Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
ANU
S tefen dove from the skies, shifting from dragon to man a few feet from the trampled muddy field. Marzalla flashed in a few steps behind him, jogging to catch up.
Angels setting up camp paused at the roar that erupted from the war tent ahead. Marzalla cut her gaze to Stefen. This couldn’t be good.
Ash burst from the tent, smoke rolling off his shoulders, eyes gleaming like hot coals. Kielyn shoved through the flaps next. Alaric on her heels sported a nasty bruise around his eye.
Stefen learned why a second later, when Ash aimed directly for them. “Your godsdamned brother knew!” his maker seethed, lips white with rage. “He knew Calian was a genocidal manic. And he said nothing!”
“I did not know,” Alaric countered, marching up, the shiner already fading. “I only knew of Windsong and Hornhall’s past conflict.”
Ash whirled on him. Kielyn stepped between the two kings, the only thing that kept Ash from throwing another punch. The Fire King snarled over her head, “I would have never allowed my sons in that realm if I knew what that past entailed. ”
“I didn’t realize you were incapable of doing your own research,” Alaric challenged, not giving an inch.
This was going to turn uglier, real quick. Marzalla seemed to be of the same mindset. The air-dancer edged closer to Ash but addressed them all. “Does someone care to explain?” She looked at Kielyn. “Someone not emotionally charged.”
So Kie did.
She told them of the message Palomi was able to get through before the gateway to Ventus had sealed shut. Teakin and Merick had made it through. They were with Eirik and safe, working with the–not dead–long lost Queen of Arrowren’s court. On their way to answer Bastian’s distress call; to the home of the sorceress, Selene.
Ash’s steely gaze landed on Stefen. “If she’s there, she’ll keep him safe,” Stefen assured. “Do we know where Sterling is?”
“Presumably Hornhall,” Alaric interjected.
Ash simmered. “Who Windsong just declared war with…”
Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Stefen kept his hands out of his hair, the worry from his face, the dread from twisting in his gut, and calmly inquired, “Did Palomi say how long the gateway might be closed?”
Silence.
Kielyn’s throat bobbed. “As long as Hornhall and Windsong wish it to be.”
T rees swayed overhead, their limbs like calligraphy against the canvas of night–the earth’s love letter to the sky. The river he floated down was a mirror to the burning stars above, the water so smooth and glass-like the reflecting lights were as at home in its depths as in the heavens.
The changing shadows of dusk and midnight and dreams slipped away, finding refuge in the still sleeping forest not yet woken by the sun. All around Bastian, nature sang, a symphony of joy and pain, hope and despair. A tribute to the tattered and charcoal ruins of history and the resilient promise of a new day.
Human forms took shape along the riverbank. One by one, they materialized out of the rolling mist, clad in armor, in rags, and in crowns. Male and female, they watched him pass on the current. One by one, they extended their arms and unfurled their hands to reveal seeds of golden light, blindly bright, floating above their palms.
“The gods grow tired,” they spoke as one, in a voice both old and young, nuanced and rudimentary. “Are you ready?”
No. No, he wasn’t. Bastian knew what this was now. His test.
The burning light in each of their hands shifted, morphing into visual representations of the elements–flurries of wind, rolling flames, crashing waves, glowing stones–suspended in thin air.
Another sound drifted through the trees, across the water, and along his bones. “I’m here,” it whispered, in a voice he would know anywhere.
The soul of his soul. Sage…
As much as hope filled him, the doubt remained, his ever-present jailer. “My power must be amplified,” Bastian countered, real fear taking root . “With your power.”
He could have sworn the waters around him rippled as she replied down their bond, “It already is.”
The wind picked up and the ghostly figures along the riverbank angled their heads.
Bastian could feel it then–his elemental magic stretching, searching, rising in response to hers. Sage was with him. In this space between reality and a dream. Mind to mind, heart to heart, her power laced itself around his.
She had seen it all so clearly; the ancestral connections. Bastian had carried them inside him his whole life and never knew. The heaviness of it had become his rage, the inherent feeling of wrongness inside his chest, an echoing heartbeat that coaxed him to sleep and roused him awake. A cage he could never escape.
Until her …
Now he could take this final step into his destiny, unlock his full potential. Because he had found the key.
Love.
The cabin
H is brother jolted awake. Reaching for someone who wasn’t there.
Reaching for his mate…
Eirik met his brother’s blazing gold eyes–the eyes of a dragon. There, in the fleeting instant between wakefulness and dreams, he watched Bastian realize it, too.
She wasn’t here.
Bastian whipped his gaze around the room. He swept past Teakin and Merick and the Warborn, over the upended furniture and the busted out windows, scouring every inch of the cabin for any trace of her . Only when his eyes landed back on Eirik did the fierceness in them bank.
Bastian’s throat bobbed. “She was right here…” The words were strangled, the disbelief and despair palpable. “ She was with me.”
Eirik broke at the sound of it. “We’ll get her back,” he vowed, vision blurring. “We’ll get them both back. I swear it!”
“Them?” Bastian’s eyes flared. Gone was the quiet vulnerability, the isolated agony. In its place was understanding and the lethal focus Eirik was used to from his twin. “They took Mekale, too.”
Bastian came to his feet faster than his legs could accommodate. Eirik steadied him. “We think Gideon’s taking them to Hornhall. Who was with him?”
“Xavier.” Bastian found his balance and shook off the assistance. “Why Hornhall?”
“His brother is there.” Teakin spoke up, eyes wide, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself. “We made contact with Spade’s group. In light of her death during the explosion, they’ve divulged everything they know. Including how Gideon bribed them into assisting him.”
Eirik’s twin, never missing a thing, narrowed his eyes at Teakin. “What is it? What aren’t you saying?”
Their uncle opened his mouth. Closed it. As if he were unsure how to explain.
Chogan said, “You were under for some time. Perhaps–”
“What the fuck aren’t you telling me?” Bastian demanded.
A scout burst through the open cabin door–whatever news he bore ready to spill from his mouth–and stopped dead in his tracks. The male’s eyes grew as big as saucers. Then he collapsed to one knee.
No one spoke. They just turned to Bastian.
His dark brows knitted tightly together, utterly confused. “Has everyone lost their minds?” Bastian accused, exasperated.
The question hung in the silence of the cabin. Even the insects outside ceased their humming.
Merick bent and picked up a sliver of glass from a broken mirror on the ground. “I think the answer is best explained by the eyes.” She straightened.
Walking up to Bastian, she handed him the reflection glass. He looked at her quizzically, but he took the shard of mirror and held it up to his face. Eirik held his breath.
His brother gaped wordlessly at his reflection.
Then his hand lifted, trembling, to the crown of shifting shadows atop his head–sky and stone, and sea and flame.
His fingers went straight through the fluctuating design, the elements dissipating like movement through a fog.
Bastian retracted his hand, and the crown returned, comprised of black mist and glinting stars. First it appeared as rolling waves, then slowly transformed into a mountain range, swirling clouds, and finally, crackling fire .
The burning behind Eirik’s eyes spilled over. He bowed his head and dropped to one knee.
Around him, everyone in the room followed suit. Until the only one left standing was the one most deserving, the one foretold by the gods, the one the elements had crowned king.
The Chosen One.