Chapter 44
Chapter forty-four
My connection to the island pulls taut, each beat of my heart a painful blow against my ribs. Letum’s magic begins to roil through my veins, awakened by the return of its creator. And then he is there, standing on the black sand of the lagoon.
Though Pan is too far away to see properly, I know him by the inhuman way he holds himself. The odd glow that emanates from him, the way the air itself seems to draw toward him.
He stares up at the Lunaedon, like he can see through the windows. Like he can see through us.
“He…he looks like he’s alone,” I remark warily.
Niko’s voice is a near growl, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “Things are never as they appear with Peter. Announcing himself so boldly…It doesn’t feel right. He’s up to something.”
Before I can consider it further, a sudden pounding on the door nearly sends me flying out of my skin. My bare feet skate over the parquet in my haste to press a palm to the carved wood, certain whatever else is wrong waits on the other side.
The door disappears, revealing a pale-faced Tiernan, breathing heavily.
“It’s the Hollows,” he gasps, his voice winded, like he’s run the length of the palace. “Rina just sent word. It’s flooding. The pixies are trapped.”
Niko appears at my side, and for a moment, I expect him to bark out orders. But he only looks to me, his expression far more collected than I feel. “What do you want to do, Your Majesty?”
I stare at him, stunned by his deference. While he said he had no interest in ruling the island, I hadn’t entirely believed him. Not until this very moment, when his kingdom is under attack and rather than jumping to action, he is yielding to me.
My mind races through the possibilities. It doesn’t feel right to split up, but neither can I leave the Aeternalis to whatever nefarious plans he’s laid at the foot of the Lunaedon.
“I can get to the Hollows faster.”
Niko lifts his chin in understanding, his death spiraling from him like vengeance given form. “Leave Peter to me.”
He doesn’t move, and I realize he’s waiting for my response.
He knows my reticence to let him go, knows the thousand different emotions warring deep in my stomach.
The urge to blink us both out of here—to run to a world a thousand stars away and never think of any of this.
The urge to bind him to me so I will never have to live without him again.
Niko is no longer anchor to the island, no longer cursed by the stagnation he was when we first met. But in his liberation, he is also no longer immortal.
And though his magic is still a force, he is not infallible.
But Niko’s heart is mine, and they are both so deeply entwined in this island. Stained by its pain, sharpened by its beauty. I can no more untangle my feelings for this place, than I can for the king standing beside me.
So I nod, and say, “I love you. Come back to me.”
He is impossibly beautiful, a dark specter of retribution in the face of the chaos around us. “I will always come back to you. In life and death. In this universe and the next.”
Only a year ago, his words would have terrified me, but now, they anchor themselves in the marrow of my bones just as surely as the island.
Because it does not matter what happens in this life—our love was borne of death and dreams. It is transcendental, existing in the seven stars of creation, an infinite magic.
Niko leans in and brushes a soft kiss over my lips, a promise for an eternity of more. “Remember who you are, Darling. You are the Queen of Dreams. Even nightmares bow at your feet.”
And then he’s gone.
I turn to Tiernan. “Are you with me?”
Leashed behind his answering smile is determined fury, one that resounds in the line of his sword as he spins it in his hand. “Always, Your Majesty.”
The shadow created by my connection to the island has been nearly dormant in Niko’s presence.
In his absence, it awakens, dragging claws over my lungs as I drip into my magic.
I understand now that every drop of power I use digs a deeper hole in my soul.
One that will eventually become irreversible.
But I have rarely possessed the patience of restraint, and it escapes me entirely now that my kingdom is under threat.
I will endure whatever I must to keep Letum from the Aeternalis; give whatever I have to in order to save the island that saved me—the island that gave me everything.
It’s a realization that settles my blood, that anchors my bones.
I spent so long running to avoid more pain, but I know now the agony is what made me strong.
A strength I thought I’d lost forever; a strength awoken when I fell into the land of dreams, only to fall again, this time in love with a man who embodies pain itself.
I paint the Hollows as I remember it the night of the festival, before everything had gone to hell. The shimmer of the vines, the delicious smell of food wafting in the air, the magic of laughter and music echoing off the stone. I take Tiernan’s hand and push the magic outside myself.
The moment I open my eyes, I’m nearly swept away by the violent rush of a current.
We are on the same balcony where we’d watched Dreaming’s Eve, but now, no music rings through the air: only the harrowing screams of trapped pixies.
Water floods from every direction, the wild torrent of debris nearly as high as the ledge of the balcony.
It takes me far too long to understand where it originates.
Every window in the Hollows has been shattered.
Seawater shoots through the broken glass, careening through every level of the city.
The current is uncontrollable, sweeping whatever lies in its path into the whirlpool now spinning in the videntis.
Panic permeates the air, solid enough to touch.
Acidic enough to taste. Pixies with sodden wings are thrown into the pit, their cries of fear silenced by the roar of the flood.
Others claw up buildings, clinging to signs and ledges and balconies until their fingers bleed, terrified of being swept up in the raging waters.
Without warning, the shadow bursts from my skin.
It is the first time in weeks it has dared to show itself, but now, it looms large behind me.
It shudders with a deep breath as it drinks in the fear, gets high on the destruction.
The void of it scrapes against my skin, the malevolent pit far more harrowing than that of the flooded videntis.
It is a black hole, a chasm ripped through the universe that now threatens to devour it.
How had I ever thought it mine when it is so clearly something other?
I refuse to give it another moment of my attention, brushing away its touch like an errant insect.
With another breath, I push down my panic, my fear, my doubts, until my mind is clear of everything but one familiar habit: survive.
A primal urge, buried in the movement of my muscles and the build of my bones.
One that no longer only extends to me, but to everyone on the island.
I turn to Tiernan. “Can we evacuate to the Lunaedon?”
“If we can somehow get them past the protection magic,” he replies doubtfully, his expression growing darker as he takes in the destruction of the city.
All the time, all the energy the pixies spent lovingly restoring their home, washed away in minutes. Another reminder of how fleeting everything is in the cruel expanse of merciless universe.
“How do I do that?” I ask.
Before he can answer, Marina flickers into existence between us. Tiernan leaps aside with a surprised start that would be comical if the world wasn’t falling to ruins around us.
You ask it, she signs with a small smile.
I resist the urge to shake her, as water begins to trickle over the edge of the balcony to soak the stone beneath our feet. “Is right now really the moment for more riddles and nonsense?”
The Lunaedon is separate from Niko now, but it was borne of his magic. His heart. And so it will always listen to his command.
“Niko isn’t here,” I bite out, his name alone enough to spike my worry. For him, facing the Aeternalis alone. For me, without his shield from the shadow. For Letum, balanced precariously on the edge of ruin and salvation.
Marina’s gaze is steady. You are of Niko’s heart. So you command it just as he does.
My breath hitches, understanding washing over me as surely as the water. Niko never meant to transfer ownership of the Lunaedon to me—it hadn’t been a calloused scheme, nor a contingency for when he died. It happened simply because he loved me.
I swallow down the sudden heat in my throat, and dive deep into the waiting pool of magic.
It rises to my touch, infinite colors swirling in my mind.
I use them all—shades of deep blues and dark purples that tangle into the abiding onyx of the stone; the tangerine of sunrises on the glass, and the pinks that streak over the grounds when it sets.
I paint the balustrades with lines so delicate, they could be lace.
I fill in the skulls carved over the front gates, and the stories wound around the border.
I paint Wendy’s garden, and the simple rock path leading to the doors.
It is no strain, because all of it lives inside my heart. In my bones. In my blood.
I paint home.
I ignore the way the shadow begins to writhe; ignore the way it caresses my neck, and curls between my ribs.
Awake and excited at the prospect of using more magic.
I focus only on my painting. It is the most detailed piece I’ve ever attempted, as I create not only the Lunaedon, but an entirely new path leading to it through time and space.