Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
RAE
We sip at sweet blossomwine and nibble on fruity pastries. The lanterns sway, and the scent of night flowers mingles with Jai’s deep, musky aroma as he presses me to his side, his powerful arm always securely wrapped around me as we wander the terrace.
I glance up at his handsome face and the weight crushing my chest from our encounter with Amaryll and Tru falls away.
He’s protective of me, and that familiar, pleasant warmth suffuses my chest. I wish we could be together, I wish… we could go back in time and stop the events that led us here. But one has to live in the moment, and I want to live in this one, with him.
As we mingle with the crowd, the musicians strike another tune, slower and mysterious.
Jai turns toward me and bows, a smile on his lips. “May I have this dance, my lady?”
I smile and reach for him. “Why, most certainly, my lord.”
His spreading grin is bright and devastating. His dimple flashes, weakening my knees and my resolve. The shadows slide around him, lifting his hair, spreading like dark wings behind him as he pulls me to his chest.
We dance slowly, gazing into each other’s eyes. As the music pulses around us, we turn in circles. Spinning under the night sky.
I’m in the arms of the man I love, and in this precious, fragile moment, everything is perfect.
The future could branch off into any direction, Eosphors may fall from the firmament, dragons may rise from the sea, the palace could crumble and the gates to other worlds could open, and I wouldn’t even look away from his dark gaze.
As the music winds to a stop and we come to a halt, I lean against him, letting my breathing slow.
I don’t want to let the worries back in, about my flimsy plans, about the little time we have left. Should I trust that my awakened magic will let me kill the king tonight? Without the king, would Phaethon still attempt to open the gates?
The dilemma is killing me just as surely as a dagger to the heart.
As surely as the panic I feel when I think of letting go of Jai. Accepting this is my last night with him. Our last night together. By tomorrow, it may be all over.
Why am I here if we’re doomed not to be together?
But I don’t like that word. Doomed. I don’t believe fate is set in stone. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.
Besides… my heart is invested. All in. If fate is involved in that, in this bond we share, well…
It’s more than that. It was always more than that.
Love is more than a pull. It’s a dive into an ocean, as incomprehensible and final as death and rebirth.
And he’s everything I want, everything I’ve ever wished for in my na?ve little heart.
Mars. My Mars.
The legendary king Marsyas. The tragic king Phaethon. The first Eosphor. All these beings, merged into one, and yet he managed to become a kind man.
Still fighting. Still by my side.
“A treasure trove for your thoughts,” Jai says.
“They actually aren’t worth much at all.”
“They’re worth more than all of the world’s nightgold. What’s on your mind?”
“How broken we are,” I admit in a whisper.
“You’re right,” he says after a beat, “we are broken. But that’s all right. It’s through those cracks that the light filters and fills us up.”
He kisses me, and I kiss him back hungrily, desperately.
“You’re kissing me as if the world is ending,” he breathes in wonder. “Rae…”
I find my eyes filling with tears, and I look away.
“It will be all right,” he says. “I promise. You will be fine. I’ll find a way to stop him. To cut the thread. After all, it’s what I came into this world to do.”
He doesn’t know I have already made up my mind.
So I nod, hiding my expression from him by laying my cheek on his chest. I don’t know how he’s planning on stopping the king, but I won’t let him put himself in danger.
The music changes.
“Another dance?” he asks and I open my mouth to say yes. Yes to a dance, yes to anything he might ask of me, tonight and always.
“This is where I interrupt you,” a male voice says.
The telchin.
“The dance isn’t finished,” I say, drawing back from Jai.
“It is finished. Another dance is about to begin.”
Outwardly innocent but somehow ominous words.
“What do you want?” Jai asks warily, still holding my hands.
“Did you know that if you tame a water horse, it’s the best horse?”
“What do nokke have to do with me?” I demand.
“The water breeds powerful creatures, and now that the Gods have fled… Wait. That is not true: they have not fled, they have fallen asleep. But it all comes down to the same. We have to fend for ourselves now, we—”
“Telchin,” I whisper, frustrated.
“He’s reporting what he hears,” Jai says. “Prophecies spoken throughout time.”
“—have to find new strength and magic in us, leftovers of the divine that still live in us,” the telchin says. “In you.”
I stare at him. I wait for more, but he seems to be done. “Thank you,” I finally say, “for… the warning. If that’s what it is.”
“The Pillar is made of nightgold,” he says. “The backbone of a god.”
“Okay. I know. But what does that have to do—?”
“Nightgold and dragonbone. Same material. Once you are changed, your bones turn into nightgold. You become an extension of the Gods.”
“What is it you want, telchin?” Jai asks again.
He blinks. “Look at the Great Dara. Beware of them. They are the way across. They are the answer.”
I go still. Those were words Mars had spoken, a hundred years ago on the river shore. And then I remember something about the prophecy, something Lynn had told me before the first trial, something about the Pillar…
“I have to find Lynn,” I whisper.
“Only the dead talk to the dead,” the telchin mutters, turning to go.
A chill goes through me.
“Wait!” Turning away from Jai, I hurry to stop him, grabbing his sleeve. “Answer me this. Would my magic break through the king’s defenses?”
“You ask dangerous questions.”
“These are dangerous times,” I reply. “Please, tell me.”
“The power of the water,” he says, “will change him. His dependence on his mark is his downfall. He’s unaware that yours is stronger.”
“I haven’t put a mark on the king,” I protest. “I don’t know what you mean.”
His dark eyes seem to focus on me, at last. “Then you’d better find out, and fast.”