16. Chapter Sixteen
“He’s always been a womanizer,” Eero said. I rolled my eyes and rubbed the skin beneath them, trying to get rid of the sleepiness that dragged my skin down. We’d arrived at the rebel camp before the sun was high in the sky, this time via portal. Sapphire would be joining me in my training today. Moreover, I discovered we’d travel to and from the camps in various ways.
I didn’t blame them. In fact, I’d been waking at least once a night with Sólkon’s face vividly burned into my brain. It was like an eternal nightmare—one I’d kept secret from Eero, but I knew they remembered the carriage ride as well as I did. I just hoped his reach ended in fragments of my imagination—that it didn’t stretch beyond in ways I’d never be able to control.
That was a foolish thought. It’d already happened in that carriage. I was just hoping it’d never happen again—that I would never have to put my friends and lover in a place of such danger.
“I don’t need your judgment,” Sapphire said beneath bitter breath, arms crossed over her chest as she tapped her foot. “If the gods fated me to a whore, it’s my battle to win or lose. At this point, I don’t really care.”
Eero had parted after a few more strings of reassuring words that went over Sapphire’s head. Her gaze was distant, lost in the depths of the rebel camp without relief. I grabbed hold of her elbow and tugged her toward the training grounds. My body ached, but it was a gentle reminder of what I’d need to overcome and how I could get stronger.
When we came across Lyra’s face, sunken with dark bags and lines around her mouth, my lips twitched into a smile. Eero was a cruel man for that, but maybe it meant I had a shot at winning whatever sparring sessions I was to be subject to today. She didn’t twist her head toward us as we neared. In fact, she brought the glass of piping hot tea to her face, eyes fluttering closed.
“You look like shit,” I said with a cool snap in my tone. Lyra’s gaze hardened on mine, and it only made me grin wider. There was something so sweet about being able to throw insults right back in her face—even if I held little resentment toward her. It likely wasn’t her fault she was so unbearable.
Especially considering the loss she’d experienced since the death of her queen—her sister, actually.
Lyra took a sip of her tea before standing and setting it on the table crafted of rugged logs. Overhead, the trees swayed, blending into the almost indiscernible glamour that divided this camp from the border between the Spring and Winter Courts. I wondered how many trees were genuine and how many were a fabric of magic.
“Sapphire,” she muttered, completely moving past me and away from the training swords and burlap bags pierced through sharpened logs. “Hurry along. We have a lot to do.”
Sapphire gave me one look before gesturing ahead. “After you, since you two are the closest of friends.”
I smiled bitterly before walking after Lyra, ducking through the entrance into a large tent. There were so many books—books upon books upon more books. I saw Sapphire’s eyes lighten at the sight, her face easing into the semblance of calm. Lyra picked up a stack before hurling them onto the dirty ground.
That calm faded. Sapphire’s lips curled in disgust, and she breathed heavily after watching how the thin parchment crunched with a spread spine. I sat across from her after she gestured frantically at the chair. Sapphire picked up the books and set them aside after straightening the pages. Then, she sat between us.
“Ever used magic, Aurelie?” Lyra asked with narrowed eyes. “I’m inclined to say no. Just a hunch.”
I cocked my head and chewed on the inside of my cheek. “If I’ve never used magic, do you think I’d be here? That all the cruelty I experienced before finding refuge would have happened?”
Lyra cocked a brow. “Accidentally using your magic is not the same.”
My mouth snapped shut, and I crossed my arms. “Well, yes, I still have. With Eero’s guidance.”
“That’s piss-poor training.” Lyra picked a few splinters of the wood before looking at Sapphire. “Think they romped after? Sweated the magic out,” she said, putting up air quotes around the word.
“Are we going to train, Lyra, or are you going to continue complaining that you didn’t get your beauty rest?”
Sapphire’s parted lips closed into a proud smirk. “Don’t worry, Aurelie. Lyra’s always been bitter. She’ll warm up to you eventually.”
“Like I did with you?” she barked back before roaring into laughter. “I wouldn’t call this warm, Saph. I’d call it tepid at best.”
“Tepid or not, I’ll find a way to work with you,” I cooed as I leaned forward, bracing my forearms on the table. “I’m guessing you brought us into the tent for a reason?”
“I did,” Lyra said as she averted her focus back to me. It was hard, cold like a winter storm, and just as fierce. I shifted in my seat. “I need you to tell me what happened to you when Eero found you at the fortress in the Winter Court.”
My face fell. Sapphire had grown still too. The silence danced between us, daring just one to break it so we could escape the agonizing tension. “I don’t see how that relates to—”
“Oh, it’s directly correlated,” Lyra snapped, cutting me off. She braced her forearms on the table and leaned in so she could speak low and slow. “Trauma like that can’t stay bottled up, Aurelie. Not if you want to find your magic again.”
“Again?” I chuckled and I couldn’t help but scowl, teeth bared. “My magic is alive and well. You don’t know what I’ve done and can do.”
“Oh, I don’t? Then tell me, Aurelie Cane. I need you to explain to me the last time you used that magic of yours on purpose. In detail, if you will.”
There wasn’t an ounce of logic coursing through me when I spat out, “When I was fucking the Winter King, you nosy little twat.”
Silence.
My cheeks burned, and I pursed my lips into a thin, angry line.
But Sapphire fell into a fit of laughter, reaching to cover her mouth before leaning forward and letting the hair cover her face. She was sputtering out my name in disbelief, but nothing was discernible beyond that.
Lyra, however, was unimpressed. Her mouth was curled downward, eyes glittering in disbelief. “Is that so?”
It wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t. I didn’t have any more control over my magic than I did over my tongue right now. “It is so. Are you going to keep pestering and doubting my abilities, or are you going to help me? I am on borrowed time.”
Lyra straightened her posture, arms crossing over her chest. Sapphire slowly rolled her shoulders and breathed out a final chuckle. I flicked my gaze between them, the apples of my cheek still red-hot in embarrassment. Why…why? I was so foolish to lie over such a thing.
“Oh, I’ll keep pestering, but we’re going to go back to the topic at hand. I don’t really care about your sexual escapades, Aurelie. I care about what happened to you that night with the Summer King.”
“I don’t know if that’s all necessary, Lyra…”
“Tepid waters, Sapphire. Remember that. I’ll address you when I need your input.”
I scoffed. The mortal heart pounding within my chest did so like a drum. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Flashes of consciousness filled infinite blackness. What had been things of torture flooded my mind—things I could only hope were a fragment of my imagination. Hands clawed at my skin with taloned intent—cutting into the flesh before teeth marked me as theirs. It was hazy, it was brutal, and it was invasive.
A fae bastard had marked me—and every time I blinked, more of that nightmare bled into truth. Reality returned as tears stung in my eyes.
“What sort of cruel trick is this?” I rasped. “You wish for me to relive that night for you, Lyra? So you have more to poke at?”
For a moment, Lyra’s face twitched into something kind—but it faded before it’d ever count. “I want you to recount what you can so I can untap that magic in you. You think it exists in peace and serenity? That your body will let it come and go as you please when the pain of magic is beneficial?”
Sapphire’s initial teachings echoed around my head. She’d once told me to focus on my emotions—anger, sadness, anything that could bring out the power in me. It was like my power was linked to darkness. Bound to it, in fact. I feared it’d seep into the light of my life and soil it, much like I’d been soiled that treacherous night.
“And if I don’t remember?” I asked, voice a delicate, cracked tune. I could barely hear it over the ringing in my ears.
“I’d call you a liar.”
“Lyra—”
“Sapphire,” she snapped, voice booming throughout the tent. “You either stay quiet, or you leave. I will not tell you again.”
“I don’t remember,” I repeated, this time as a statement. I shook my head and dragged my arms back to my chest. Splinters of wood poked into my skin, but they helped ground me. My mind was trying to go to a terrible place, one I was realizing may have been mistaken for a dream.
But, in fact, it was true. Cold, cold reality.
Lyra stood, rounding the table with a glare set on me like a beast, like a monster waiting to suck me dry. Her eyes glistened, and her teeth sparkled against the warm light cast by faelight-lanterns throughout the tent. “Liar,” she whispered, and although she wasn’t more than an arm’s length away, her voice echoed through my mind like she was inside it. “What’d he do to you, Aurelie? Did he drug you…bite you? What sort of pathetic state did Eero find you in?”
I forced my eyes shut, but behind the darkness was an endless loop of those nights. “Stop—”
Lyra’s strong hold on my shoulder cut off my voice, capturing it like a lump harder than stone in the middle of my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I was tumbling back into the same sort of darkness that kept me from sleeping the weeks following my rescue.
“Speak, Aurelie. If you want answers, I need the truth. All of it.”
“Lyra, you’ve gone too far,” Sapphire said, the gravel beneath her feet cracking as she stood. I couldn’t open my eyes—refused to, perhaps—but I could see the rage clear as day. It was riddling her tone, a calm storm I never wanted to bear witness to. “Anger is only one way to find her magic. This isn’t the answer. This is…this is cruel.”
With Lyra’s voice, a blast of wind enveloped us like a storm. “Get out,” she commanded. “I will not let you be the reason she fails.”
I brought my hands to my face and tried to rub the darkness away. I was stuck—it was never ending, swallowing me whole like a serpent. I was a victim of my own body.
“After all, that’s what you fear most, right?” Lyra’s voice returned, swirling around in my mind. I shook my head, again, again, again. It was an echo chamber of terror. “Abandonment. Failure. Abuse. You fear these things, and they paralyze you, right?”
“Stop.” My voice cracked through the air like a whip. “I don’t—”
“Li-i-i-iar,” she hissed, her voice swimming to the other side of my mind. “Did Sólkon steal your virtue? Did he abuse that weak body until you were broken, bruised, bitten—”
“I. Said. Stop.”
My words ushered in rage. Power. My voice splintered into two, another echoing behind me as I slammed my hands onto the table. Magic blossomed against the vibrations, crackling into the air. When my eyes snapped open, I saw nothing but stars. They littered the room, too bright, too close, too hot.
“There it is,” Lyra hissed like a wicked, cruel fox. I bared my teeth before twisting around and capturing her neck in my hands. I couldn’t find her eyes in the madness that blurred my focus. I stood, the ground vibrating beneath me like a beast growling. The madness. The darkness that enveloped my heart. The terror. It was all-consuming.
And, in an instant, all that cool condescension on Lyra’s face bled white. She was sputtering, her neck at the mercy of hands that did not belong to me. The stars pained me, and I shut my eyes to give relief—if only temporarily.
I’d grown numb in the mere seconds it took for the stars to rain down on us.
“I quite like your terror, Aurelie,” she said between sputtering gasps. She grasped onto my wrist and tried to pull it free, but my strength was like never before. I only tightened my hold and forced her to her knees as she gasped out in pain, in desperation. “L-Let me go.”
“You wish to know what happened to me?” I challenged as I leaned down, teeth bared as I spat my words. “I was maimed. I was ruined. Bitten. Everything you said is true, and I don’t know what to make of it, but I certainly won’t be bullied into reliving that terrible, terrible night.”
A hand grappled onto my shoulder, trying to pull me back, but I twisted around and pushed Sapphire away with the slightest flick of my wrist. A gust of wind suffocated every flickering candle, dimmed the impossible faelight, tore pages from the books scattered across the ground. She skidded on her back and cried out.
I returned my focus to Lyra. She grinned up at me despite the air leaking from her mouth. Fae didn’t die easy, but I’d make her hurt. I’d make her bleed. She was half-human, just like me.
“What’d he do, Aurelie?” she gasped. “Accept that anger in your heart—and I promise you, your power will crumble his palace so there is no place for him to hide.”
I wanted to scream, to cry, to silence her forever. She was forcing me into a place I never wanted to go. She was fueling the sort of rage I’d never witnessed before—never felt. I was a different person right now, and I wasn’t sure whether I liked her or not.
I knew she terrified me.
But terror did the soul good, sometimes.
I let a tear fall free, my lip trembling. “I’ll never let him control my anger like that,” I rasped. “Fuck you.” My hold on her neck was tight, unrelenting.
“Then be the weak little girl who cries to the winter king who will never respect you.”
Something in me snapped at that threat. It held no weight, no meaning, but it enraged—and that was all that mattered. That was all I needed to implode, the warmth akin to the last night Eero and I had shared a bed.
Stars bled off my skin as I roared in anger. I wanted to keep hold of her neck and rid her of the life she didn’t deserve to live after those thinly veiled threats and accusations, but the energy sent me flying back. She flew across the tent, smashing against the rough material. I expected to fly into the ground, to maybe even hit my head against the corner of a bookshelf or table, but the air captured me like a cold, breezy hug.
I was hanging in the air, head dipped back. There were stars when I opened my eyes and when I closed them. I wasn’t sure what was real and what was in my mind, but my body was suspended in air like—
No. No, it wasn’t. As the stars bled into gloomy reality, I saw time stand still. Sapphire was rolling onto her side, reaching a hand toward me with magic starting to crackle off her hands. The starlight was burning into the tent’s material, like embers of a flame—within seconds, this place would be ablaze.
When I straightened my body, I realized I wasn’t levitating at the hands of magic. I saw myself lying on my back, utterly still, stars riddling my body like glowing tattoos. I, in all my consciousness, was staring at my own lifeless body. I was a soul floating alone in a void of starlight. My skin was transparent, and when I lifted a hand to look at it, I saw constellations threading across my body where the veins should be.
I turned slowly, finally capturing sight of what I’d done to Lyra. Her body was charred, smoke lifting from her, skin curling off her cheeks like a peeled apple. But more terrifying than the monstrous abuse I’d inflicted on her body was the darkness looming over her like a ghost.
It had a face shadowed by misty darkness. The only defining feature was silvery hair and crimson eyes, crueler than anything I’d ever seen before. It was a nightmare—and it was ebbing off Lyra like it’d existed within her for substance.
Stars and darkness beckon—find me, and we shall be free.
I gasped as it lunged at me, as if it had legs and arms and—
No. It wasn’t real. But when its shadowed hand swiped through my gut, it felt real. When it grabbed hold of me and breathed out a hissing cackle, it was real. It was within me, our energies cascading into a beautiful harmony of chaos and calm.
My children will release me. Find me in the depths below, where magic and starlight seal me shut.
I cried out and pushed myself away, thrashing my legs and spiraling out of control. I was going up, up, up through the tent, as if it never existed, into the air until I was overlooking the forest, the rebel camps. The Winter Court.
When I looked beneath my feet, I saw the darkness ebbing off the tent and into the air. It formed vines off the ground, stretching toward my legs until it wrapped around my ankles and started pulling me down. I yelped and kicked. It stung like an insect’s bite in the sweltering sun, but it wouldn’t let free—the darkness pulled me down, down, down, until I was free-falling at a rate so fast, I thought it’d be my demise.
My celestial form smashed into my soulless body, the air cracking out of me in a gasp that shattered in my throat. The essence of my celestial soul rejoining into my physical form felt worse than all my bones breaking at the same time. It was like a horse had stomped on my chest.
But it woke something in me.
Something uncontrolled—powerful. Otherworldly, almost.
Because when my eyes opened, a beam of starlight bled out of my mouth with my agonizing scream. The tent disintegrated, and I was, again, engulfed in warmth unlike anything I’d seen or felt before.