Chapter 16
Ispent the next few days in and out of consciousness, melding into the mattress until it had become a part of me.
I knew I was not within my own room and that I needed to leave, but I didn’t have the willpower to move.
A feeling of emptiness was enveloping me—a cold and all too familiar cocoon.
It was oddly comforting. This—this feeling of despondency I was used to.
It was the bliss I’d felt these past two years that had been out of place.
In my haze, Alandris had visited several times.
He’d explained that he told Elle the reason for my absence from lessons and our room was both a ‘punishment’ for attending the ball in secret and because I’d come down with a sickness.
Solitude to consider the repercussions of my actions and recuperate.
In reality, he’d not scolded me at all, nor had he forbidden me from returning to my dorm or asked me to leave, regardless of how selfish it was for me to encroach upon his space for days on end.
I’d expected after the first day of wallowing in bed that Alandris would force me out, force me to talk.
Something. But he never did. He brought me food and water and sat on the edge of the bed, talking to me about random subjects without expecting a response in return.
Sometimes, he would sit at his desk and work while I stared up at the ceiling.
He’d read aloud to himself, letting me know that if it bothered me, I could tell him to shut up.
I’d almost smiled then. I enjoyed listening to his voice.
Something about it grounded me, so I never asked him to stop.
It was on the fourth day that another strange dream flooded my mind.
It felt as though I were sitting in complete darkness.
All around me, above, below, and beyond, was utter nothingness.
The only thing in the void beside me was a male with paper-white skin and glaring yellow eyes.
I felt name on the tip of my tongue the moment I saw him, as though coming from somewhere deep within me. Zaelos.
“How many times is it now?” I asked.
He smiled, sharp-toothed and mocking. “Four.”
I brought my knees up to my chest and rested my chin there. “Why are you doing this? What is it you hope to accomplish?”
“Revenge.”
“You said that the first time we met.” I sighed, feeling myself slipping away. “This seems like a lot of effort for a simple act of revenge.”
He glared at me with piercing anger, his words dripping with venom. “It is not simple, stupid girl. She who has wronged me deserves a special kind of comeuppance. Everything I did was for her.”
I waited in silence. His emotions clearly consumed him. It was more than he’d ever revealed to me, and I feared if I breathed wrong, he would remember that I was listening.
“I’d intended to do things the right way.
A lesser Fae raising their rank through favors to those above him.
I made myself look like a desperate fool in love.
” He worked his jaw. “It was never enough. No matter what I did, I couldn’t make my way into the inner court.
Associating with a lesser Fae would make a mockery of Amorphael.
She had no choice but to keep her distance, and I never blamed her for that.
There is an order to things with my kind.
Still, I didn’t give up. I spent years, more years than your human mind could comprehend, researching for some way to gain power, and I found it.
A ritual that would give me unthinkable power, only second to the Queen herself.
I only needed a bit of her blood on the blade.
” He looked at me. “Do you know how difficult it is to cut a Queen of the Fae?”
I shook my head despite knowing full well he wasn’t seeking an answer.
“Impossible!” He laughed, exposing his fangs once more. “But I did it! I actually cut her,”—he scrunched his nose—“-only not enough. Enough to obtain a bit of her godly power, but not enough to defend myself against her little lapdog Jyuri. And do you know what he did to me?”
I shook my head again.
“He threw me into your mortal realm half dead, knowing I couldn’t survive there without the magic of the Faewilds, not with my injuries and my new power.
Maybe I only scraped a bit off the surface of the Queen’s power, but it still made me a god.
I was withering away already when I found your people.
” Zaelos rolled his shoulders, letting out a sigh.
“I was on the brink of death with only one chance for survival—finding a vessel.”
“Me.”
“You.” He smiled. “A threat or several, a brief show of my power, and a curse was all it took for your people to betray you. So you see, you and I are one and the same. We have no one but each other.”
“I am nothing like you.”
“Keep telling yourself that, little monster. If I remember correctly, you agreed to be mine.”
“I—”
“Ah ah ah. We’ve been playing this game for far too long for you to say you regret it now.”
A throbbing ache in my head woke me from the dream. I propped myself up on my elbows, scanning the room, but each slight movement made my head pound harder. Was he trying to take control?
“Alandris?” I called out.
Within moments, he was at my side, a blur in my fuzzy vision. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to speak with Jyuri.”
I hadn’t fully prepared myself to meet Jyuri face to face again so soon.
My body had an instinctual reaction to seeing him standing there in the middle of Alandris’ room, Zorinna at his side.
The hair on my arms stood on end, and a tightness spread through my limbs.
My magic rose to meet the sudden wave of panic—to protect.
“Calm down,” Jyuri snickered. “It’s not my intention to spar with you again today. I’ve been dealing with enough of your mortal kind lately. I am quite exhausted.”
Zorinna rubbed the sides of her temple. “Can you try to be slightly nicer?”
He looked at her with a pout. “I don’t believe I’ve said anything untoward.”
“That’s kind of the problem.”
Alandris beckoned for us to take a seat on the couches. “I am not in the interest of splitting the two of you up either, so let’s keep things light. Nairu wanted to speak with you, Jyuri. About a dream of hers.”
Jyuri and Zorinna exchanged a look.
I cleared my throat. “It was about Zaelos.”
This time, all three of them exchanged that look.
Zorinna held up her hand to stop me. “What exactly did you tell Nairu, Alandris?” She raised her eyebrows, pressing her lips together. “Because I was under the impression that we were keeping our distance, trying not to overwhelm her.”
“It—uh—came up.”
“It came up?”
I spoke up, interrupting them. “You know I’m right here, right?”
They clearly didn’t care. Zorinna continued, “Things were already progressing far too quickly for her to be safe. Amorphael warned us about what could happen to her mind, Alandris. I’ve been—I’ve been doing it, why are you not?”
His jaw tightened. “You know it is not the same. I am doing my best.”
“Wait,” I said, throwing my hands up in front of me. “That name- Amorphael. I heard that name in my dream, too. Zaelos said everything he’d done was for her.”
That got their attention. Alandris’ head snapped to me. “What?”
“It was a very odd dream. I was in some sort of black void with Zaelos. I could tell it was him the moment I saw him. Something inside of me recognized him, even though I’m sure I’ve never seen his true form before. I would’ve remembered someone—or something—that looked like that.”
“Go on,” Alandris urged.
“He said that he’d attempted to raise his station amongst the Fae for her sake. I think he loved her, but,”—I frowned—“he could never be with her. After he betrayed his kind to become someone worthy of her, he was banished from his realm… by Jyuri.”
Jyuri shrugged as though bored. “It was so long ago.”
I gasped. “Then that was all true?”
He nodded, and a smile rose to his lips.
“Yes. It was a pleasure to crush him for what he did to our Queen. I only wish I’d killed him with my own hands.
For him, I wished a slow and agonizing death in your realm.
I should have foreseen that Human cowardice would tremble at the sight of him, regardless of the weakened state he was in. ”
Zorinna stood from the couch and loomed over Jyuri, her face red with anger. “Why wouldn’t you tell us this? Do you not think Zaelos’ motivations and your involvement with him would’ve been an important piece of information to divulge?”
“You never asked, darling.” His face showed genuine confusion.
“You Fae are truly insufferable,” Alandris hissed. “Amorphael didn’t tell us anything either. Now I see why she got involved in the first place. She feels responsible.”
Jyuri laughed. “Oh, please. She’s been ordered to take care of things by her Queen, just as I have by mine.”
Alandris closed his eyes, shaking his head. “And here we are, cleaning up the mess of the Fae. Why exactly are we doing your bidding?”
“Because you fell in l—”
Zorinna slapped a hand over his mouth. “I think that’s quite enough.
” She turned to me. “Did you see anything else, Nairu? A”—she grimaced in disgust—“are you seriously licking me? Are you a child? A dog?” She ripped her hand away from Jyuri and plopped back down on the couch, wiping her hand on the front of her shirt.
I paused, looking down at my hands in my lap before I met their eyes again. “Zaelos said I was his vessel… but Alandris already told me that.” I ignored the glare Zorinna shot his way and continued, “He also said I chose to be his.”
A silence filled the room, and I felt compelled to explain, “I would never choose that. My people raised me as a Saintess, but I never chose that life. I’d never even heard my supposed god’s voice until just before Jyuri attacked the Phoenix Heart.”
My head was swimming. So much of what I’d heard in the dream had turned out to be true, but that was the one thing I knew had to be fiction.
For one, I had no memory of ever choosing to be a Saintess, let alone allowing a god into my body.
Besides that, I’d run from that life as soon as it was possible to do so.
I’d completed nothing I’d set out to do on my pilgrimage.
I was far from being the perfect Saintess. And then it hit me.
“They knew,” I whispered, gripping the fabric cushion in my lap.
“They—my people—they knew they were sending me to my death when they sent me on that pilgrimage. Even if they didn’t know who or what exactly Zaelos was, they knew he would consume me.
” I clenched my teeth as tight as I could bear.
“That’s why they wanted me strong—why they wanted me to learn how to control my magic, so my body would survive the process.
They lied to me from the moment I was born. ”
I’d wanted answers so badly all of my life. I’d given up hope on ever finding them when I’d left my Keeper on the streets of Tempestas and joined my crew. So why—after finally getting the answers I’d craved—was I more confused than ever?
Alandris wrapped his hand around mine. “It’s a double-edged sword. The stronger you are, the more likely he will succeed in taking your body as his without destroying it, but the stronger you are, the better position you’ll be in to defend yourself. He’s biding his time.”
“Why not kill me?” I asked. “Not that I want to die, but I fail to see why you wouldn’t take the easy way out and kill us both in one go.”
Alandris turned to Zorinna with a pained expression, but she shook her head. “No. We can’t. What if it triggers something?”
“Is this about Zaelos?” I pressed my lips together. “I think he’s tired from when I last used my magic. I haven’t heard his voice. He doesn’t seem to be paying attention.”
“It’s not that,” Alandris sighed. “There is more that I can’t explain right now.”
I stood and looked at him with the full force of the bitter resentment that had begun stirring in my gut. “Then, how are you any different from the people of my village?”
His face went ghastly pale as his lips parted to respond.
I didn’t give him the chance to answer the question. It’d been rhetorical, after all.