Chapter 40
The suspended moment left in Calista’s wake is unbearable. The power still churns inside me like a caged, feral beast with nowhere to go. My knees threaten to buckle, but I force them to move, to take a single step toward Peonica’s body.
The dragon sits on her haunches behind her, eyes focused. She says nothing else into my mind, and I’m too drained to pry now.
“Raylane,” Kaelzar says quietly.
The shock finally loosens, and his voice shoots a bolt of hot anger straight through me. I whirl around, fists clenched, face wet with tears I didn’t realize had started falling. “Don’t ever speak to me again!” I snap.
Kaelzar freezes, mouth still slightly open, as if he hadn’t expected the blade of my voice. But I’m already moving toward him, fury rising in my throat like bile.
Somewhere, in the far recesses of my mind, a quiet reminder stirs that he didn’t know me when he agreed to Calista’s bargain. He was desperate. He had little choice. It tries to justify him.
But I trip over that thought. Because he did get to know me.
He wormed his way into my heart, won my trust so completely that I chose him over Peonica without hesitation.
And still he waited until I broke. Until Rust Hollow burned.
Until my sister almost died. Only then did he offer his protection—his life—to try and mitigate his mistake.
As if this was a better way out.
“I wanted to tell you,” he says, voice rough.
“But if I’d told you the truth, my bargain would’ve been forfeited.
You were meant to win. You were meant to be safe.
And if I didn’t break the terms of the bargain, my friend would have gone free too.
At least then I could’ve made it right by her in the end—”
An animalistic scream tears from my throat as I slam my foot into his shin. It hurts me more than it hurts him, but I don’t care.
“I hate you!” I scream. “You betrayed me. My sister could be dead. I lost the Trial. And now there will be torture, rape, killing, enslavement—” My voice breaks, blazing rage searing every word.
“All because of you,” I scream, the words ripping out of my chest as I slam both hands into his solid chest. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch, only shuts his eyes for a brief, unbearable moment.
The rage inside me is excruciating, white-hot, driving a single need to hurt him as badly as I am breaking. For the lies he made me believe. For the mirage he built to keep me blind.
“I hate you, Kaelzar,” I grind out, salt flooding my mouth as more tears spill. “I hate you with all my heart. And if I ever see you again, it will be at the end of my blade, as you take your last breath.”
I want him to deny it. To rage. To sneer. To show me the monster I’ve been fool enough to trust—cold, cruel, a beast beneath the skin.
But his face doesn’t twist in anger or mockery.
Instead, pain and resignation hollow his expression. It is a look of complete and utter defeat that claws at what little remains of my heart.
“You already have my life in your hands,” he says quietly, gesturing to the ink on my arm.
And then he dissolves into the air.
I lean toward the last speck of him, my hand twitching in a frantic, instinctive reach for the space where he just stood. His sudden absence feels like a hole was ripped straight through my chest.
I blink at the empty space, my mind scrambling to catch up. There were no shadows around him when he vanished, I realize.
Slowly, the truth settles in. Because I lost, the Sphere has sent him back to Elysium just like it would any other Godbeast.
In the frenzy of the past minutes, I forgot that rule. When I screamed for him to leave, I thought it would be my choice. That it would be his choice to accept it.
But it was never up to either of us.
The realization that he is gone forever hits so hard my tears dry. My body feels leaden as I sink to my knees beside Peonica’s still form. The victory is gone. The better future I promised to so many is gone.
He is gone.
But I’m still here, I tell myself. And Peonica, injured as she is, is still here too.
Then, like plunging into icy water, I realize the magic I tore from Calista’s original body is still inside me. I don’t question how or why. I place my hands on my sister and reach for her with my Blood magic.
“Please wake up,” I beg, reaching out to cup her face. I press my other hand over her chest, but there’s nothing to heal, her body is whole.
With a sharp wince, I pull the magic back. Now that the chaos has stilled, I can feel just how much power I consumed and how desperately it wants release, too eager to tolerate even a sliver of restraint.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to Peonica and lift my gaze to the dragon who has been sitting with me in silence all this time. She studies me.
“It seems it’s just the two of us now,” I say with a dry, tragic chuckle. Two fractured halves, each missing the part that made us whole. Incomplete and abandoned.
“Sometimes all you need is one other at your side to stand strong on your four…” she says into my mind, then looks me over.
“…or two feet.” With that, she rises, stretching her long neck.
Then her attention shifts to Peonica’s unmoving form.
“It also helps,” she adds with a faintly sardonic edge to her voice, “when that one other is large enough to do the carrying.”
I check on Peonica as we trudge through the streets of Viele.
She lies draped across the dragon’s back, tucked securely between her crippled wings.
Despite having made the temple my home, I can’t bring myself to return there.
The memories of what happened and what it means are too painful.
So, as always, I head for Micheline’s inn.
I’m so lost in my thoughts and in the crushing weight of the magic now lodged inside me that I barely register the soft impact against my shoulder.
I catch the red fabric before it falls—a handkerchief, one of the many people once wore in support of me.
Confused, I glance down at it, then slowly lift my gaze, only to realize the street is strewn with the same color: scarves and handkerchiefs trampled into the dirt, with more fluttering down from windows and balconies above us.
That’s when I see the people.
They lean over railings and windowsills, faces twisted with anger, betrayal and hatred. They hurl their red emblems of allegiance at us—at me.
The dragon’s low warning growl pulls my attention. A small crowd has formed behind us, following, their expressions hard and furious. The closest man must catch the confusion on my face.
“We know what you did!” he shouts.
For a fleeting, foolish moment, hope sparks. Maybe they know I saved them from Calista’s destruction. Maybe casting off the red means they’ve rejected her.
Then another male voice cuts through.
“Traitor!”
“The Sibyls announced it!” a woman yells. “You forfeited, gave up your power to Zyrel! You tricked the good people of Calcatra!”
The street erupts with shouts before I can even open my mouth. So I keep walking.
And with every step, the realization sinks: no one, not even the Sibyls, understands why I did what I did. How could they? There were no Divinity Gazes to witness the atrocity that unfolded.
To them and to the world, I abandoned victory for no apparent reason. I betrayed them.
My hands begin to shake. Not only did I fail the thousands who trusted me, but they believe I chose to do it. I might convince the women of my temple that I fought until the very end—and even that is uncertain, after all the death they saw me wreak at Rust Hollow—but the rest?
Who would ever believe me?
I quicken my pace, desperate to reach the inn, to lock myself away from the world I have so thoroughly failed. But the crowd takes it as guilt. As retreat. Their shouts grow louder.
“Traitor!”
“Coward!”
“Liar!”
“Murderer!”
Something strikes my leg.
A potato. Another hits my shoulder. The dragon snaps toward the source, a warning growl rumbling through her chest. I press my hand to her side, urging restraint as more vegetables and trash fly. We move faster.
My only concern is Peonica, shielding her from the barrage of debris.
Relief floods me when the dragon folds her gnarled wings protectively over my sister’s body.
I can endure anything they throw at me. But if even one of them were to strike my sister, I don’t know if I’d have the restraint to stop myself—or my magic—from retaliating.
The inn finally comes into view.
Whether it’s the dragon sliding Peonica carefully into my arms before wheeling on the crowd with a deafening roar, or the fact that everyone knows better than to cross Micheline, the mob doesn’t press closer.
As I step through the inn’s door, one final shout follows me inside.
“You’re no ray of light! You’re the ray of blood!”