64. Elorie #2
I swallow hard, considering that. Fae live long lives. Centuries, sometimes thousands of years. But gods? There is no time in which they did not exist. At least, not that is known to the priestesses.
Time means nothing to Davorian.
“I hear you now.” He closes his eyes. “Now that we are close again, I hear you on the wind. In the air. Through the realm. Trapped in that darkness. You sing for me. Tell me they built that cage so you could not escape.”
My eyes widen. “That’s why they built the prison? To trap Voilene? A god.”
“It would seem so,” Wilder agrees.
“The creatures my mate created knew their realm was not strong enough for something as magnificent as her. They tried to contain her, but nothing is truly impenetrable. Nothing is truly impossible.” Davorian’s eyes move from me to Wilder.
“How do you know all of this?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Because we are one, Voilene. The moment the void destroyed the shield around our orb, our connection was restored; I heard everything. All you see. All you know. Don’t you feel it?”
“I’m not Voilene.” I take a step back.
“That is a lie you tell yourself.” He twists the orb. “But you have been my Voilene millennia before you were a breath of starlight in this realm. And though you are but a piece of my mate, you won’t be that for long. I will fix this, just as you intended, my love.”
He steps forward, and Wilder moves between us. “She is not your anything. Keep your hands away from my mate.”
Wilder’s tone is deadly, but it sparks amusement in Davorian’s gaze. “That, I will not do. I will put her back together. I will set her free.”
“Only death can set her free from the prison.” My grip on Wilder tightens.
“That’s not entirely true now, is it?” Davorian’s gaze moves between us. “As you discovered with him, the prison spell is not perfect.”
“So that’s your plan, to kill her and bring her back so she can be freed?”
“Kill a god?” He laughs. “You cannot kill a god. Why do you think my mate carved you from her being? A mortal piece of herself. One tied with flesh, blood, and humanity. A piece that could die.”
Heat drains from my cheeks as I realize what he’s saying. My gaze moves to Esen’s body on the ground.
“You are my mate, but not all of her. You are simply the mortal piece we can sacrifice to put her back together. To set her free.”
My heart thunders.
Davorian is going to kill me. He’s going to use my mortality to set free his mate. And that part of my soul that was once hers will return to her.
I look from Esen’s body to Hazel. Her soul was split, and now it’s one. One died to make the other whole.
Did my father know this is what I am? Not my own being, but a part of another. A piece to die so a god could be freed. Did he sense this all along, and that’s why he left the prison with me and never went back?
“Don’t be scared.” Davorian steps closer.
“Do not go near her.” Wilder holds the spot between us.
But Davorian ignores him. “Don’t you see the pain is over? We can finally be together again. I will set you free, and then we can return as one. It is not death to be placed back where you belong. It is rebirth.”
My gaze moves to Esen’s lifeless body on the ground. Her cheeks so pale and cold. Malachi’s words play in my mind.
Pay attention, Elorie, he’d said. What is broken can be whole once again. There is a lesson to be learned here.
It sings with the song on the wind. A truth I didn’t yet understand. A warning given by Lady Reah in Tempest before the mirror of Echme. You are but a piece.
She knew when she placed her fingers on my temple what I was. What she saw. Who she spoke to.
Davorian reaches a hand for me. “I will free you from this body. This confusion. We will be together.”
My hands shake, and I’ve yet to take my eyes off Esen. Two parts of the whole. Malachi killed one and put his sister back together. That’s what Davorian intends. To erase me so he can have Voilene.
Or am I Voilene?
Am I anything?
I had a father, a life, memories. I have a mate here. These things are not nothing. I am not insignificant simply because she carved me from her soul. Her body.
Esen was a person of her own. She was not Hazel. I saw the proof in her choices, her beliefs. She was someone. I am someone.
“Come with me, Voilene. I’ll show you. I’ve spent so long searching, but here you are. As soon as I heard the voice through the orb, I knew I could find a way to get here. I just needed him to remove the shield on the orb that was keeping you hidden from me. But I’m here now.”
“You lied to my brother.” Hazel’s voice snaps me from my thoughts.
My head turns as she slowly lifts from the ground, darkness brewing in her eyes. Shadows pool from her fingers, dancing along the sand, just shy of Davorian. “You promised my brother great power for doing what you asked with the orb, but you lied to him. You used him to fulfill your own mission.”
“Your brother wished to unlock great power, and I showed him how to do it.” Davorian grins. “Here I am.”
“Not like this.”
“Your brother played a game with gods and lost. It’s not my fault he misunderstood.”
Her head cocks, rage brewing in her eyes. “He understood enough.”
With every step, the sand beneath Hazel’s feet turns black as coal. She drags death behind her as she approaches. And when Davorian’s magic stretches out, it coils back.
“It’s not possible.” Davorian backs up, glancing down at Esen’s body. “He destroyed the void. I told him how to, and he did it.”
“Did he?” Hazel holds up her hand, wiggling her fingers; purple veins run through the black shadows.
Davorian’s eyes widen, and for the first time, he is the one to show fear. Like Idunn told me. And so the gods carved the first realm, flourishing in life and beauty. But forgetting to pluck the reaping rose. And so its darkness spread with the setting of the sun. Magic woke no more.
The void is not just feared by the Fae who wield remnants of gods-gifted magic, but the gods themselves.
It’s why, even if Davorian needed the void to break whatever shield was on the orb, preventing him from finding Voilene, he needed Malachi to destroy the void—kill Esen—before he stepped through.
The void is magic beyond all of us.
Except Malachi didn’t kill anything. Just like when the void left Hemlin’s body, it did not drop into another realm or object. It stayed, bound with Hazel’s soul, and now, it is within her.
Hazel Adira is our greatest weapon, and we just killed her brother.
Her eyes narrow on Davorian, and he backs up again, his teeth gritting when his gaze moves to me.
“You can’t stay here, no matter how hard you cling to who you think you are,” Davorian warns, the air swirling in a circle of bronze sparks behind him.
“Just as a Fae body could not contain Voilene’s magic, this realm cannot contain us.
So long as we are here, what’s beneath us will continue to crumble.
The Well will continue to seek and destroy.
So long as you fight your fate, you will kill all you say you care about. ”
Wilder wraps an arm around my waist, like he senses my knees are about to give out.
“I’ll see you soon.” Davorian’s eyes cut from me to Hazel a final time as he calls a crack of lightning from the sky, disappearing through it.
The moment he’s gone, Hazel drops to the ground, grabbing her brother’s hand. A chilling sob escapes her throat as Callum moves to stand over her.
My hand finds my stomach, and I can barely breathe.
“Look at me, Elorie.” Wilder lifts my chin. His voice is distant. It’s hollow, almost as if I’m hearing it through the threads when I’m not. “We’ll figure this out. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”
“Hurt me? But what about—” everyone else.
I don’t say that part out loud, but if what Davorian said is true, then it’s not me who Wilder should worry about. So long as I resist, the realm will suffer.
Oh gods, I’m the reason it continues to crumble. So long as Voilene is here, the two of them will rip these realms apart. Or is it the two of us?
“Don’t think like that.” Wilder cups my cheeks, but there’s no warmth to be found in his crackling gaze. “We don’t know that what he said is true. Don’t give up on me now. We’ll fight through this. Trust me. We’ll figure this out.”
“We’ll figure this out.” Even as I say it, it feels like a lie.
And when the wind breezes, Voilene’s laugh haunts me.