Chapter 44
EMMELINE
Rain’s breaths had finally grown slow as the sky had darkened into the deepest night. Slowly, I pulled the blankets off my body.
After sending the dragons to Elora, I’d insisted upon stopping by the temple to help Malva heal those still recovering from their injuries. But Rain had dragged me away quickly as my shadows had climbed over my wrists and up my arms. He hadn’t wanted me to scare anyone. Though very few viewed Ciarden’s divinity as malevolent, Rain had been right to remove me from the bedsides of all those who had been injured. Even if for my own self preservation.
I had harmed so many people. There were soldiers who had been injured in the Supreme’s pit; crush injuries and broken bones abounded. But the scent of burnt flesh had seared into my bloodstream. It was all my fault, and I couldn’t even do anything to help them with their wounds—not with my divinity in its uncontrollable state. Leaving had been the right thing to do.
Exhaustion made my limbs ache, but instead of rest, I’d found endless racing thoughts. I’d pretended to sleep, closing my eyes and focusing on my breathing, so I could sneak away.
I shut myself in the bathing chamber and tugged on a pair of discarded breeches I’d left beside the tub. Rain’s shirt was a bit large on me, but it brought me comfort to wear. Not wanting to change, I simply tucked it into the breeches, ignoring the strange bump it made on my lower belly. Lacing my boots before breathing deep, I opened a rift. I flinched at the noise, hoping Rain wouldn’t hear, and I stepped through.
Though far quieter than it was during the day, the Myriad temple I’d turned into a healing base was still bustling with activity. Healers and novices moved around the space, all tender efficiency as they treated their patients. I desired to help, even if it meant changing out dirtied supplies. If I couldn’t heal them without my divinity staking its claim on my mental state, I’d be useful elsewhere.
“Your Majesty, what are you doing here?” Jaehren surprised me right before I could step from the foyer into the organized chaos. He was sitting on a bench beside the double doors, eating a piece of bread as he drank from a flask.
“I’m here to help,” I said, about to move past, and he cleared his throat. Nodding at the seat beside him, his furry brows raised in expectation. Annoyance flickered within me. He’d been right—about the destruction I’d wrought upon the city as I rode Lux. And the disappointment he’d shared had felt like a stone in my stomach. Still though, other than Lord Durand I didn’t have any allies on the council. I thought it best not to irritate him further.
“I don’t think it wise to go in there just now,” he said, thoughtful as he picked around a stale section of his bread. “Give them time.”
“Who?” I asked, but shame flared brightly in my veins because I already had an idea.
“The healers,” he said, swigging from his flask before offering it to me. I declined. “They’re just overwhelmed right now. All this wasn’t what they’d anticipated.”
I bit my lip, looking down at my hands. With determined concentration, I kept the shadows from appearing. “I suppose I should leave,” I mumbled.
“Or perhaps you should pray?” he offered. “If the gods have sought to burden you with their blessings, I think they were prepared to give guidance as well.”
I tempered my scowl a moment too late as the old man laughed. Inhaling deeply, I allowed his idea to take root. “Which one do you prefer?” I asked. “Aonara?”
“Though I have Aonara’s divinity, I’ve had many a conversation with Rhia,” he responded, taking another bite of his bread. I tilted my head, curious. “My wife and I—we wanted a babe. Never had one, but I still pester the goddess whenever I have the chance.”
Huffing a laugh, I stood. “Well, I’ll tell her you say hello.”
He nodded, and I slipped into the temple proper. Staying to the edges of the cots, I kept my head bowed, hair concealing my face as I strode with purpose. It only took me a few moments to get there, and not a single person paid me any mind. Rhia’s altar was on the northernmost wall of the temple, her plinth nearly half as tall as I was. Stained glass bracketed her divine statuary on either side. Life size, she loomed over me. In the statue’s arms was an infant, and the goddess’s face was tilted in observation. Though there were no details to her features, I was able to picture the woman with ease.
Kneeling on the cushions before her, I abandoned the proper show of piety and made myself comfortable instead. But my prayers wouldn’t come. Perhaps there was too much resentment weighing down my heart. Or too much pain. But I sat there for what felt like hours. The temple grew far quieter, many of our healers going to the novice chambers on the second floor to rest. Just as I was about to give up and head back to the palace, the torches dimmed, allowing the wounded some blessed darkness to rest within.
And perhaps my own wounded soul and mind found peace, because at last, a flood of thoughts and questions and prayers and apologies released from me. Curling into myself, knees to my chest, I prayed.
I lost track of time, and when I found shadows twining around my frame, I closed my eyes to concentrate. But, exhausted as I was, once I dismissed my encroaching divinity, I drifted off into a restless sleep.
It wasn’t a dream or a nightmare, but something far more terrifying.
There was a man—impossibly tall with pale skin and dark hair. He had antlers, enormous and reaching for the sky. They were shedding their velvet, the remnants of the bloody vascular protection hanging from their points and falling into his hair. It gleamed like black silk. When he smiled at me, showing sharp incisors, he didn’t seem threatening. Yet, when he tucked his midnight strands behind one pointed ear, fear flooded me.
He looked like Ciarden, the same god who had appeared to me at the Cascade and gifted me his divinity. But instead of shadows and darkness, this man emitted something else. Life, perhaps. Flowing and encompassing, I couldn’t quite explain it. He emitted a golden aura, reminding me so much of the bond I shared with Rain.
I passed a swaddled bundle over to the antlered man. My hands were slender—feminine and delicate—but not my own. With smooth, rich brown skin, arms I didn’t recognize placed an hours-old infant in his arms. Fresh from a womb that was not mine, I didn’t want to let them go. Dragging a thumb down their light brown cheek, I caused the babe to smile in its sleep. My eyes caught on tiny nubs hidden within dark curls, just as the antlered man gently traced one with his fingertip.
Vaguely, I remembered the beliefs of the long dead people who had once called Lamera home. The forestborn had worshiped an antler god whose name I forgot and who history, as molded by the Myriad, had erased. Was this him? Was this his child?
The woman’s arm lifted, feeling like my own, cupping the man’s jaw. The shadow of scruff dragged against her palm, and he rubbed his face into the motion, staring down at her with a look I recognized. Incomprehensible love and caring filled his bright green eyes, and with a shock, I noticed stars within them. Twinkling and bright, entire constellations lived within his gaze.
He kissed her palm, and the memory faded.
The antlered man knelt on the ground, his head bowed and back drenched in blood and sweat. He seemed to be on a battlefield. Bodies littered the earth as far as the eye could see, and a hazy smoke hovered over the dirt. She approached him, and I felt her heaving breaths, the shock of despair shaking her frame. Wiping away her tears, I felt tacky blood on her fingertips as they left marks on her skin. When she put her hand on his shoulder, he shrugged it off before tilting his head back. She narrowly avoided the sharply pointed weapons on his head as his agonizing roar pierced the air.
These memories—visceral and haunting, vile and enchanting—didn’t belong to me, and I felt intrusive. But I watched as if they were my own. Worry and curiosity warred as the woman replaced her hand on his shoulder. She didn’t flinch or hesitate, seeking to provide support and comfort.
She did everything she could to avoid looking down, and try as I might have, I wasn’t able to direct the memory to what I wanted to know.
Why was he wailing? What had happened? Whose body had he recognized at the battle’s mass grave?
Then, she peered over his shoulder. Her eyes filled with tears, making it nearly impossible to see, but I couldn’t miss the antlers the size of a handspan, framed by familiar, silky black curls. I couldn’t miss all the blood.
Before I had a chance to breathe, the urge to mourn along with her nearly overwhelming me, the sight shifted to another battlefield. And then another. In rapid succession, I watched the antler god—because that was what he had to be—defeat countless armies. Thousands of forestborn marched at his command, more than I could comprehend ever having existed. He bent trees to his will, making them uproot and defend. Coaxing vines from the ground, he bound his enemies and ripped them apart. The life-giving divinity I’d felt so keenly when I’d first encountered him was tainted and used for his vengeance.
The woman tried to stop him. She grabbed his hand, attempting to pull him down from his divine beast. Crafted from vining plants bound with flowers and moss, the enormous creature carried him into each victory. Tangled in jewel-hued bedding, she pleaded with him as she sank between his thighs. Behind him on horseback, she whispered words I couldn’t decipher, but the tone was clear. She fell to her knees in the aftermath of battle after battle and cried. But he would not stop.
Decimating and destroying—that was all the god did. With each passing interaction, I felt the woman’s heart harden. She walked through a battlefield, pressing healing hands to every person who still breathed amidst the unparalleled ruin. His divinity had changed them; twisted roots grew from ruined bodies, their dead flesh slouching over wooden legs. I couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of his destruction. Rapidly, like flipping pages in a book—each memory, each battle, each war—they all blurred together into a single desolate volume.
In between, during brief instances, there was tenderness between them. But it never lasted long enough for any sort of reprieve from all the bloodshed.
The memories shifted. No longer were they sharing moments of kindness. Instead, they argued. She pushed him, hit him, shrieked at him, but he didn’t move, his indifference a cool mask. Half of his antlers had broken off, some casualty from one of his many battles, and though he hadn’t aged, his face had hardened into something nearly unrecognizable. Would I have become like that if Elora had died? Mindlessly levying my vengeance until there was no one left?
When she slapped him, her rage flowed through me, and I wished I could have helped her hit him harder. But in these passion and gore-filled memories, I was powerless. When his own fist came swinging and the memory went black, I wanted to vomit.
And finally, when she stood facing a mirror, washing dirt and grime from her cheeks, I wasn’t surprised when it was Rhia’s face I saw.
I knew it was her, but her countenance was extraordinarily different from when I’d seen her last. Her spirit was broken. Dark, curly hair hung limp and tangled, and something gleamed beneath her eye.
Blood, golden and shining, trailed down her cheek.
She’d loved the antler god. Birthed and shared the loss of his child.
And now, she’d lost him too.
Her hands gripped the table beneath the wash basin—knuckles pale. After a moment, she began to splash water onto her face. Rhia pressed the tips of her long fingers to her wound and healed herself. For a long time, she stood there, repeating the motions. Staring, gripping, splashing. As if the longer she did, the easier her solution would become.
The antler god was long dead, fallen to antiquity, and the forestborn had followed. Had it been because of Rhia? Had she empowered the Myriad—just to stop him?
Six hands pressed down on an obsidian tomb. I blinked, wondering who the other five could belong to. Aonara and Ciarden, I supposed, their littlest fingers intertwined. Hanwen’s, scarred and sun-tanned. But the final two evaded me. One hand was long and thin, with pale skin and sharp fingernails, while the other was a bronze color, callused by a hardworking life. Those same hands drew lines of shimmering, golden blood over the obsidian lid beneath their palms.
“He would have killed everyone who wasn’t forestborn. You had no choice.” I couldn’t tell who spoke, but I wondered if they could have foreseen things going the way they had. Now, the full-blooded forestborn were all dead. Any elven blood at all was a rarity.
As Rhia lifted her hand, backing away from the tomb, her vision narrowed to the singular carving etched into the stone. Antlers, primitively drawn, were the only hint of what great power had been encased in such a prison. The goddess stood, unmoving. The day turned to night, and the night turned to day. The other gods had left, and all she did was linger.
My heart cracked in two. Rainier had been so lost in his grief and terrifying thoughts, and I’d been certain I was going to lose him. But never had he taken his anger out on me in such a way. He’d distanced himself and it had cut me deeply, but never anything more. And, while I thought he would wage war to avenge our child if it came to that, I didn’t think he’d raze entire continents, spawn endless brutality or kill people who were just as innocent as the child he’d lost.
Rainier wasn’t capable of doing something so cruel and rash. As Rhia continued her lonely watch, I wondered if I was.
I’d certainly contemplated it recently, hadn’t I? I’d considered taking Lux, flying over the Supreme’s army and killing every single person. Gods, I’d even instructed her to use divine flames on our streets—though that had been an attempt at defense.
When Elora had died, her body limp as she collapsed from a slit throat, I’d been blessed by Ciarden. I’d killed Dryul without a second thought. I would have killed Cyran too, if I hadn’t been so desperate to get to Elora. If her murder had been permanent, I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t do exactly as the antler god had done.
Rhia laid down on the forest floor and wept. There was water behind her, the lapping sound of a quiet pond, and I thought perhaps it brought some comfort. As she lay in her grief, the earth surrounding the obsidian tomb grew dense with lush grass, reaching toward her. And then the plush greenery lengthened violently. Vines erupted, and sharp thorns pierced her sides. She screamed, the sound deafening, and I wished to escape these memories. I knew Rhia survived—she’d appeared in my dreams before—but the idea of a god suffering made my chest tighten in discomfort.
Just as I thought she would suffocate, the vines receded toward the tomb. Crouching before her, there was a young man. Almost identical to the antler god, he had long dark hair, curling at the nape. Green eyes, pale skin and antlers—though not quite as large. Rhia’s heart pounded in recognition, and her gasp was one of shock. That the man had helped? That she’d seen him? Was this her child too?
“Thank you, Aesiron,” she said, and I felt the vibration of her voice in my own throat. Was this young man the first forestborn king?
“Haveron,” he murmured, gaze searching the ground in front of him. “Aesiron is my grandfather, goddess.”
She nodded, standing. “I suppose I’ve been here an age.”
“You have not stirred, even when we’ve come to drink from the font,” he responded, glancing over her shoulder.
Rhia turned, staring down at the crystal clear water. So unlike the small stream I’d seen deep within the bowels of the Myriad Seat in Lamera, this pond was quite large. Awe filled me when I spotted a moonfish dart behind a rock. This font was brimming with life and beauty. The water lapped at the land, and Rhia dipped her bare toe into it.
“I cannot tend to it any longer,” she said. Haveron only blinked at her. “My presence only strengthens him. I have been able to contain him to this extent, but it is impossible to kill life itself. If Iemis has it his way, I am sure he will choke this font to death, just to spite me.”
“Then what are we to do?” the elf king asked.
“It will require sacrifice, but only those of his lineage can clear away this mess,” she said, gesturing to the grass that had now receded toward the tomb. “You, and your children after you, will be the Wardens of the Font.”
When she turned, her back to both the tomb and the font, and wandered past the elf king, she didn’t answer his many questions, only picking her way between the pines as she wandered out of the valley.
Abruptly, I woke. The temple was still and quiet, and all but one torch had gone out. Wiping sleep from my eyes, I watched as Malva quietly checked over each patient. She walked with a swaying censer, and I picked up the faintest hint of draíbea, used to calm and soothe the wounded so they could sleep. Moonlight streamed in through the stained glass beside me, and I glanced toward it.
To find Rhia.
I scrambled to stand, but stopped short.
“Don’t,” Rhia commanded, and though my fear over her presence wasn’t unwarranted whatsoever, I heeded her order. Stilling, I caught my breath with a hand to my chest.
“I cannot return,” she said, quietly, “to the font. But you must.”
“Why?” I asked, whispering. “I am not forestborn. I cannot tend to it?—”
“The Supreme seeks to wake Iemis, and I fear he may succeed.”