2. Elorie
Elorie
A cool morning breeze tickles the back of my neck as I scrape my blade against the sharpening stone. Golden sparks fly from the metal. Shards of aether, like the magic my mate wields. It’s strange that even here on Alyssium, where there is no magic, aether is endless.
Sparks rain onto the soil, and no matter how far away Wilder is from me with the sea, the Well, and a realm between us, I sense him in this blade. In the dirt. In the static prickling the back of my neck.
His magic is that of all things. He’s so close and so far.
The sparks dull to nothing by the time they reach the ground. Like hope lately. Flaring, simply to burn out as quickly as it sparks.
I’ve been doubting myself for months, and this morning, the weight in my chest is even heavier. I was up all night wondering how things might have been different if I’d paid attention. If I’d known the depths of what Malachi and Wilder were planning.
I was blinded by their lies.
Malachi dangled the realm’s fate before me, and I bit, willing to do anything for a better future for my people. I was too naive to see that he didn’t plan on healing the realm at all. He was going to use his gods-touched orb to start over.
And Wilder, although he tried to protect me, was keeping his own secrets. He stole our soul bind instead of trusting me to make an informed decision. That truth hurts worse than any of Malachi’s manipulations.
I replay those weeks in the Ley Court back, and as much as I miss Wilder, I resent how he hid the truth. How I could not see it. Was it this soul bind? The mating bond? My heart?
How much of what I did was free will, and how much was divine intervention?
I close my eyes and take a breath, angry at Wilder for keeping the truth from me. Angry that I miss him regardless. I miss sparring with him in the ring. He showed no mercy because he believed in my strength long before I ever did.
I miss how he understood me. How he knew I led with my heart, and he accepted me for it because he does the same. In a war between kingdoms, he sees value in people, not just the cause.
I miss the male who was not an enemy king. He was simply Wilder. A male with flaws and doubts. Playful and caring. Fighting for those he loved, even when they begged him not to. Like his sister.
I’m angry with him. But more so, I’m frustrated we never got the chance to face his lies and work past them. Resentment gnaws at me, eating me alive.
“I’ve got it.” Letia’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.
I look up to find her glaring at Thomas, who has his hands outstretched as he tries to help her with a basket of beets. She shoos him away, turning her back on him coldly, while his gaze lingers.
My best friend was once a beacon of light on a dying island. Now, she’s like all things around us. Battered by the loss of those she loved. Struggling with the dying embers of hope. Grieving the passing of so many who crossed over to Sarrow.
Between storms, plague, and starvation, Alyssium’s human village was nearly wiped out while I was in the Ley Court. Letia lost her fiancé, mother, and siblings. Letia was painfully, utterly alone, and it changed her.
It changed all of us.
Letia’s hands shake as she sets the basket down beside the others. She wrings her fingers out because they’re probably cramping from the weight of the beets. She should have let Thomas help, but of course, she won’t rely on anyone else again.
Letia’s gaze drops to the ground as she walks away.
Not toward her house, but around the opposite corner where grieving pillars line the edge of the forest. In the Mortal Realm, they bury the dead beneath the pillars, but here, we burn ours like the Fae, so they’re nothing more than a place to remember those we’ve lost. Letia has spent so much time there recently, resting beside her mother’s pillar and talking to her spirit.
Mabel would have known the right thing to say to her daughter to get her through this, but she’s gone now.
My gaze moves down the street to where Callum is returning from an early morning hunt. A small rabbit hangs limp in his hand. It’s all the meat we’ll have to feed twenty tonight, and while grain will fill the gaps of hunger, the lack of nutrients is wearing on us all.
Thomas’s sister, Seren, meets Callum outside the food stores, tying her long brown hair off her face before taking the dead animal. She’s been keeping inventory and rationing our supplies, and from her frown, it’s clear this single rabbit is not enough.
Callum’s smile is grim as he waves goodbye and heads to where I’m sharpening my weapons. His Guard armor clatters against the stone wall as he leans against it, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s quiet for a long moment, and while I don’t look up, I feel his eyes on me.
“I’m too tired to argue this morning,” I say finally, dragging my blade over the sharpening stone.
“Then let’s not argue.”
His ceasefire has me pausing.
I glance up, taking in the worry furrowing his eyebrows. I’ve been close with Callum my entire life. Even when he turned me over to the king, he stayed with me and made sure I was safe. My friendship with him runs deep, but these last few weeks, we’ve fought more than we’ve talked.
Callum drops into the seat beside me, unsheathing his sword and grabbing his own sharpening stone. The drag of metal hisses through the square.
“You know I need to do this,” I say, turning my attention to my blade. “My magic got us to Alyssium when it shouldn’t have been possible, so who knows what else it can do if I can learn how to access it. If there’s a chance my mother understands my magic, finding her is our only hope.”
“Just because you wield celestial magic doesn’t mean your mother did. She might not have the answers you’re looking for.”
“Or she might have exactly what I’m looking for,” I argue. “We won’t know until we try.”
“Do you really think the prison will lead you to your mother?” The scrape of metal almost drowns out his question.
I shrug. “The walls led me to Wilder. I have to trust that the fates will lead me where I need to go again.”
“I never believed the rumors.” Sparks from his blade dance with mine. “When the humans said the prison led them to the cells of the dead so they could collect them, I always thought it was magic messing with their minds while they were inside. I didn’t realize there was truth to it.”
“I didn’t believe it until I witnessed it myself.
It’s… unnerving.” I shiver at the memory of the prison guiding me where it wanted me to go as if it were sentient.
“I don’t know how it’s possible. But it changed my path.
It moved its walls. The prison knew what I was looking for when even I didn’t.
What kind of spells create a place like that? It’s as if it has a mind of its own.”
Callum sighs. “I don’t know. The magic used during the prison’s creation was not recorded for a reason.”
“So Fae couldn’t find ways to break others out?” It’s a whisper, and Callum nods.
My eyes lift to the spires, peeking above the trees. Obsidian pillars cast shadows farther than they should reach. A place of both nothing and all things. A place with a heartbeat that whispers to me.
“I could go with you—”
“No.” I shake my head, stopping Callum’s thought in its tracks.
“My blood is half-human, barely enough to trick the prison into letting me out the first time. We don’t know what it will decide when I go back in, but with you, there’s no question.
If you go in there, you’ll never leave. I have to do this alone. ”
Especially when I don’t know what I’ll find.
The only person who knew my mother’s true identity was my father, and he never spoke of her after he carried me from those walls at birth. Whoever she is and whatever she’s done, I can’t risk my friends’ lives figuring it out.
He frowns but thankfully doesn’t argue. “When are you going in?”
“Tomorrow.” I nod once, certain, when nothing feels that way. “So I guess we have one last night.”
“One last night for what?”
I sheath my daggers, mustering a smile. “To celebrate still being alive.”
Callum’s eyes narrow, but the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth has my grin widening. “You’re not going to die in there, Elorie.”
“I know.”
I don’t, but if I stop believing that, I don’t stand a chance.
“Look at you two handling weapons and managing to keep them off each other’s throats.” Greer stops in front of us, wearing skintight black leathers that draw out the silver flecks in her gray eyes. “I see we’re making progress.”
“We’ve come to an understanding.” I grin, and Callum chuckles.
He shakes his head, glancing at Greer. “You were awake early this morning. I was going to see if you wanted to join me when I went out hunting, but I couldn’t find you.”
“As if any of us gets sleep anymore.” Her eyes dart away.
The four of us have been sharing Letia’s home for months, so there’s no hiding that not one of us sleeps well.
Callum is up late into the night, his eyes on the fire every time I walk past the cot he set up in the main room.
Greer sits at the window more often than not, while I fill journals well into morning.
Letia is the only one who stays in her room, but the floorboards creak as she wanders back and forth, telling me she’s awake well into the night.
There are more demons than people in that house. The dark circles beneath our eyes are proof of it.
“I was busy this morning anyway,” Greer continues. “I took a walk around the perimeter to see how the gates are holding up with the storms. There are two new sections of fence that need to be replaced.”
“We’re out of wood to replace them.” I frown at the scraps that were once a heap of branches.
“I’ll get more—” Callum starts, but he’s cut off by a scream cutting through the village.
It travels the breeze, raking a chill up my spine.
“It came from the forest,” Callum says, his Fae hearing homing in on their location as he looks down the road where the gates to the village are open in daytime. “Dorn and Isra were going to gather berries right outside the gate. Maybe they traveled deeper?”
The forest is dangerous for Callum and Greer—full Fae who might not have access to their magic but at least have strength. But with the weather and state of the island becoming more deadly by the day, the battered forests are lethal to unguarded humans.
Greer’s eyes narrow, her stare vacant as she focuses on whatever she’s hearing. “They’re in trouble.”
I’m on my feet before I can question myself, tucking my dagger into one of the holsters on my thigh.
“What are you doing?” Callum steps into my path.
“We can’t just leave them out there.”
“We can’t risk you dying over it either.”
“You can join me, or you can get out of my way.” I shove around him to gather my weapons.
Wind gusts down the street. It echoes like air funneling through a hollow tunnel.
I glance down at my mother’s sword, freshly sharpened, even though I haven’t used it since I defended the village months ago. Something strange and unsettling lingers within the blade. I strap it to my back but snatch up an extra set of daggers as well.
“Elorie—”
“I’ve got this.” Greer cuts off Callum.
“You can’t convince me to stay put either,” I tell her. “These are my people. The last of them. If someone’s out there, I’m going to help.”
Especially when I’m the one who doomed them all.
Greer pauses, considering it for only a moment before nodding. “Then I’m going with you.”
“Same.” Callum grits his teeth.
I shake my head, tipping my chin to the humans gathering in the street. “Greer and I can handle this. I need you to get the villagers inside. Letia went around the corner to her mother’s grieving pillar. Find her for me, please.”
His jaw tightens, and I can tell he wants to argue. His stiff nod is his only response as he watches me head toward the gate. Before I reach it, I spin on my heels, facing him as I walk backward.
“Oh, and pour me a drink for when I get back.” I force a smile, but he doesn’t return it.
He simply shakes his head. “Stay alive and I will.”