Chapter 17
Seventeen
Ametrine
I’m floating. Soaring through a vast emptiness. But I’m not afraid—the void that surrounds me feels warm. Inviting. I welcome it like an old friend, accepting the tug in my chest and allowing myself to follow it.
“Open your eyes,” a deep, masculine voice commands.
I blink them open as he says, my senses slowly returning. As my vision clears, I find that I’m not floating in a vast emptiness—I’m not floating at all.
The stars above me are strange, different from the sky I’ve lost myself gazing at countless times. This sky is…wrong.
“Lunaria,” the voice says sharply.
My gaze snaps toward the sound, and I realize I’m no longer in the cave surrounded by my friends. I’m in a forest with an odd constellation above and the smell of frost in the air. Snow clings to the trees, moonlight glittering against it.
In front of me rests a massive temple, one with a grand staircase that winds up a hill to the top. It’s more of a castle—tall spires spearing off the top of it, along with pointed towers and thick walls.
The entrance is a heavy stone door, intricate etchings carved over the entire surface—something that looks like it would’ve taken years to sculpt into the solid granite.
A raven sits on the top stair at the threshold of the temple, staring right at me as if watching my every move.
From the corner of my eye, movement catches my attention.
The hair on my neck stands on end as I follow the shadowy figure disappearing into the lustrous building.
Strands of raven-black hair billow behind the figure—a woman, I realize—but she’s gone before I can catch more than the sight of her silky-soft curls.
“Breathe.” His words settle around me, and I release a long breath, my lungs burning.
I steel my spine and finally look at the man to whom the voice belongs.
The warmth I felt a few moments ago vanishes, replaced by an icy chill that steals my breath once more.
One of his eyes is a deep midnight, while the other is a bright green. His hair matches the navy of his right eye, trimmed short and exposing his sharp jawline. He watches me closely, and I try not to squirm beneath his gaze.
I’ve read about these eyes. The god with split irises, the god who sides with Vidaris, but also gifted Nocturna fae their magic. He’s the God of Fear and Dreams.
“Nyx.” The air in my lungs freezes, trapped inside of me as he stares down at me.
Fear swirls around in my stomach, but I tilt my chin up, refusing to back down.
“You found the carvings, I take it,” he says evenly, his face neutral.
I swallow and nod. “You brought me here?”
I’m starting to wonder if my decision wasn’t the right one to make. The only stories I’ve heard of Nyx are ones of him siding with Vidaris. Why would he have drawn me to this place? The only answer has to be that it’s for Vidaris, or for some selfish gain of his own.
A god wouldn’t bother bringing a fae to this…place unless it was for something that benefited them.
My gaze drifts to the strange stars and then to the snow at our feet.
“We don’t have long.” He ignores my question, his words coming out quicker. “Nightfall awaits you.”
No—the dagger isn’t real. Moros is still alive. If Nightfall could truly pierce through any darkness, it would’ve worked and killed him. Yet here he is, pulling the strings of the rulers of Crea. Even if the dagger does exist, it clearly doesn’t have the power the stories claim.
But the possibility of it both existing and working could change the game. There would be a shift of power, an imbalance tipping the scales in our favor this time. Right now, we don’t have a way to fight against Vidaris, let alone Daimon. But this dagger would give us the edge we need.
I shake my head and take a step back. I’ve read about the tricks of the Divine—how, if they’re entering the fight, we should all beg Eurydice for mercy.
“No,” I growl. Believing the God of Fear and Dreams is too risky.
If he’s only sided with Vidaris, what could he gain from helping us?
If I choose to believe him and we only bring the dagger to fight against Vidaris, she would kill us all without a second thought.
We’d lose before we even began. “I know that Moros was stabbed by the blade, and yet he lives. Likely creating a new war just as he did last time.”
Nyx tilts his head to the side and says, “Believe what you want, but heed my words.”
Something in his voice sends a chill down my spine, his warning clamping my mouth closed.
“A dagger crafted by a god can only be wielded by such,” he says. “Only that created by the proper blood can use the full potential of Nightfall. Both forged by a Divine, prophesied that you, the daughter of both worlds—blood of the gods and of the fae—can harness its magic.”
My breath catches, and my voice shakes as I ask, “Blood of the gods?”
His face remains passive, as if this news didn’t just completely turn my world upside down.
“But Daimon—my father—is fae, just like my mother.” My words stumble out. I clear my throat. “How does that make me a ‘daughter of two worlds’?”
Those words… I realize I’ve heard them before. Eurydice called me that when I went to the Celestial Temple. At the time, I had assumed it was because my mother was fae and my father was human. But if both of my parents are fae…
“Perhaps you should question your lineage beyond your parents more,” he says softly, and I feel the hair on the back of my neck rise. “Your father has magic that no fae could harness, and you.” His jaw flexes. “Your magic is different from the others, just as his has always been.”
My heart races in my chest. The story of a dagger that can pierce through any darkness.
“You’re telling me—” I take a steadying breath, “—that I have the blood of the gods?”
The buzzing I felt before I touched the drawing on the rock wall slowly returns, gradually increasing to a loud hum. My vision begins to sway, the sensation of weightlessness returning.
“Forge your own path,” Nyx insists. “And remember—Nightfall can pierce any darkness.” His voice floats away as if closed off behind a wall, and then the world around me fades into nothing once more.
Forge your own path.
Hushed voices slowly filter in around me, my head pounding and my eyelids feeling as if they’ve been filled with sand.
And remember—Nightfall can pierce any darkness.
“If you two had anything to do with this—”
A warning growl cuts the raspy feminine voice off—a voice that sounds familiar. With my thoughts hazy, I can’t pinpoint where I know it from. I try to wiggle my fingers or toes, but my body doesn’t listen. Instead, I lay there, frozen in paralyzed flesh.
“What do you want me to believe?” the familiar voice hisses. “You take her to some far-off cave and bring her back like this? Both of you should be praying to Eurydice that she’s okay.”
Warmth stirs in my chest as a name forms in my mind. Leda—my sister. Her fierce protectiveness snaps awareness back into my body, my limbs still filled with lead but my thoughts beginning to clear.
“And if she doesn’t?” a light voice whispers with a quiet challenge—Willow, I think. “What will you do about it?”
The floorboards creak beneath the weight of footsteps. With it comes a shift in the air, a heavy blanket of tension that settles into the room.
“We’ve touched that rock dozens of times and nothing like that has happened before,” Willow adds, her words clipped. “Whoever left the depiction of Nightfall must’ve done more than just carve the drawings.”
Nightfall.
The memory of the split-irised god flashes through my thoughts. The things Nyx said to me begin to repeat in my head, causing my blood to pump fiercely through my veins. Forge your own path. Blood of the gods. Daughter of two worlds. Nightfall awaits you.
It isn’t a secret that my magic has been different from the start, that I somehow have an affinity from each of the four races of fae, but this? Being told I have the blood of the gods by one of the Divine—though he doesn’t seem like the most trustworthy of them.
But the look in his eyes, the urgency with which he told me those things…
It didn’t feel like a lie or trick. He didn’t try to get me to make any deals, or ask anything of me.
And if he’s telling the truth, then I have to find out.
This could be how I get Graylen back—the missing piece to get me into the Vale.
That is, if I get to him in time. My blood runs cold at the thought, turning my veins into icy webs.
There’s no telling what Vidaris is doing to him—if she’s fracturing his spirit or torturing him physically. Likely both.
A bitter laugh breaks me away from my spiraling thoughts.
“Lunaria isn’t like us,” Leda snaps. “So go find your healer and—”
“The dagger,” I croak, my throat raw and scratchy as I force my lips to move.
Several gasps echo throughout the room. I blink my eyes open to a blurry world.
“Lu?” Calix asks from just beside my shoulder. His face swims into view as my eyes adjust, his brows pinched together as he watches me. “How do you feel?”
I push myself up by my elbows, and his arms dart out to help me. Leda hovers, her eyes blazing. Once I’m sitting up, I swing my legs over the side of the cot and peer around the room.
They’ve brought me to the healer’s cottage, everyone crammed into the room along with the healer who helped Brielle out earlier, along with another one I don’t recognize. Sidra, Orla, and Maddox are crowded close beside Leda, relief evident across all of their faces.
A flash of movement catches my eye from the left side of the room, and I find Brielle propped up on her cot. It’s now pushed against the wall so she can lean against it. But she’s sitting up, so that’s progress.
Willow and Aster are beside her, watching my every move.
The healer from earlier—Mylah—pushes past everyone, a steaming mug in her hand. She passes it to me and nods to it.
“Drink,” she commands gently. “You’ve been out for over a day, and your body needs fluids. Food is next.”
I blink. Over a day?