Chapter 50
“You sacrificed a future where you cast the World,” I whisper.
“So much more than that, Clara…” He sways as though he’s about to collapse. I keep my hands on him for support. “The future I gave up…” His voice fades, cracks, and disappears. Emotions I’ve never seen from him before swirl in his eyes. “It was ours.”
The entire world tilts. “Ours?” Kaelis nods. I struggle to find words. To breathe. The whole world that could’ve been is lodged in my throat. “You sacrificed a future…with me?”
He nods once more. The smallest of movements shifts the ground beneath my feet and tilts the world.
My knees nearly buckle, but I force myself to stay upright.
Now I’m holding on to him for support, rather than offering it.
Every thought is like an unraveling tapestry, and I can’t catch the threads fast enough.
I’m already imagining it—what could’ve been. A thousand opportunities and possibilities and dreams.
I imagine us. Imagine a different life for myself.
A world in which the only pain I’ll ever know is the pain of missing the people I love when they are not close by, not the pain of losing them to torture or horrible, early deaths.
I try to swallow the lump in my throat. My hand quivers and releases him, and it’s about to fall when he catches it, squeezing my fingers.
“You’re lying.” Even as I say it, I know he’s not. The way he looks at me—the way I feel, as though something deep within me has finally clicked back into place. “That…You…You can’t just…”
My thoughts and words tangle. Every second of his silence is brutal.
Finally, he speaks, and his voice is barely more than a breath.
“I saw it, Clara. The life we could’ve had.
A life where we designed our future—one where Arcanists could be free, could learn as they chose, be as they chose.
A future where we would stand together, you and me, and we would rule.
I saw everything. And he made me destroy it with my own two hands. ”
Rule? Me? I can’t even say the words aloud. The idea is too foreign; it might as well be thought in a language I can’t comprehend.
“I…” I shake my head as my eyes sting with tears that I can’t quite describe the origin of.
“I know you probably don’t believe me.”
“I do.” I nearly choke on the words.
Kaelis’s hands are on me, thumbs smoothing away tears that refuse to fall. “If you wanted to see, I could show you.” The words are gentle, as if he understands all too well the source of my pain. “That would be easier.”
“Do you mean the Six of Cups?” It’s the only card I can think of that could apply.
“That’s too unreliable at best, and you wouldn’t get the whole picture.” He knows exactly why I’m skeptical of that card.
“How else?”
Kaelis hesitates, and there’s something about his silence that fills me with unease.
“No Minor Arcana card is going to be enough to show you all of what happened the day I was brought before the Chalice.” Which leaves only a Major. But I can’t think of which one…“The Hanged Man.”
“No.” I pull from him completely, and he lets me go.
I take two steps away, searching for enough air to get a full breath.
I can almost feel the Hanged Man’s magic still on me from when Eza cast it last year—as though it has been imprinted upon my brain.
“That card is not for memories, it’s for nightmares. ”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Kaelis remains calm, as if he’s trying to be an anchor in the churning tides of my panic. “The card puts the subject in a mental prison.”
“I know all too well what it does, and I’ve had enough prisons for a lifetime, thank you.”
He ignores my interjection. “But that ‘prison’ is shaped by the caster. It doesn’t need to be torture. It could be bliss. Or…it could be my memories.”
“The High Priestess,” I say quickly, standing a little straighter, as if I’ve caught my balance. “That allows you to peer into someone’s mind, doesn’t it?”
“It does. But only for specific things. We would need multiple of the High Priestess for you to get the full picture, and even then it wouldn’t play out for you with the same detail.
The High Priestess is like reading a quick summary of a chapter, rather than the whole thing, or the book itself.
” What he says aligns with what Elorin mentioned at the castle about her using her card to get a “sense” of what was in my and the king’s hearts.
“I…” I’m at a loss, and he knows it.
“The Hanged Man is our best option.”
I wrap my arms around myself, as if I can somehow hold together the walls I’ve built.
Kaelis closes the distance between us once more. Arms hovering in midair until they land on me. I shake my head and look away. He waits, allowing my ragged breaths to slow.
Finally, composure collected, I turn my eyes to his. The prince reaches up and brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. His knuckles gently trail down my cheek.
“Trust me. You should see this—you should know the whole of it so there’s no room for doubt. And I would end myself before I would hurt you.” His voice is soft, tone almost pleading. Kaelis commands, demands, domineers. He rules with all the authority of a prince and headmaster. But pleading?
I swallow hard and nod.
He waits a moment, as if to make sure I’m not going to go back on my decision. To give me a breath to second-guess and leave. I don’t move.
Halazar is destroyed. Eza is dead, and his father is, too. If Kaelis wanted to hurt me, he could’ve a thousand times over. But he never has. He never has, I repeat to myself.
His hand trails down my neck, shoulder, and arm to lace his fingers between mine.
Kaelis tugs gently on my hand before leading me to his office and straight to his desk.
Locked within a drawer is a large collection of Majors—impressive for a man who isn’t a Major himself and can’t wield any of them without first having the Hierophant cast on him.
Speaking of…“Do you need me to cast the Hierophant for you?” I assume at least a few are somewhere in the stack.
“No, I had one cast on me a while ago and haven’t expended the blessing.”
The Hanged Man retrieved, he guides me out from the office and to his bed.
Fingers still entwined with mine, he helps me onto the bed.
The world has taken on a dreamlike quality, as though I am already under the influence of some kind of spell.
The halo around the lamplight is a bit warmer.
The shadows in the corners are darker. The glittering skyline of Eclipse City as dusk begins to settle on the horizon glows all the brighter.
Kaelis leans over the edge of the bed and kisses me gently. There is reassurance there. One more request for trust, wrapped in admiration.
He finally releases me and positions himself behind me on the bed. I lie back and place my head onto his lap as if I’m a lamb for slaughter. A ritual sacrifice—the bed is his altar, and he is my god.
I should be terrified. Yet, by some hypnosis, I am calm. All I see is him. The curtain of his dark hair framing his face and shadowing his void-like eyes.
Placing the card on the center of my chest and his hands over it, Kaelis takes a slow breath.
“Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
There’s a surge of magic. The world tilts. The walls speed up and away from me as the bed pitches back. Reality folds in on itself, inverting.
The warmth of his hands on my temples is the last thing I feel before what’s down is up, and what’s up is down, and nothing is as it was.