strange and twisted way, the journal must be tied directly to me—hold answers meant only for me.
And how could a journal from over four hundred years ago have anything to do with me, the Cycle, and the Abdites hunting me…
It could only if Casimir Vivaldri and I, somehow, are connected.
On the verge of understanding, I ask Nuha the final question that might just solidify my evolving theory. “You said the story was about three people. One named Prince, who wielded all magic. One named Commander, who wielded forbidden magic without consequence.” I pause. “Who was the third?”
A small indent forms between her brows. “The third was named Adored. The one who wielded the power of the stars themselves.”
The hairs on my arms prick up, standing at attention as the story Draven just told me swirls in my head.
And he watched as Astralis gifted her the impossible—the power of the very stars themselves. A power she decided must be used to end the raging war.
Holy shit.
The book in Nuha’s hands isn’t a fictional story at all. It is someone’s account of what happened with Casimir, Sitara, and Magaius. The Prince. The Commander. And the Adored.
And the Prince— Casimir Vivaldri —somehow was able to wield all magic.
And somehow he and I are connected.
I need to get back to my chambers so I can read his final journal entry.
I turn to face Nuha, doing my very best to look normal. “Thank you,” I offer as plainly as I can. “For showing me this.”
She offers me a kind smile. “I wanted to show you before I showed it to my fellow captains. That way, whatever they decide based on the information, you don't feel blindsided.”
Her words still my racing heart—if only temporarily. “You have my deepest gratitude for that. That is…” I scoff a dry laugh and lift my brows with shock. “That is far kinder than most in your position would ever be to someone like me.”
Her gaze softens. “I know about Meiji,” she blurts quietly.
I freeze.
She glances down to the worn wood of the desk next to us.
“I know about what happened in the valley. That you were the one who offered him peace—who listened to his dying wishes and relayed it to the ones you thought would be better suited to inform me of them.” She scratches at the desk, lost in a momentary trance.
“Consider this my way of showing you just the smallest bit of gratitude for what you did for him, in the way I’m able to. ”
A pang appears in my chest, clamoring against my sternum. “You owe me nothing—no displays of gratitude.”
Her lips twitch weakly, and she huffs a hollow laugh.
“Meiji always used to say something similar.” She lifts her eyes from the desk, locking them onto me.
“And so I will tell you the same thing I always told him: Sometimes, expressions of gratitude aren’t just for you, but for those who feel indebted to you.
Refusing them is selfish, and denying them is an act of belittling yourself—shows you refuse to see your worth.
” The corner of her lip tugs up with the sort of smile that makes me realize she doesn’t say this next part to me, but to Meiji, wherever he is.
“So, shut up and take the thank you,” she whispers.
I study her for a long moment. “Can I ask you something?”
She dips her chin. “You can.”
“Why don’t you wear his ring?”
Her brows skip up as she openly wears her momentary surprise. But then her expression softens, her mouth again curving weakly. “Have you ever lost someone you love?”
An invisible fist squeezes my heart. “I have,” I rasp.
She exhales a long sigh through her nose, and slides her eyes down to her ring finger.
“Meiji did not give me that ring because he wanted me to wear it. He gave it to me only as an act of his final promise—to love me even in death, but to wed me first in this life.” Nuha stills, continuing to stare at her finger.
Her green eyes grow hazy—dimmed suddenly by an obvious pain.
“That’s why he said he was sorry for being unable to keep his promise.
He wasn’t able to wed me first, as he had wanted. ”
I want to comfort Nuha as I glimpse the ghosts haunting her. To tell her she doesn’t have to be alone in her pain, as Draven showed me. But I realize suddenly I don’t have the slightest clue how to do that—to comfort without minimizing. Falsely promising. To simply be there in a way that counts.
It makes me wonder how—or what—forced Draven to learn.
“I know it’s hard to understand,” Nuha murmurs. “Seeing as you were given a great emotional burden of his without knowing him for long. But…Meiji wouldn’t have wanted me to wear the ring.” She huffs a small laugh, shaking her head. “I can hear the choice words he’d have for me if I did.”
There is a long, stretching silence as Nuha loses herself momentarily in the haze of her memories.
Eventually, though, she releases a quiet sigh and starts again.
“We make promises to those we love and hope to keep them. But breaking a promise to our fallen is not what hurts them most. What truly destroys them is watching us stunt our lives, burying our own dreams beside them—allowing ourselves to hold onto pain so heavy, it dims the light they once loved in us.” She pauses, her green eyes sliding to me.
“We do not have to forget to heal. But we do have to move forward.”
I press my fingertips to my cheek, realizing it is slick with moisture.
I’m not sure when my eyes started to leak.
Nuha reaches for my hand and squeezes. “Meiji is a great part of my story, and there is a chance I won’t ever love another.
But I’d be doing his memory a great disservice if I didn’t try to open my heart and love again, eventually.
” Her soft smile assumes a mischievous quality.
“Besides,” she drawls through her smirk.
“We always find our own ways to keep them with us.” With her thumb, she tugs a golden chain from behind her tunic, revealing Meiji’s ring attached to it.
She leans forward, dropping her voice into a whisper. “Between you and me, I think his ring is far better suited next to my heart than it is on my finger.” Then, she winks at me, somehow still able to smile.
In a way, seeing her smile, despite what she’s lost, inspires me.
And a realization courses through me—
If I truly believe in the Hanging Gardens, where Gardners ascend to live in beauty beneath the Mother Goddess’s watchful gaze, then my mother has been watching me all this time.
And I must have made her so sad.
She must have mourned not just my pain, but the loss of the light she so often told me she loved. The way I used to smile. The way I used to dream. In all my grief and attempts to deny its existence, I never stopped to wonder if perhaps she was made to mourn me more than I ever mourned her.
Has she been able to smile in the afterlife since she left me, seeing what I’ve become?
Maybe, if nothing else, that alone gives me reason to live in a way that ensures she can smile again.