48. Vera
Vera
The city looked different from this close.
Every few feet were lanterns hung on high poles, casting light magic over the dark streets.
Farther along the golden rooftops and arches were balls of crackling light that bobbed along in the wind.
I couldn’t help but loosen the lid on my magic, just a bit.
Light curled between my fingers, illuminating the ground as we walked.
Footsteps echoed beside me in a steady rhythm. Arcadia led the way, and Everett, Starke, and Kieran were at my side. Tessa had stayed behind with Odessa. We’d agreed on rotations, so that someone was always with her.
I glanced sideways at the white stag Shifter. Kieran’s brown hair was perfectly in place, his white shirt tucked neatly into pants beneath a leather jacket instead of his normal suit. “You know,” I said to him, “I’m a little surprised you volunteered to come with us.”
His brow lifted. “Why would I not wish to help?”
“Not that.” I slowed my steps so the others moved ahead, and he matched my pace. “I just thought you would’ve stayed at Odessa’s side. You’ve been spending a lot of time with her.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I was by her side all last night.”
That tugged at my heartstrings. Even when I held people at arm’s length, Odessa still weaseled her way into my life with her brass spectacles and nose forever stuck in a book. Seeing someone else give her this much care made my chest tight.
“I know we didn’t talk much when I lived at the Keep,” I admitted, “but you’re a good man, Kieran Blackwell.” I cleared my throat. “It means a lot that you’re watching over her, just like I know you watched over my brother all those years.”
Kieran hummed. “I would give my life for Nox. He sacrificed much to form the Ashen Order and give our people a safe place to recover. That kind of nobility is difficult to come by.”
“So is loyalty like yours,” I said softly. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for him. And for Odessa.”
“I hardly know her, but there’s something that tells me she has a good heart. She deserves someone who will stay.” I felt Kieran’s hard stare on me as he said, “So does your brother.”
Someone who will stay. His voice wasn’t unkind, but the unspoken accusation wedged deep in my ribs.
I swallowed hard and looked forward again.
We approached a wrought-iron gate that stretched several stories high, with solid iron phoenix figurines affixed to the handles.
Beyond was a wave of mist coating the dark ground.
Arcadia sent more balls of light shooting all across the land, illuminating what looked like a mausoleum.
“These are ancient burial grounds,” he said when I came to stand at his side.
“You think the final amulet could be here?” I asked.
“It’s been searched before, but never by you.
It’s the first place we thought to bring you.
” Arcadia whispered a spell, and with a groan, the gates opened wide.
Rows of stone tombs stretched across the foggy ground.
Each monument was tall and narrow, and the tips were shaped like jagged flames, their edges sharp enough to draw blood.
The land dipped into a hollow basin. Standing in the center was a white mausoleum, nearly blinding against the darkness of the rest of the world. Bright marble columns lined the front, leading to the entrance of the crypt.
“You want me to rifle through some dead men’s bones?” I asked, lifting a brow.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Starke said behind me. When I looked back, his eyes met my gaze for a split second before flitting back to the mausoleum.
“Not just any dead men,” Arcadia said. “The original demithes. You remember what the scroll said, yes? ‘They shall walk the lost paths in the heart of the eternal flame.’ The tombs of the original demithes are most definitely a lost path, since they’ve been gone for centuries.”
Arcadia strode ahead, gray robes brushing the grass as he sloped down into the basin.
The rest of us exchanged uneasy looks, but followed.
The air changed as the ground dipped toward the white mausoleum.
Wind rustled around us, faint whispers twirling through my ears.
I flicked my wrist and beams of light magic whisked their way up the high marble walls, showing words carved into the stone.
Rebirth is written in surrender
And beneath that rested three names:
Caius
Zotika
Aurelia
“The originals,” I breathed out. The demithes who sacrificed their lives to forge the amulets that would one day save their kingdom. I took a hesitant step forward, but something in the air made me pause. A chill slithered down my spine. On the outskirts of the mausoleum, the shadows wavered.
And then they moved.
Shadows pooled along the bases of the columns, seeping over cracks and gathering in dark, swirling circles. I edged closer to Everett without thinking. “Do you see that?” I whispered.
“I see it,” he responded. His dual-toned eyes darted around the area, his shoulders tense and alert.
Darkness peeled itself from the ground, thin at first, then thickening into something shaped like a body. Black, smoky tendrils curled into the sky, shifting as if the wind were moving it.
The temperature dropped, and I could see my breath as small pockets of fog. These things didn’t have faces, only two faint points of light that I swore were looking at me. Shadows streamed from them like ribbons and trailed along the ground as they floated closer.
“Fates,” I said on an exhale, not sure where to look as more and more bled from the walls of the mausoleum.
“Not Fates,” Arcadia muttered. “Wraiths.”
“That doesn’t sound any better,” Everett said. I didn’t miss the way he stepped around me, discreetly putting himself between me and the wraiths.
“What exactly are wraiths?” Starke added.
“Undead spirits,” Arcadia said, keeping his voice low. “Shadows of souls that linger between life and death. They are a warning, a harbinger of the pain in your future.”
“They sound fun,” Everett mumbled.
“More myths,” I said, taking a step back as several drifted closer. “They’re from the Fates, aren’t they? They’re trying to stop us from finding the amulet.”
“That must mean we’re close,” Kieran said.
I threw up a shield of shadows in front of me, then carefully slid out from our little circle, keeping a watchful eye on the wraiths. Their soulless pinpricks of light tracked my movements, but they stayed still, shadows curling and uncurling in the wind.
“Do not let them touch you,” Arcadia hissed.
“Why?” I whispered back.
“These guardians are not like the others you have faced. Not only can a wound from them infect you the same way Odessa was, but they can also get inside your mind.”
“Noted.” I crept forward another inch. I was almost to the marble steps leading to the crypt’s platform. “If I can just—”
My boot touched the step, and the shadow wraiths bolted.
“Vera!” Starke called, reaching for me. The first wraith glided through his body as if walking through a door. He went rigid. The color drained from his face, and the sword in his grip slid to the ground.
I grasped his shoulders. “Starke.” I shook him, but there was no reaction. His eyes were squeezed shut, his spine locked into place. “Starke. Look at me.”
When his eyes opened, they were completely black. “Please,” he whimpered, breaths ragged. “Not them. Th-this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Pl—”
Without warning, he threw his head back and let out a scream.
Shadows flew from his mouth and into the sky.
He crumpled to the ground in a heap, his head barely avoiding crashing into the marble step.
I dropped down next to him, then froze as more wraiths filled the space.
They floated around us, caging us in, sending waves of ice over my skin.
Smoky tendrils reached for Everett. I formed a ball of shadows in my hand and sent it flying toward the creature, knocking it off its path. But I didn’t catch the one standing behind Kieran until it was too late.
Kieran brought his shortsword down in an arc across the creature’s chest. The smoke dissipated where the blade landed, then reformed. Shapeless arms latched onto his body. He gasped and arched his back, his eyes morphing into the same black pools that Starke’s had.
Everett rushed to him, but another wraith extended solid claws toward Everett. I summoned my Strider magic, tensing my muscles as they compacted into thin air to transport me to his side. But something lunged from the shadows and gripped me mid-stride.
A wraith plunged into my skin. Icy fire spread down every inch of me, coiling through my veins and turning my muscles to stone.
The world shattered.
Screams pierced the air around me. Smoke scraped down my throat with every breath, and fire rained from the sky. But when I blinked, I realized the flames weren’t coming from above—they were coming from me. They poured from my skin, burning everything in its path.
All I could see was death.
There was Nox, his navy dragon wings ripped and burnt to a crisp at my feet. My mother crawled toward me through the ash, her body shifting between human and raven in the blink of an eye. All the Ashen Order, Starke, Odessa, Karye—scattered among my flames like debris.
And ahead of me, on his back with blood soaking through his clothes, was Everett.
I choked and stepped forward, only for my boots to crunch on something hard. I looked down and let out a scream. I stood on piles and piles of gleaming white bones, cracked and jagged beneath my steps.
“Your future,” the darkness rumbled, echoing around me. Flames rose higher against golden buildings on either side of me. “This is what you bring to everything you touch. This is what you forge the world into.”
The buildings—the golden buildings. This was Pyraeth. And the bones at my feet…
All the Pyraethis. The people I was destined to save.
Bile crept up my throat, forcing the breath from my lungs. My knees hit the ground, but I could barely feel the sharp bones prodding me. “You’re wrong,” I rasped to the disembodied voices. “This isn’t my future. I—I won’t let that happen.”
“Who are you to think you can change your fate?” they hissed back.
They were right. Who was I to think I could help these people?
A damaged girl with a blood-stained past, trying to rise from the ashes as some glorified savior.
My hands curled around the shards of bones, fingers trembling.
It would be so easy to stop fighting, to disappear before I hurt anyone else.
But then another voice filtered in among the rubble. Not the voice of the wraiths, but a husky, heated whisper from my memories.
“Don’t let your fear make you unable to fight.”
I tried to act like nothing bothered me, but I was always afraid. Afraid of my past, afraid of what I left behind, afraid of what I was running from. I thought as long as I kept moving, it would never catch me.
Everett was right. That wasn’t trying. That was running. Was that the kind of person I wanted to be?
I grunted and put my hands on the bones, mustering all my strength to rise. I staggered forward as flames and wind whipped around me. “Let me out of here!” I called. I had to get back to the others. I couldn’t let the wraith mess around in my head. I needed—
A hand gripped my shoulder from behind, and I whirled. Arcadia’s hazy form stood before me. “Take my hand, daughter,” he urged. “You can fight this.”
He held out his hand, and I took it. Flames erupted around us, engulfing every inch of space until the light exploded outward. I careened back into my body and fell to my knees before the mausoleum. Air flooded my lungs so fast, it made me cough.
I glanced around in a panic to see all my friends stuck in the shadow wraiths' hold. Arcadia knelt at my side and pointed to the sealed mausoleum door. “We must open it to send the wraiths away,” he said. I nodded in response, chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath.
“Together,” he said firmly. With a single nod, we both thrust our arms at the door, sending my flames and his shadows forward. The marble fractured with a resounding crack, and the solid door burst open.