Chapter 20
twenty
“It can’t be.”
“The truth being bitter doesn’t make it untrue.”
“Ovatar is a god, he couldn’t do this.” And my father. The man was a cruel bastard, killing my brother in cold blood, but this—slaughtering an entire people—it was too much.
“Ovatar the fallen star was a god. Now he is nothing more than a curse and a stain.”
“Prove it.”
He hissed in air, and his chest rose with anger. “Tell me of your father’s compassion when he looked in your eyes and ordered your death. That is the work of Ovatar. And that’s to say nothing of our barren city.”
The city with but a single busy road, the one that ran through the center. But every other path was half empty, and I never saw so much as a youthful face. No one younger than me lived there.
“Is that why there aren’t any children?”
His gaze found mine, and the pain that swirled there was indescribable.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “I need to know! Why aren’t there any children in Eltidian?”
He remained silent, and the night washed over us, with the moonglow hanging on our shoulders. It was as quiet as death. And without so much as a word or a sound—tears slipped from his eyes.
I didn’t think. I just wrapped my arms around him, tightening them over his shoulders. The night was cold, bitter, unforgiving. There wasn’t a bit of peace to be found, but in that, we sat, and I took his pain, even for but a moment.
Eventually, his fingers found my hair, entangling themselves there.
“I believe you,” I whispered into the crook of his neck. “Whatever you say, I’ll listen.”
His grip tightened. “I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he murmured against my skull. “The spawn of my enemy and yet… I’d never wish this pain on you. You don’t deserve to be cursed with this knowledge.”
“I can’t keep living in half-truths or stagnate in the darkness. It doesn’t matter how much it hurts, I can’t keep hiding from reality.”
Only then did he release me, but now wore a placid mask. The tears were long gone, replaced with a forlorn hollowness. “I’ll tell you of his edict—but not here. Not where the forest can listen, and plot. And not when you’re about to freeze.” He pinned a long, ashy lock behind my ear.
“Then we should go.”
“I can’t help but agree.” But his smile was a farce, a mask to cloud the darkness.
We shambled up together, his hands never leaving me.
I gazed across the unfeeling white and the darkness that spread across it. “How will you get Numen? He can’t hear us from Eltidian.”
A cry lifted across the forest, a screech that brought me back to the chaos of the Ilyatrian square.
“Not all words are spoken with the tongue,” he replied. “As not all songs are sung from the throat.”
Deadened trees swayed with the sudden gales, and just as the dragon slid over the forest and landed in the center of the lake.
A single beat of his decayed wings sprayed the snow.
Though Aelen beckoned me closer, my feet pinned, refusing another step further.
Numen turned toward me with an open, dripping maw, the jagged teeth glinting in the moonlight.
The last time I was this close to Numen, he was ready to eat me. Mourn wouldn’t gore me, but this wasn’t my dragon, and wouldn’t have the same patience.
His sheer size was terrifying, along with his split skin and the way viscera spilled from them.
His scales fluffed out like a shedding skin.
One fell into the steaming snow. His claws left great melt holes, and I feared he would sear the lake into nothing but a smoldering bed—or crash through the solid ice.
Aelen offered a silent hand. I looked between him and the razor-sharp teeth, and accepted it. He wouldn’t let Numen snap. That thought reverberated through my bones as I wrenched myself atop the rotting beast and settled back against Aelen’s chest.
The wind bit in, but not as bitterly as it did in the desolation below.
When Aelen wrapped an arm around me and tugged me closer, I leaned into it.
Why should I keep fighting?
When Aelen called to Numen and demanded he take to the skies, he listened. There wasn’t a fight or a song, only trust.
What if we had that?
My heart pounded, thrumming against my sternum, as the many questions I’d been avoiding for far too long flooded my mind. If I didn’t ask, I’d surely drown.
“You could have let me die in the cold.” The wind ate my voice, but Aelen acknowledged it with a squeeze of his hand. “I’m his daughter, you should have let me die out there. It would have been easy, and you’d have no blood on your hands.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He was quiet for a long moment, but leaned in until his lips caressed my ear. “You’ve already made me come this far. Don’t make me speak it too.” He entwined his fingers through mine and laid our hands across my chest. There wasn’t a fight left to be had, and I reveled in his warmth.
Instead of running away, I let my eyelids fall and the cold overtake me. His finger grazed my cheek, and I loved every second.
The entryway was the largest room in my cottage, and yet as Aelen and I stared at each other, it had never felt smaller. The air before us had grown heavy and ignitable, like we sat in a matchbox filled with nothing but tinder.
I knew the first word would be explosive, but I said it anyway. “I need to know. We’ve had our peace, but I need to know.”
“I’d hardly describe a single ride on Numen as peace…”
“You’re stalling.”
He whittled a chunk of his carving into the corner, breaking the small dragon into two. “I don’t wish to put this on you. I could take you to the memory rooms, but it would be cowardly—to show you depictions across stained glass, instead of telling you myself.”
“Stained glass?”
“The corridors spell out the story of the I’phri, of not only our successes, but also our pain, so that we might never forget. The leader commissioned it after…” he trailed off and whispered the last part. “The edict.”
“Rectorindel commissioned it after the edict?”
“Yes.” He cringed. “That’s a title, not a name. It’s a variation of the I’phri language.”
“You’re stalling again. Next time I’ll call him the Archon.”
He rubbed his temples. “Singers help me, that’s no better.
” But eventually he ran a long finger down the hearth’s masonry, following the mortar.
“Ovatar is an ancient threat, he predates even I. I don’t know what drove him from his realm.
I imagine it must have been curiosity, but nonetheless, he never should have entered this one.
Divine minds cannot exist here, not without the corruption of the world seeping into them like a poison. ”
“The world poisoned him?”
“The very same way that divine power poisons a mortal not born with it. The two were never meant to intermingle, and it corrupts. That is all to say, he fell from the heavens, and became a blight on our world, trying to fill the void inside him.”
“With what? Power?”
“Souls. I’phri souls, to be exact.” He leaned against the hearth, letting his raven locks reflect the adjacent flames.
“We were created by the singers to tend to their creation. Your people were made to enjoy the fruits of our labor. We were created to exist in harmony, but our work requires the magic that flows through our blood. The faint hint of divine magic.”
“Lumen.’
“Yes, but only a bit. Not enough to poison a mortal, only enough to fill the bottomless longing in Ovatar—briefly.”
That’s why he wished to consume the I’phri. That’s why he was controlling their stretch of land, trying to drive his tendrils into the heart of Eltidian.
“But my father, how does—”
“I’m getting there, be patient.” He inhaled a shuddering breath and rested against the hearth, flicking up a tired hand.
With the motion, colored light formed against the wall, dancing along the ceiling.
It spread until it took a few simple forms: a tall, cloaked figure, a bright blue sprite, and a stout, bearded man.
Aelen moved his hand, and as he did, the silhouettes shifted, like puppets on a string.
“Centuries ago, Ovatar proved to be a problem. One that wouldn’t disappear or return to his realm, as that door was long shut.
Demanding the soul of the I’phri, he was met with steadfast refusals.
This infuriated him, and in his rage, he began to sweep across the lands, consuming them until the cities had no choice but to comply.
” The blue sprite spread into a ghostly mist that crept along the wall and ceiling.
With it, small shards formed, and light flakes fell, dissipating into ash on my skin.
“What of the city in ice?”
“Those that held against his siege were crystallized.”
A shudder ran across me.
The cloaked figure stretched until he loomed before the stout man.
“A pact was formed between your father and our leader. Ovatar was encroaching, and we would need two armies to stand against the brutality of a god. Our leader offered himself, a shard of his magic and soul, the divine energy inside him to Arthvur, and he accepted.”
“He took his magic?” I gasped.
“He did. A gift to stand against Ovatar. A god can’t be killed with weapons, he must be bound.
And it takes many divine sources to back him into a corner.
Arthvur and our leader were meant to stand against the tyranny and bloodshed together to bind the fallen star.
And when the darkest hour came, Arthvur arrived with his army. ”
The images shifted, with balls of light flashing across the ceiling to create the shade of an army, with a thousand gilded coats.
My father’s guard. “Our leader thought he came in peace, and welcomed him and his men.
Once he was deep into the heart of Eltidian and surrounded by unarmed I'phri, he signaled to them to commence his Edict, and the slaughter began.”
My breath hitched, and my throat tightened like someone had poured acid down it.
My skin beaded with sweat, a thousand nails being driven in as the image shifted once more.
The figures brought down the hazy forms of weapons upon sharp-eared men, women, and children.
They held up opaque hands, but crimson ran down the stone.
I pressed my lids together and drove my nails into my palms. “Please, no.”
“They did, and they didn’t stop with the army, or the men. No, they continued, cutting down I’phri—”
“Stop,” I cried. I hated how weak I’d become.
“You begged for this and cannot even hear our story?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into my palms, trying to drive the image of bloodshed from my mind. My breath remained unsteady.
“Our leader drove them out eventually, along with Ovatar, but by then, many had been lost.”
“How many?”
“Nearly half the population.”
I forced my hands down and looked him in the eyes—but a haunted, hollow expression clung to him with bony fingers. One that would never go away. A bitter frown. And a cruel, unyielding pain.
“You can’t have more children.”
He shook his head. “He created us, and as such, he can curse us. And curse us he did. No I’phri can bear further children.
We are a dwindling people and will eventually disappear, like an extinguished candle.
What you see is but the last spark of a dying flame.
” He raised a hand, melting away the figures, the dripping blood, and any hint of magic. But the stain clung to the air.
The fire was low embers now, and the shadows closed in. They whispered across the walls angrily.
“Even if we weren’t cursed from procreation, would you wish to bring children into this? Enough innocents have already been claimed. There is no hope. We merely bide our time.”
“But my father—”
“Someone’s head must roll. Better his than yours.”
I found it difficult to argue. Revenge wouldn’t bring back their lives, but it wasn’t a weak answer. It was the only answer.
“Aelen, I’m so sorry.”
His bitter frown lifted to a half smile. “I’m just glad you understand now.”
And I did. I understood all too well the darkness coloring my future, and the momentous task that laid before me. Culling a monster with the skin of a man.