Chapter 46
Everly
Iprayed all the way to Nevara’s rooms that she would be awake when I got there.
But of course, she wasn’t.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Hadn’t the Shard Mother always ignored my pleas? Hadn’t she given me a frost-damned soulmate and a sister and a family just to take them away?
Whatever her chosen vessel said, I tended to think that Draven was closer to the truth—that this was all a divine punishment designed to make us suffer before we succumbed to the consequences of every mistake made by us or anyone who came before us.
Nevara still looked too frail, though the darkness had finally cleared from her nails and her shimmering braids. Her starlit gown gathered loosely around the sharp edges of her collarbone and her jutting ribcage.
Soren was nowhere to be found, but the Archmage stood at the balcony window, staring with taut shoulders at the world outside. He exchanged a grim look with me, but said nothing in greeting.
What was there, really, to say?
There were no pearls of wisdom that would magically make any of this go away. He had been right before, about the endless fire of vengeance. He was no doubt unsurprised to watch it poised to burn everything in its path, once again.
I crossed the room to Nevara, placing my hand over hers. Her fingers were freezing, and I tried in vain to warm them with my own.
“Winter needs you,” I told her quietly, squeezing her hand gently. “Draven needs you, and Soren needs you, and I need you.” My voice caught in my throat.
An image assaulted me of blue venom spewing through the trees as antlered warriors closed in. Draven.
“Nevara.” I whispered her name with more urgency this time, working to force the air from my seizing lungs. “If you don’t wake up… there won’t be a Court left to wake up to. Please.”
The seconds ticked by on her relentless clock, each pointed click a reminder that I was running out of time.
The Archmage let out a slow, sad breath, his golden eyes more troubled than I had ever seen them. He swept his gaze over my battle outfit, only frowning more deeply.
Batty let out a low sound of displeasure, like she didn’t appreciate his evident disappointment.
“I will watch over the Visionary.” There was a gravity to his tone, the kind born of centuries of watching history repeat its cruelties.
“But not help?” I surmised, though the answer already ached like a bruise beneath my ribs.
His expression tightened, sorrow carving itself into the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “My vows prevent me from interfering,” he explained. “But I will protect the people here to the best of my ability. It is all I am able to do while the Shard Mother’s children destroy one another.”
Resignation curdled in my gut, hot enough to sting. I had read about the vows of the Archmage before, had known on some level that he could not step between us. And still, hearing it aloud broke something inside of me, a last fragile shard of hope shattering on the marble floor.
Isren looked equally gutted. His shoulders sagged beneath the invisible weight of vows older than kingdoms.
I swallowed hard, forcing a nod even as devastation tightened around my lungs. “Thank you,” I managed, though the words felt small and cracked.
He bowed his head in return, an old gesture, like a warrior mourning a battle he was forbidden to stop. I turned away before the jagged edge in my chest could split wider, heading for the door with Lumen falling into step behind me, muscles taut and ready.
Not that I knew where I was going to go, exactly.
What was I supposed to do now? With no Visionary and no mana I could access?
Batty burrowed deeper into my shoulder, claws gripping tight. I reached up to stroke her head, trying to give her all the comfort I didn’t feel.
Could I try to talk to the Unseelie? If dragons protected their own, was there some hidden part of my uncle that could be persuaded toward reason, on my behalf?
I squeezed my eyes shut, searching for the tether that connected me to Draven. A memory hit me all at once of standing outside of my father’s door, the images he had thrown my way.
Time after time, he had convinced me that I was something more than what I felt capable of being.
You have never once been weak, Morta Mea.
I squared my shoulders, but it turned out that all of my inner debate was unnecessary.
Cries of alarm rose from the courtyard—too sharp, too distant for any Seelie to hear through layers of stone and frosted glass. But my Unseelie hearing caught every frantic syllable, just like my uncle knew it would.
I was already moving toward the balcony window, despite Lumen’s low whine of protest, when Vaerin’s voice reached me through the glass.
“Time to come out, Little Niece.”
I froze mid-step.
There was victory threaded through his tone, a satisfaction that bordered on glee. Something else had gone his way… and that couldn’t possibly bode well for me, or anyone I loved.
My feet went numb as I forced myself toward the balcony, dread pooling heavy and sick in my gut. A thousand terrible possibilities tore through my mind before I even reached the glass.
My ring was steady, but still, I reached out for Draven. He was still fighting. Still all right.
Which only left—
Vaerin’s voice rang out again just as I stopped at the window. “Unless you want your sister to die more painfully than she already will.”
Wynnie.
My vision tunneled, my eyes searching frantically through the steadily amassing army.
It didn’t take me long to find him, even from several stories above. Vaerin stood just beyond the wards, at the head of the Unseelie army. And secured in the grasp of his deadly midnight shadows was the trembling form of my sister.