Chapter 48
forty-eight
Ice wept up the stone, snaking along the edge. But something caught my eye before the ice encased it.
Blackened blood imbrued the dais.
An ancient mark that spilled over the stage, a black memory just out of reach. But that something gnawed and gnashed like a claymore had come down on me. I laid my hand over my chest and felt something throbbing, not my heart, but something more.
Tears trickled down my cheeks.
I stared at the darkened, tragic smear until it stained my vision. And when I closed my eyes, the image remained.
And he returned.
Clear as day. Of Deldren, and him kneeling and begging—and my father ordering his death anyway like he was nothing.
His head rolling.
His dead, empty eyes.
I screamed.
The rage came, a deep well of bitter anger. I found that and went further and let the pain spread across me until I didn’t know where I stopped and it began.
The knights clashed, screaming their battle cries against the languid dragons.
And almost everything came flooding back. It was a tidal wave of memory that I thought I might drown in.
I recalled Aelen and what I’d done and said to him.
But I remembered Deldren and what the king had done to him.
And what Ovatar would do to us.
So I leaned into the pain, and sang of them. It began with the song I sang to Deldren, when we were but children. But soon my melody morphed, into what I’d witnessed. What my father had done, and what Ovatar was doing to us.
The world moved around me as I moved into the chorus. Blinding sapphire light came from the high quarter, where Ovatar and Aelen battled. Even from here I could see Aelen’s lumen become weaker with every blast. More languid.
Mourn defrosted to my tune. At first just at his wings but soon he shook away the ice, and turned to me from across the quarter. Waiting.
The chorus morphed into what I’d seen, with the ice sweeping across the world. Of it consuming Ilyatria around us. It now crept at my feet and swallowed my boots. It was ready to eat me.
I wouldn't go quietly.
Mourn took off into the sky, following my lead as I switched to a melody of revenge as hot as a thousand burning suns. He screeched, opened his jaws—and blew fire. It shattered and battled the encroaching ice, throwing back knights.
Then I switched again to the tune that hung on my heart. My elegy, of what I’ve lost. Of Deldren. Of pain. Of everything Ovatar had taken.
On refrain—I cried for the I’phri.
Mourn’s blasts grew hotter—more violent as he swept across the drafts. But from my fingers, strong cords of impetus formed. And somewhere in the distance.
Aelen sang too.
I don’t know if it was the same song—I didn't think it was. But though our chords didn't meet, our cords did, entwining together like the castle's vines. Yet they still writhed on the ground, begging for a trellis of support.
So I did what I should have done months and months ago. Before everyone died.
I melted the ice until the three prongs were red hot.
When steam billowed from the metal, I shoved my palm through them.
They ached for my magic, and it flooded from me without asking. I cried out in pain, fighting for the drain to slow.
But I didn’t stop singing.
They never told me I’d have to battle with the metal from sucking me dry. I fought against it again, forming a wall, and a small gash from which it may flow.
It was sorrowful, mournful. My melody carried down the dais to Mourn and the love of my life. It had been a short life, but I didn’t care.
I kicked at the shadows, and somewhere in the distance, he met my elegy and joined it. The sapphire threads that lined the wall grew quicker than before, now winding ropes that would choke away Ovatar.
Once they were as thick as my bloody forearm, with all of the force I could muster, I tore them away.
They followed my song, as if destined to, and tightened like a noose.
Soon they were no longer kingdom-sized, but now square-sized, and I ripped my hand away with blinding pain and a spray of blood, and ran.
I tore through the chaos, dodging the guards and letting it shrink with my song. Once I skidded to a halt before their battle, Aelen ceased his attacks to meet my eyes.
But Ovatar’s attention fell on me, and he threw out his hand. But before he could rip away my memories once more, Mourn swooped from the sky and poured out a breath of fire that swept him from his feet. He tumbled back, right into our magical web.
Aelen whipped his hand, and my threads yanked free. Most of my magic came with it, snapping onto Ovatar like a ravenous spider. He screamed a guttural sound, and the ground shook as his ice tried one last time to take me, creeping up my legs, but it was too late.
Once the sapphire thread covered his face, the ice receded. He was now nothing more than a sapphire bundle at our feet, struggling a widow’s prey.
Sadness painted Aelen’s woeful features.
Before I could say anything, I fell to my knees, the battle haze fading and the pain rushing back.
A trail of blood followed me to the pikes.
I’d never healed it, and now bled out onto the stone.
There wasn’t time, and now there wasn’t enough left of me to knit a basic scratch, let alone the gaping hole in my left hand.
It was too deep to clot and had snapped some of my fragile bones. I’d never use this hand again.
Aelen rushed to my side, inspecting it, before laying his sapphire-tipped fingers to close the wound. He kept prodding it, to my protests and screams, in an attempt to right the shattered bones. Tears brimmed as he finally spoke. “I don’t know if I can fix this.”
“Neither do I.”
“I don’t think I can.”
I swallowed down the knot in my throat. “Then don’t. I’m certain you have scars, too.”
He tugged me into the crook of his neck, taking my broken body and soul and moving them as close to him as possible. And for a second, the horrid reality slipped away. There was me, him, and no one else.
We held each other and wept.
Eventually, we parted and returned to the brutal reality before us. Ovatar was bound, but remained in this mortal realm.
“We need to deal with him.”
Aelen bit his lip, but didn’t argue. A silent acquiescence.
“Why do you seem so reluctant?” I asked, never leaving his side, fearful to get more than a foot away.
“Do you remember that you love me? Who I am to you?”
“Of course.”
“But do you remember when I held you, touched you, caressed you? Do you remember our first kiss?”
I searched in my mind, and came up empty. I couldn’t remember our first kiss—I couldn’t remember any kisses. Had we lain together? I didn’t know. All I could recall was how strongly I felt for him. This undying tie.
I knew who Aelen was to me, but I didn’t know him. I tried to fight the tears, but they came anyway.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “He still has some of your memories and some of mine. I could return the bold ones, the integral ones, but not all the names of the lost, nor the pain I’ve caused you.”
“You hurt me?”
He reached down to the struggling mass of magic and reached his fingers inside, weaving the pieces apart like webbing, until he tugged his hand out. In his palm was something ghostly, a flickering, pale flame that smelled of chestnuts and a roasting fire. “Why does it smell like that?”
“It’s me. Memories aren’t just something written into your head to replay, they’re branded onto your soul—that’s what he took, a part of me.
” He pressed his palm against his face, and the flame disappeared, swirling somewhere into him.
Tears slipped down his cheeks as he gazed up into the sky with a slight smile.
“I remember them. And that I used to dance.”
“I can’t dance,” I replied, remembering all the court appearances when I’d flit to the corners of the ballroom.
“I’ll teach you.” Then he reached back into Ovatar’s bindings, and pulled out another similarly colored flame. This one smelled of the tavern, stale beer, and the opening blossoms of spring. It was horrid, and it was me.
Without a word, he pressed his hand to my forehead, shoving it inside.
I inhaled sharply at the flood of memories that returned, from the visceral image of lying next to Aelen’s bare form, to his icy breath against my neck, and the heat it inspired.
More than that, I remembered what I’d done to him. What I’d called him. Of a thousand broken mirrors and even more shattered promises.
“Aelen,” I said, swallowing the knives in my throat.
“We’ll speak of it in a moment,” he replied.
He lifted a hand to signal to the dragons. One screech carried across the bluing skies as the grays swept themselves far away from Ilyatria. I knew that cry—Mourn. He must have enjoyed his newfound freedom, and licking the horizon with his wings. But I couldn’t blame him.
In his place, Numen returned. His viscera showed between the gaps in his failing flesh and missing scales.
Aelen gave me a solemn nod before turning to his dragon, who shook the ground with his landing.
He gave him a small pat on his nose, eliciting a waft of steam that swirled around him, and I understood.
This was a goodbye.
“Take him back to our makers. To the Starsingers.”
The dragon replied with another huff and a shake of his maw that dropped his shed scales like languidly drifting leaves.
Aelen retreated from his side to mine.
Numen beat his wings twice, before taking what remained of Ovatar into his maw. Then he bolted into the sky and drifted across the horizon. His scales continued to fall, like new snow.
“He’s dying,” I said.
“I know. I won’t see him again. Not until I return to the Starsingers.”
But the idea that he would die one day slammed into me, despite his centuries of age.
“Just how old exactly are you?”
He forced me against his shoulder. I didn’t fight.
“I stopped counting after the curse. But if I had to wager a guess, I’d say seven or eight centuries. Arthvur’s crimes well predated you, at least two centuries ago, perhaps more or perhaps less. Either way, none of that matters anymore. We have something to discuss, don’t we?”
I nodded silently, knowing.
“We should return to Eltide then. It would best be had there.”