1. Elorie
Elorie
Nothing on Alyssium is as unsettling as silence.
The quiet before the storm. Animals abandoning their burrows and scurrying away. The slow emptying of life creeps through the forest. No breeze. No noise. Simply a long soundless pause before the sky opens and the ground quakes.
My gaze meets Greer’s, and I find my own worry is mirrored in her eyes. Without magic stirring in her irises, reflecting color against the pale gray, they’re as dull as the stones on the beach. Hard and cold.
She must have felt the ground shake as well.
A gust of warning rustles the leaves, breezing my hair around my shoulders. The winter-blue ends have climbed another inch up my white locks in recent months, and they dance in the wind now with the promise of the oncoming downpour.
These past few weeks, there’s been a break between blizzards, and yet, there’s still no relief from the elements. Rainfall and hailstorms have replaced the snow, making for a wet, miserable start to spring.
“What is that?” Greer’s tight black braids whip around her face as she glances out at the churning sea.
Waves lap against the stony cliff. A threatening beat of the ocean stirs. Fog hangs like an opaque cage around the island, shielding my view of the horizon. Static has the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.
Something is coming.
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt a storm like this. Not even here.” I sheath my daggers, and Greer does the same.
We came to the shore to train because that’s all there is to do now that we’re trapped on Alyssium.
Gather food.
Sleep.
Rebuild wind-torn structures between hurricanes.
And train.
As if we’ll ever need the skills to fight again with how quickly the realm is crumbling around us. We’ll likely be swallowed by the sea before we find a way to escape this magicless island and rejoin the battle.
It’s been four months since the Rite of Blood ceremony.
Months since the night I was meant to bind my magic with Malachi’s.
I was prepared to do that—to do what was necessary to heal our realm from the effects of colliding with Vaelier nearly three hundred years ago.
I wanted to believe my magic tied to Malachi’s would allow us to reverse the damage, even with the Well that sits between Lyrichia and Vaelier growing.
I was wrong.
And even if I wasn’t, Wilder changed everything anyway.
He used our mating bond to manipulate the ceremony, and I accidentally bound with the enemy realm.
For a breath, I had hope. I thought maybe my bind with Wilder would mean we could heal both realms. But our magic did nothing against the Well when it came for us that day. And now, Wilder is back in Vaelier, while I’m stuck on Alyssium with Greer, Callum, and the humans the Fae abandoned.
The realm is fractured. Magic is dying.
I fear that soon there will be nothing left to heal.
Around me, the tumultuous weather is a reminder of what was broken on that full moon. A sever so deep, it splinters through the realm, made worse on Alyssium, where there was already no magic to protect us from the elements.
Sunshine has been nonexistent these past few weeks. A violent winter in spring has claimed the sea. Without the ability to travel to the continent, I don’t know the fate of Lyrichia’s other territories, but here, everything is slowly crumbling.
Does Wilder’s realm share this fate?
The mating bond ties our souls together, but this far away, I can’t sense even a whisper of him.
Pressing my palm to the hanging heart rune on my chest—a four-pointed star with a moon in each curve facing every direction—I reach for him. My gaze meets the sea, and I imagine his golden aether magic glowing through the thread that ties us.
But it’s dark.
Empty.
The whisper I heard the day after I arrived here has faded. His voice is gone, and with it, any hope of reconciling his betrayal.
“We need to get to the village.” I turn to Greer when a wave crests, rising and heading straight for us.
Her jaw ticks. Fear lingers in her gaze, but like me, she shoves it down, not saying anything.
Soon, we’ll have nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.
There are only so many storms the village can weather when there’s no magic here to offer protection against the elements. Greer, Callum, and I stand a chance because of the Fae blood in our veins, but the humans who once guarded the Fae prison are running out of time.
Greer and I grab our remaining weapons from the beach, quickly sheathing them as we run for the forest. Behind us, a tidal wave crashes against the stony shore, turning the calm day into a raging tempest in a matter of seconds.
Deep in my belly, my magic stirs, as desperate as I am for it to spring to my fingertips and help us. Only, I can’t reach it on this dead island.
Greer and I slip into the edge of the forest. The tree cover offers little protection from the wind.
It whispers through the branches. Batters against exposed skin as if the storm is trying to pull us back.
My cloak snags, and I whip out a dagger, slicing the fabric.
There’s no time to stop and untangle it.
“Keep them open!” Greer shouts when we reach the edge of the forest, and the village gates come into view.
Callum is standing, waiting for us, dressed in Crown Guard armor, even though he is no longer one of them.
His polished breastplate and pauldrons are a silver beacon of steel in the descending night.
A symbol of the people he once fought for.
Callum’s chin-length dark hair whips at his jaw.
His pale-gray eyes set on us as we run toward him.
“There you are.” Irritation bleeds through his tone as we rush through the gates. He slams them closed the moment we’re through. “Letia said you went for a walk.”
Of course she did.
Letia and I have been best friends since birth, so it’s second nature to lie for each other. And since Callum doesn’t want me wandering the island, Letia wouldn’t have told him I was at the beach training with Greer.
“You know how quickly the weather’s been changing lately. You shouldn’t be out there.” He bristles beside me.
I roll my eyes, bracing for the onslaught of lectures I’m about to face.
It’s not that I don’t understand the danger of exploring the island when the elements shift on a whim lately, but what’s the point of any of this if we stop fighting? If we stop living?
I glance at Greer, finding her already narrowing her eyes at Callum. “Elorie was fine. She was with me.”
“Even if I wasn’t, I’m capable of taking care of myself. Or have you forgotten?” I glare up at him.
Callum spent two decades keeping my Fae heritage a secret and protecting me as a promise to my father, so I understand why he’s struggling to let that go.
But I’m not the fragile human girl who spent twenty-four years not knowing the depths of my strength.
I’m half-Fae—a celestial Fae at that—wielding the magic of the goddess of creation, Voilene. I can defend myself.
Callum stops, spinning me to face him. “I haven’t forgotten a thing, Elorie. But we don’t know what comes next. If your magic is tied to the heart of this realm, it needs to be protected. You need to be protected.”
“Protecting my magic does us no good if the realm swallows us whole before we get the chance to do anything about it,” I argue. “We need to reconsider—”
“No.” He cuts me off like he does every time I try to bring up our only solution.
I pull my arm from his grasp. “We’re out of time, Callum.
Just because you don’t like what needs to be done doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary.
If someone was going to come help, they would have by now.
It’s up to us to fix this, and to do so, we need answers.
There’s only one place we haven’t looked yet. ”
Callum grumbles, hanging back as Greer and I forge ahead.
Shingles fly off roofs as we walk through the heart of the village, stopping at the small alcove that is mostly protected by the surrounding buildings.
There are fewer than twenty humans left on Alyssium, and we’ve crammed into these seven houses to weather this out as long as we can. Callum, Greer, and I share Letia’s home with her. Cramped but together. The others are split between the remaining houses.
I reach for the door handle, but it swings open before my hand meets the knob.
Letia’s golden-blonde hair whips around her shoulders as she pulls her cloak tighter.
Her sapphire-blue eyes quickly survey the group.
Her skin has been paler these past few weeks, apart from the rosy glow of her wind-chapped cheeks.
“She was outside the gates,” Callum shouts, his voice barely reaching her as a gust rips through the square.
“Was she?” Letia’s eyebrows pinch in mock confusion, and I chuckle at how loyal she is, pretending she has no idea what he’s talking about.
He mumbles something in response, but it’s carried away by the wind.
Once we’re inside, Letia returns to the stove. Cooking keeps her busy, so more often than not, she’s preparing food while Callum, Greer, and I come and go.
Greer and I strip off our outer layers and hang them on the hooks inside the door.
The levity of arguing with Callum has vanished, and Greer’s silence is palpable as she moves through the room.
She’s become a phantom of herself since leaving the Ley Court.
Slowly fading before us since learning the truth about her parents’ deaths at the Rite of Blood ceremony.
For years, she served as part of Malachi’s Crown Guard out of vengeance for their murders, only to find out Malachi was the one who ordered her parents to be tortured and killed. I can’t imagine how that haunts her now.
It’s why, even as Callum stands in his silver Guard armor before us, she refuses to wear it, opting for leathers like me.
Greer drops into a chair by the fire, peeling off her boots. We’re all broken versions of who we were before that night. I fear that there might be no putting this back together.
Leaving Greer to her thoughts, I take a seat at the table, opposite Callum. We’ve been arguing for months now, and while I understand the inherent danger in my plan, there’s no more avoiding what needs to be done.
“I’m going into the prison.” I stand my ground.
His eyes immediately narrow.
The Fae prison sits at the center of Alyssium.
It’s spelled so that any Fae who enters cannot leave until their death.
Since there is no magic on this island, those trapped inside eventually suffer the Beating, where a Fae’s heart drains of magic and becomes mortal so quickly it kills them. Only then does the prison let them out.
Since my Fae blood has woken, Callum worries I won’t be able to escape those walls like I did the last time I stepped inside.
“I know you don’t want me to—”
“Because there’s a chance that you’ll never be able to leave.” Callum’s jaw tenses. “What good does that do anyone?”
I take a deep breath, knowing he’s right but refusing to acknowledge it. “The prison let me out once. It will do it again.”
“The last time you entered the prison, your Fae side was dormant. It wasn’t awake—”
“It’s not awake right now,” I argue, holding up my hand, weaving it without a flicker of magic appearing. “As far as the prison is concerned, I’m as human as I ever was.”
Callum’s eyes fix on me. “Whether your magic is reachable at the moment or not, it’s there. Stirring. You sense it, don’t you? Because so long as you do, the prison can too.”
I drop my hand, clenching my teeth but not letting my expression falter. Callum is right. While I can’t wield my magic here, its presence is overwhelming. It burns hot and endless inside me. I’m not the same as I was the last time I walked those halls, and the prison will sense that too.
A gust has the shingles rattling, pulling my attention to the ceiling. We’ve been reinforcing the windows, the walls. They barely withstand the constant storms.
When it finally quiets, I look back at Callum.
“We can’t sit here and wait for the sea or the sky to claim us. I need to do something. And since we can’t get back to the continent, our only option is to look for answers here—from her.”
He bristles at the mention of my mother. At the source of the unique Fae blood in my veins.
My entire life I thought my mother was a human who died giving birth to me.
It wasn’t until I was in the Ley Court that I learned she was not human at all, but a Fae prisoner, trapped on Alyssium for reasons unknown.
Maybe that should make me wary of trusting her.
But if she’s alive in there, she is the only one who might be able to help me unlock my celestial magic like I did once to bring Wilder back from the dead.
If I can find a way to wield here, there’s a chance of healing our realm and finding my mate.
“The prison has a mind of its own; even if your mother is alive, it’s doubtful the prison will lead you to her.”
“It will.” I wish I felt as certain as I sound, even if a beat in the night calls out to me, giving me hope.
“And if the prison never lets you leave?” The hurt in Callum’s voice replaces all the anger.
My throat is sand as I swallow. “Then protect them all for me.”
For Callum’s sake, I’ve been putting off the inevitable, knowing he may never forgive me for walking into the prison if it decides not to let me out. Or maybe I’ve been delaying this for Wilder, hoping he would find a way to get to me so I could see him one last time before I face my fate.
But we’re out of time, and I can’t put this off any longer.
I rest my palm over the rune at the center of my chest, staring into that dark thread inside me with no light and no end. No hint or hope of Wilder’s presence. I leave my thoughts open, knowing they may never reach him, yet holding out hope.
After all, Wilder made me a promise, and that’s what I cling to.
“I will find you.”
He will. And even if I’m trapped in the prison or dead, I know my mate will save my people.
I stare into the obsidian quiet of the fates, and I whisper to my mate, “I will get us answers.”
Inside the prison is the hope of my mother—of answers when we’ve had so few lately. I have to try, no matter the cost.