Chapter 48 #4
“Because of all of us. People crossed realms for you. People who had every reason to stay behind.” His gaze touched Raiden, then returned to me. “My father knows the Sanctum failed to contain you. He knows I betrayed him completely. And now he knows exactly what you can make people choose.”
The fortress shook again. Closer.
“Move.”
This time no one questioned him. We descended through two flights of stairs and another blood-slick corridor before cold air finally struck my face.
Night. Real night. Stars stretched above black mountains.
For one staggering second, I forgot everything else.
After that chamber, the sky looked impossible.
Too open. Too beautiful. I stopped beneath it.
Kieran turned. “What?”
I stared upward. Stars. Vareena would never see these.
My mother had died beneath another sky. My father too.
The weight of all that absence pressed inward.
Lidia’s hand found mine. I let her hold it.
Then the alarm bells began. Deep. Violent.
One after another throughout the fortress.
Torches ignited along the battlements. Figures appeared above us.
“Go,” Eiryx said.
We ran. The path descended toward a narrow gorge.
Shadow bolts struck the rocks around us.
Dax threw Earth upward. Stone rose behind us in a wall and shattered beneath the next assault.
Raiden turned and released Fire. Night became orange.
Men screamed. We kept running. At the bottom of the gorge stood nothing.
No horses. No gate. No road. “What the hell—”
Kieran drew a blade across his palm. Blood welled immediately. He pressed his hand to the stone wall. Shadow poured beneath his fingers. Lines appeared in the rock. Ancient. Circular. A door. Not quite. A crossing carved into the mountain.
“Where does that go?”
“Away from here.”
“That is not a good enough answer to make me walk through it.”
“It is the only one we have time for.”
The markings brightened. Shadow filled the cracks. Behind us, the gorge erupted. Kaelros’s forces had reached the ridge. Eiryx threw darkness upward. Dax reinforced it with Earth. Lidia stood beside Raiden, Fire rising around both of them.
Emrin grabbed my arm. “Lyra.”
I looked at Kieran. “What is it?”
“A crossing.”
“Where does it go?”
He hesitated.
That was enough. “No.”
“Lyra.”
“No. Tell me.”
His jaw tightened. “The western edge of Umbrael.”
My heart stopped. “Deeper into your kingdom?”
“Yes.”
“You rescue me from Kaelros by taking me farther into his realm?”
“Into territory he does not control.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the king of Umbrael does not own every Shadow that breathes inside it.”
The stone split. Darkness waited beyond it.
Not empty darkness. Stars. Trees. A distant line of mountains.
Umbrael. His kingdom. The place Kaelros had ruled while Kieran learned how to become the man standing in front of me.
The place Neseryn had been raised to call the Shadow King father.
The realm Kieran had spent months refusing to speak about unless I forced pieces from him.
And now he wanted me to step farther into it.
Hours ago, I might have followed him through without knowing where it led.
That realization hurt more than the answer.
“Go!” Eiryx shouted.
Dax stumbled, blood running from his nose.
Emrin dragged him through. Lidia followed.
Raiden stayed at the rear until Eiryx physically shoved him across.
Then Emrin. Dax. Lidia. Eiryx. Only Kieran and I remained.
He held one hand toward me. I stared at it.
The hand that had taught mine to shape Shadow.
The hand that had touched my face in the dark.
The hand I had trusted enough to follow into places I did not understand. I knew better now. “No.”
Pain flashed across his face. He lowered it. “Then walk through without me.”
Behind us, men descended the gorge. Kieran turned. Shadow erupted. Not defensive. Lethal. The first three men died before touching the ground. Another struck him across the ribs. Kieran staggered. Blood spread over his side. He killed that man too.
“Kieran!”
He looked at me. “Go.”
I hated him. Gods, I hated him. And some ruined, treacherous part of me was terrified he was going to die.
That was the final cruelty. I stepped through.
Cold tore across my skin. The world folded.
For one heartbeat there was nothing beneath my feet.
Then grass struck my knees. Hands caught me.
Lidia. Emrin. I twisted around. The opening flickered.
Kieran stood on the other side. Fighting alone. “KIERAN!”
Shadow swallowed three more men. Then another figure appeared at the top of the gorge.
Kaelros. Even at that distance, I recognized him.
Kieran did too. Everything stopped. Father and son stared at one another across a field of dead men.
And for the first time I understood exactly what I was looking at.
Not a good man facing an evil one. A monster confronting the monster who had made him.
Kaelros did not attack. He only watched. Kieran backed toward the crossing.
Kaelros smiled. “You will bring her back to me.”
“I will not.”
“You always come home.”
Kieran stepped through. The last thing I saw before Shadow sealed behind him was Kaelros standing among the dead. Unmoving. Certain. The doorway vanished. Silence fell. Kieran dropped to one knee. Blood immediately darkened the grass beneath him. Eiryx went to him. Kieran shoved his hand away.
“I’m fine.”
He wasn’t. Everything inside me was shaking.
The sky here was different. Still Alareth.
Still stars. But the mountains were wrong.
The air smelled of pine and cold stone rather than Sanctum gardens.
A forest surrounded us. Farther away, faint lights burned between the trees.
Not a city. A settlement hidden beneath the trees. “Where are we?”
No one answered immediately. Kieran forced himself upright. “Somewhere my father cannot reach you easily.”
“For once, Kieran, answer the fucking question.”
His gaze found mine. “The Blackwood.”
“What is it?”
Emrin swallowed. “Master Rhovan mentioned it once. Old Umbrael territory. Settlements abandoned after the Veil rose. The throne claims it, but barely controls it.”
I looked toward the lights. “Who lives there?”
Kieran said nothing.
“People Kaelros wants dead,” Eiryx answered.
My stomach tightened. “And you knew about this place.”
Kieran’s eyes remained on me. “Yes.”
Of course he did. Another truth. Another thing he had known while I knew nothing. “I want to go back to the Sanctum.”
No one spoke. The silence was immediate. Wrong. I looked at Lidia. Her eyes filled. “What?”
“Lyra…”
“What?” She looked at Kieran. “Stop looking at him. I asked you.”
Lidia swallowed. “You can’t go back. None of us can.”
My stomach dropped. “Why?” No answer. “What happened after they took me?”
Raiden closed his eyes. Dax stared at the ground. Emrin looked sick. “What happened?”
Kieran reached inside his coat. I backed away immediately. His hand stopped. A muscle jumped once in his jaw. Then he pulled out a folded piece of paper. Gold seal. Elyndor. The Council. My blood went cold.
“What is that?”
No one answered.
“Give it to me.”
Kieran held it out. I took the paper without touching him. The edges had gone soft from being folded too many times. I opened it.
By authority of the Elyndorian High Council, and under emergency accord with the Arcane Sanctum—
My hands began shaking.
The female candidate known as Lyra Alerain, origin Edenlo beyond the Veil, is hereby classified as an uncontained dual-affinity magical threat—
No.
In possession of prohibited Shadow affinity in conjunction with Light—
No.
Publicly identified under disputed historical designation Starborn—
My breath left me.
Subject is to be located, restrained, and remanded to Council custody pending determination of—
I stopped. “Pending determination of what?”
No one answered.
I forced myself to read.
Containment viability.
Containment. Not trial. Not questioning. Not protection. My knees weakened. “Halos signed this.”
Kieran’s mouth tightened.
Seven signatures sat at the bottom. One belonged to Halos. “Damon?”
“He refused.”
My heart stumbled anyway. “Calis?”
“Refused.”
“Rhovan?”
“Refused.”
“Kaiz?”
A pause. “He signed.”
“He is a coward,” Lidia said, Fire curling in her palm.
There was more.
Anyone found sheltering, transporting, concealing, or assisting the subject—
I looked around me. Lidia. Emrin. Dax. Raiden. Eiryx. Kieran. “You’re all wanted.”
No one denied it.
“Because of me.”
“No,” Lidia said.
I looked at her. She stopped before offering reassurance I could no longer bear to hear. It was not my fault. But it was because of me. There was a difference. Another line waited near the bottom. “What does this mean?”
Kieran went still.
I read it aloud. “Authority granted for termination should containment prove impossible.”
The forest disappeared. Termination. Not execution.
Execution required guilt. Termination was what someone did to a threat.
Edenlo had burned. Maia was beyond the Veil.
Vareena was dead. My parents were dead. My sister had looked me in the face and chosen the man who murdered them.
The man I loved had entered my life under orders from that same man.
And now the Sanctum—the place I had begun to think might become home—had signed my death into law.
There was nowhere behind me anymore. Every road home had been erased.
Kieran took one step toward me. “Lyra.”
I looked at him. The blood. The wounds. The Shadow moving restlessly around his boots. The green-gray eyes I had trusted more than my own. “You love me.”
It was not a question.
“More than anything.”
“And you would lie again.”
“If it kept you alive.”