Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Messenger and the ruling gods were never heard from again. The People of the Stars and humans left their home, traveling to a new land, where they were welcomed by a world full of power and different races.
—Fabia’s Fables, “People of the Stars.”
“Surprise!” Vienah squealed, standing at the front of the small group and holding what looked to be a small pie, dotted with a simple decoration of dried berries on the top. A name day pastry.
“Happy Birthday, Lyvia,” Ronan said, arms splayed out wide, grinning ear to ear. “You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”
My heart squeezed as I took in the little group, beads of liquid forming in the corners of my eyes. Of all places, of all the people...
Vulcan’s eyes softened, and he offered me a half-smile, the most I’d ever get from him.
Nerissa rolled her eyes at Ronan, but a shadow of a grin hovered over her lips. She gave me a small nod. “He insisted.”
“And that you skip your morning centering exercises,” Vulcan growled, throwing a glare at Ronan.
“I baked the pastry,” Vienah noted, stepping forward and holding out the small pie. “It’s not exactly what you’d find in Sultira, but it’s—"
“It’s perfect,” I cut in, eyes watering as Vienah placed the pie in my hands. “Thank you. This… This means a lot.” My smile was genuine as I took in the four of them before Ronan squeezed my shoulder, and I thoroughly devoured my pie.
My smile had yet to disappear as Vienah and I made our way deeper into the village later that morning. The celebration of Maadon was well underway. Elders stood outside the icy buildings, adding scenes from the past year to the intricate carvings with small picks.
Large roasts had been carried in by the massive, tusked beasts that the Rhashtai had domesticated. A savory, salty scent wafted through the wide lanes of the village.
We returned to find Astraeus murmuring something to the guard outside of my ice chamber. A throaty laugh escaped his lips, and I caught a wide grin on Astraeus’s face.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, eyeing the guard as he made his way down the road, still chuckling beneath his breath.
“Telling dirty jokes,” he drawled, winking at me. “Does the birthday girl want to hear one?”
Pink tinged my cheeks, deepening as I bristled. “No.”
“I’m offended I didn’t get an invite.” He placed a hand on his chest.
“What do you want, Astrae—” I began before I was cut off, the breath sucked from my lungs and replaced with a wild wind as strange, flat gray clouds cleared beneath my hooves.
My heart plummeted as Tiberius’s view filled the space behind my eyes. Thousands of ships spread across a wide strip of blue.
Where is this? I asked in a panic.
Atrulean Sea, he answered, his mind’s voice hoarse and weary. Sailing south.
The space between my shoulder blades burned as he beat his massive wings against an updraft, and he soared back into the clouds. I gasped as he cut off the cast. Vienah’s hands were at my shoulders, and my back pressed against something hard and warm...
I blanched, wiggling out of Astraeus’s arms and gaining my feet. Had I collapsed?
“Ships,” I said, breathless. “Heading south. It has to be Daimos.”
“Did Tiberius say anything else?” Vienah asked. Her face was pale, and her brown eyes were wide with concern. “When will they get there? We have to warn them!”
I shook my head. “He could barely hold the cast. He’s weak. He’s been flying too long.”
Concern squeezed the center of my chest as if I could still feel Tiberius’s phantom wings. Exhausted. He was utterly exhausted.
“Get the others,” I said quietly. “We have plans to make.”
Hours later, hundreds of Rhashtai, bedecked in ornamental bones and beads, gathered in the icy amphitheater at the center of the village.
Xenelpha stood at the bottom of the arena, arms wide as she quieted the excited crowd with a single sweep of her large staff.
A hush fell, and the matron began to speak.
I glanced to where Lord Astraeus sat with what remained of his crew inland.
His dark beard had been cropped short, and his hair cleaned, braided back, and adorned with a new set of beads.
Bones, I realized, as I examined the white bits in his hair from a distance.
He caught my gaze and grinned. I snapped my attention back to Xenelpha, whose eyes found mine in the crowd.
“Merry Maadon,” she began, holding her arms wide, the talons strapped to her hands splayed out in a fearsome image. “A day when light finally gives way to darkness. It is a day of change. A day of balance. A day to remind us that light is nothing without the dark.”
My mind drifted as Xenelpha continued her story, earning gasps of awe as the various mages in her counsel began displaying shows of light and wind and water as she told her story. I ran through the plans in my head.
Six amatohks sat saddled and ready to be mounted near the western edge of the village. Nerissa, Ronan, and Astraeus would take three while sending the others south. Vulcan would come with me to the tomb…
“Ice calls to water as magma calls to stone. To change, to truly transform, takes sacrifice. Takes courage. Water becomes trapped. Stone weakens. We must remember who we are to begin with, that our essence may be nudged, one sacrificial bit at a time, before evolution takes place. What will you let go of this Maadon to become who you were meant to be?” Xenelpha’s eyes landed on my face.
“For death,” she continued, letting the word dangle in the chamber, “is but a passage. A gate to the Beyond. Yet the dead suffer, trapped, in the world built by the Ehp’uch, who claim god as their title, holding them captive, waiting to suck the lifeblood of the dead, their essence. Protected only by the Lord of Death.”
Xenelpha’s eyes remained pinned on me.
“Our people descended from the line of Faron. And it is he whom we protect. It is his story that’s written in the crypt below the lake. Faron the Cunning, wisest of the Bellators. He’s been preparing us for their return. For he knew he’d only be able to show us in his death…”
I scanned the various skulls peering at Xenelpha when my eyes snagged on a flash of silver.
My heart stuttered as I studied the swirl of silver in the distance, peering at me beneath an ivory skull of a small amatohk.
The dune runner’s wide eye sockets cast a dark shadow over the skin beneath, the glowing silver shining in their depths.
The eyes locked on me, and I realized I had stood, Honor unsheathed and in my palm. The Obscura slithered down my forearms, ready for an attack. Silence filled the chamber as hundreds of eyes landed on me.
“Impostor.” Xenelpha’s voice echoed like the boom of an air cannon.
Four Bone Warriors rushed through the crowd, leaping over rows of bewildered families as the man with silver eyes was tackled to the icy floor, warriors pinning his arms beneath them. Vulcan was at my side in an instant, tense as he watched the scene unfold.
“He was at the Eye of the Wood,” he said quietly.
I shook my head. “Not him. It,” I clarified. “It’s been watching me since you sprang me from Mount Telum last year.”
Ronan stepped next to him, eyes wide, and opened his mouth when the blaring of horns ripped through the domed ice chamber. The people of Rhashtai stilled as the horn sounded once more. The last note echoed through the silent chamber like the bay of an ancient beast.
My pulse pounded against my palms as the Obscura rushed to my veins, mimicking its beat. Xenelpha’s face whipped to the back of the chamber, where a warrior rushed down the slick stairs, sliding to a stop at the bottom.
“Asginas and Nivis warriors,” he warned.
Xenelpha’s face paled beneath her massive mask, and she shouted commands. Chaos erupted in the vast chamber as the massive sections of the ceiling began lifting from the sides, closing the roof of the amphitheater.
Lord Astraeus moved to my side, his lips near my ear as he whispered, “We should go now.”
I caught Nerissa’s gaze and the slight dip of her chin before I eyed Ronan and Vulcan. They were with me. My call.
My mind spun between our options. Get out now and take the Advetis Bone or stay and help Rhashtai. And suddenly, I was back at the Lake of Light, Bayne’s brilliant green eyes boring into me as I weighed a similar decision.
One that cost me my brother’s life. My father’s life. And one that spared many others, as I thought of the families escaping the tribute’s ship. Of Evony leaping off the side.
“Nerissa,” I said, sheathing Honor and turning toward our small group. “Take Carina and head to the front lines. You take the Nivis soldiers.”
A fierce nod was the only response I got before she sprinted up the steps.
“Kresida, stay with Vienah and guard her while she puts out any flames that rise in the village.”
“Astraeus, you and your men are under Ronan’s orders to the west. Our plans before dawn don’t change, but we’ll do what we can while we’re still here.”
Nods all around except for Astraeus, whose eyes narrowed on me. “We should leave now while they’re—"
I lifted a hand. “We won’t leave them undefended.”
I tugged back on that invisible strand of air connecting us, and Astraeus pursed his lips before turning and barking orders at his men.
“Vulcan, with me.”
We set off at a trot, following the group of warriors that continued to shout “Asginas!”
Ashen.