Chapter 62
Elariya
“The Quiet Between Truth”
Iwoke to sunlight.
Not the muted veil of twilight I’d been trapped beneath for the last two days, but golden light spilling across the room. It poured through the tall windows in streams so vivid they seemed alive, painting everything in warmth. I blinked into it, marveling at the sight.
Then my gaze caught the Fae prince standing by the window, shirtless. The light draped over every carved line of his body as though the sun itself couldn’t resist touching him. In that moment, he looked both holy and profane. An angel of shadows standing in the arms of dawn.
The sight of him was almost too much—too beautiful, too real. I drank him in, my chest tightening with a hunger to be close to him again.
He turned as if he’d felt the weight of my gaze. Bright blue eyes found mine, and a slow smile curved his mouth.
“Morning, Ziyka,” he said, voice rough with sleep and threaded with something darker.
“Morning.” I sat up, dragging the sheet over my chest.
“Gods,” he murmured, eyes roaming over me, “look at you.”
A laugh slipped from me, breathless and shaky. “I look a mess.”
“No.” His gaze sharpened. “You’re my goddess. And right now, I’m jealous of the sun.”
Heat flared in my cheeks. “Why in the six hells would you be jealous of the sun, Wolfe Nightblade?”
His mouth curved into that sinful grin. “Because it gets to touch you when I can’t.”
I laughed, blushing. “You could get a girl in trouble, my Lord.”
He smiled back at me and spread his arms wide. “Not if I’m the trouble she likes getting into.”
“She does.”
“Then we’re good.” His smile lingered, but the playfulness in his eyes slipped away. The shift suggested the escape we’d created was thinning, opening the gateway for the difficult things we needed to talk about. “Come here, Ziyka.”
I pulled the sheet around my body and made my way over to him. He planted a soft kiss on my lips then turned back to the window and wriggled his fingers in the air.
Webs of white magic flowed from his fingertips, twisting into spirals before drifting outside.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Putting things back the way they were.”
“Is everyone here now?”
He nodded. “Yes, they’re all back.”
My breath slowed when I thought of the other question I needed to ask. “Is it safe?”
“It is. I did a revocation spell and resealed the house so no one who shouldn’t be here can get back in.”
I dipped my head, pulling in a shaky breath before I looked back at him. “I’m so, so sorry. Everything that happened was my fault.”
“No. It’s not.” His eyes softened. “I’m the one who should apologize. For leaving you the way I did. I needed to… breathe. To gather myself before I returned to you.”
“It was understandable.” I nodded, though the ache in my chest only deepened. “I should have gone to you when… when I first saw her.”
Her—Zyrra. I couldn’t even bring myself to say her name.
He reached out, brushing his knuckles along my cheek. “It’s not your fault, Elariya.”
“But it was.”
His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone, and his hand settled firmly on my shoulder. “You can’t apologize for falling into a trap. People who weave lies know exactly what they’re doing. They know exactly who to break. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“I still feel terrible. I didn’t know about… your sister.”
He breathed out a ragged sigh, and his shoulders sank. “I could have fixed that problem by telling you. It’s just a difficult story to tell.”
“You don’t have to talk about it. I think I’ve caused you enough pain. When you… transformed, you looked like…” My voice trailed off as I thought of him in that shadowy wraith form.
“Like a monster,” he filled in.
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay, Ziyka. It’s…okay. There’s a lot I have to tell you. A lot I should have told you. We can start with that.”
He took my hand and ushered me over to the chaise. He sat me down while he remained standing.
Wolfe held out his hand, took a deep breath, and his flesh became skeletal and swarming with shadows.
“It’s not part of your shadow magic, is it?” I spoke carefully.
“No. But my shadow magic helps me to hide it, I suppose.”
“What is it?”
“I’m a Deathwalker.”
I’d never heard of that before, but I assumed it wasn’t a good thing. “What does that mean?”
“I’m Death.” He dragged in another measured breath and sighed. “The ring protects itself with curses. This is one of them.”
I sucked in a breath that made my head feel light. “What?”
“I’m cursed, too. Part of the punishment for allowing the ring to fall in the wrong hands is this curse.”
I gazed back at him, disbelief clouding my mind. All this time, I never even considered that he could be cursed. “Wolfe, I’m sorry. How do we break it?”
"His hand returned to normal, and he flexed his fingers. "The ring needs to be on my finger. Finding it isn't enough. I have to wear it. Once I do, the ancient magic of the kingdom will shift to me and break the curse. It will also make me king."
“Oh my gosh.” I brought my hands up to my cheeks. “That’s why Galaythia doesn’t have a king.”
He nodded once. “The rebellion is about trying to change that. But that’s not how things work here. It’s not simply about power. It’s about preserving the magic that has been trusted to us throughout the ages. So, I’ll be cursed until I get the ring back.”
“What happens to you if you can’t break the curse?”
A grave look washed over his face. “Eventually, I’ll become what you saw that day—the monster. And I won’t be able to change back.”
My stomach bottomed out. “Gods, no. We can’t let that happen.”
“We can only hope for the best. And keep trying to find the ring.”
“This is my father all over again.” My gaze fell to the floor. “How can you want to be with me when my father took so much from you?” I was so disgusted I couldn’t look at him.
Wolfe crouched beside me and took my hand. “Ziyka, all you and your father share is blood. You are not my enemy. And I am not yours. What he did was… despicable, but at least we have each other. I’ll take that as something good.” He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed my knuckles.
I looked back at him, loving him even more.
“I’ll take that as something good, too.” I gave him a weak smile and gazed deep into his eyes, seeing so much there that he’d hid from me. “Why didn’t you tell me before? That you were cursed.”
His gaze dropped. “I know I should have. But I… didn’t want you to see me for what I am. I wanted you to like me. I thought the depths of my darkness would scare you away.”
I touched his cheek, feeling the rough edge of his beard beneath my palm. “That would never happen. I love every part of you. Shadows and curses included.”
He gave a broken laugh, his eyes bright with something too raw to hide. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Ziyka.”
“You too.”
“I wish I were. But I’m not,” he murmured, voice cracking.
“You are to me.”
“I’m not there yet, Ziyka, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you.”
My throat tightened. “Oh, Wolfe…”
“I come with a lot of baggage,” he admitted, “and it’s fucked with my mind more than I’d like to admit. But for you, I’ll fight it. I’ll try.”
“Maybe you could share the burden with me,” I whispered, “and we can fight it together.”
His thumb traced over my hand, a shiver following the path it left behind.
“Some wounds,” he said quietly, “aren’t so easily given away, my love.”
My chest ached. “Is this about… Zyrra?”
His gaze faltered. “Yes.”
The single word hung between us, and my heart stuttered. “What happened to her, Wolfe?”
He straightened and sat next to me, but he gazed ahead at the window. “You said she told you about what happened to my mother, so you know they had the blight.”
“Yes. She told me your mother sacrificed herself and gave her a potion that could have extended her life by a hundred years. She said she wanted to live her life the way she wanted and even told me about a boutique she ran with her sailor.”
He glanced at me, and I could see from the pain in his eyes that he was struggling. He looked away again.
“That was all true. Except the potion didn’t work and she never got to live that life. She became what we call Hollowborn. Remember when I told you about the undead on the ship?”
How could I forget? “Yes, I remember.”
“It’s worse than that. The blight devours your soul and leaves only a shell—a vessel for anything to take root.
By the time we realized what had happened to Zyrra, she was already too far gone.
She’d hidden it from us. We were so focused on my mother that we didn’t see…
until it was too late.” He swallowed hard, his voice breaking.
“We lost my mother, and to make matters worse, Zyrra… Gods. The potion accelerated her demise. It clashed with the magic she used to hide it, and it consumed her faster.”
“Is that what killed her?”
“No.” His jaw tightened, every muscle in his body going rigid. His eyes fixed on some point beyond me, as if he could escape what he had to say. “It was me.”
My heart stopped, cold and heavy in my chest. “Wolfe…”
His gaze snapped back to me, unflinching. “She began killing. There’s only one thing you can do when someone becomes Hollowborn.”
“Kill them?” The words scraped out of me, barely audible.
“Yes. Kill them.” His breath shuddered. “The sailor was the first to die when she changed. He loved her and refused to leave her side. I found him in her bedroom ripped to shreds. Ten more were dead within hours.”
The image carved itself into my mind before I could stop it. Zyrra’s room drenched in blood, the man who’d loved her ripped apart by the very hands he worshipped. My stomach churned, bile rising in my throat.
“Gods, Wolfe…” My voice fractured. I reached for him, threading my fingers through his.
"We chained her in the dungeon, hoping to find some way to slow the corruption.
To buy time until we could figure out what to do.
But she escaped and killed more. Many more.
The decision was made for us." His voice broke.
"My father had just lost my mother, and Alaric.
.. I had to be the big brother. I couldn't let him carry that choice. So I did it."
“I’m truly sorry.”
“I killed my baby sister. She was the youngest. Barely a hundred, and I had to take her life.”
I gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "The blight took her, Wolfe. If she was Hollowborn, she was already gone. What you did saved everyone else."
"I know that's true. But I'll never forget the way she looked in my arms as she died.
It was still her. My sister." His hand shuddered beneath mine.
"That last time I went to the Luminaire Festival with my family, I wished my mother could be cured and that we'd all be together again for the next one.
But not even the moon could grant such a wish when the blight had already infected two of them. "
The sorrow in his words sliced straight through me. “I understand now why it must have been unbearable for you… going back to the festival after that.”
His jaw tightened and he stared out the window as though he could anchor himself in the dawn.
“It was. And seeing Zyrra the other morning…” Shadows writhed tighter around him, restless and alive.
“The being we saw knew things about me and specific details about our lives no one else would have known. She looked like her. Sounded like her. For a heartbeat, I almost believed it was her.” His eyes flicked to mine, raw with torment.
“But it couldn’t be her. To be a ghost, you have to have a soul. ”
That gut-twisting chill slid down my spine. “Then what was she, Wolfe?”
His hand curled into a fist, then fell open again. “I don’t know. But I suspect we’ll find out soon. And when she returns…” His throat worked as he forced the words out. “It will cost me to see her again.”
Gods, my heart splintered. “I wish I could change it all for you.”
He finally turned, brushing his knuckles over my cheek. His gaze softened, fierce and tender all at once. “You already have, Ziyka.” He pressed his forehead to mine, his breath warm against my lips. “You are my purpose to keep going. Our future is still written in the stars.”
“Yes, it is.” I smiled.
A gentle knock sounded at the door. We pulled apart, and the fragile moment was broken.
“It’s me,” Bastian called. “The Seer is here. She wants to see the both of you.”
Wolfe’s grip on my hand eased, and for the first time since his confession, light broke through the storm in his eyes and his mouth curved into the faintest smile. “The Seer. At last.”
Hope fluttered in my chest. From what I'd learned about the Seer, if anyone could help us, it would be her. “Maybe she has answers, Wolfe.”
He brushed his knuckles over my cheek, his gaze fierce and tender all at once. “I pray so. Come, let’s go see her.”