Chapter 63
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Tynan Obscura, bringer of death. Shadows and night bend to his might.
—Lock Scroll, the Arx.
Gentle waves lapped a lullaby outside Isla’s small cabin on the Evecta. Honor whined as I sliced a thin strand of leather from my belt, the scent driving my thoughts to the pirate lord and his words. Why did I know his scent?
I tied the leather strand around the base of the ebony braid I’d plaited in Isla’s clean hair. She sat on her cot, legs crossed and feet tucked beneath her thighs. It’d taken a day to coax her out of her bloody, sodden clothes and into a fresh set of leathers.
Wax dripped from the tip of the sole taper in the room as I tilted its flame and lit the end of a bundle of incense. The sizzling spark sent a gentle line of smoke snaking toward the ceiling. I closed my eyes and took a deep inhale of the calming peppermint.
Isla’s haunted eyes remained on her hands.
Her lips were drawn in a thin line. Selvina had healed her physical wounds.
But the trauma of enduring it all a second time…
I didn’t ask her what she’d relived or if she was okay.
I knew she wasn’t. Just as I knew that had Dark King Daimos used the Ramadiel power on me, forced me to relive every pain inflicted on my body, I’d be far from okay.
“I’m here, Isla.” I once again whispered the only words that seemed appropriate. Anything else, any questions felt prying, even the empathy in my heart seemed assumptive. She dragged her amber eyes toward me, a small bud of silver pooling beneath them.
She lifted a tentative hand to mine, and I raised my brows in question.
Her throat bobbed. Her bronze skin was now free of those haunting, hand-shaped bruises.
Every touch sent her reeling, spiraling back into whatever dark place had awoken inside her.
Her brows pinched upward, and my hand slowly reached for hers, clasping tightly around her still-frigid fingers.
I held more than her hand in that moment.
I held her heart, her friendship, the memory of the light that had disappeared from her eyes in those moments in the valley with the dark king.
I held onto those memories in the Living Library and at the Awakening.
I held onto strength for the both of us.
For we would need it if we were to face what was to come.
She gave a weak squeeze back as a soft knock tapped on the door.
Her eyes darted behind me, and she gave a soft nod. I held on a moment longer, squeezing once more before she let go and slumped onto her bed. I draped a thick fur over her before turning to the door.
Bayne loomed in the dark hall with a taper in his hand. I quietly closed the door as I squeezed into the small space with him. His dark brows rose in question. I pursed my lips, shaking my head, not needing to explain Isla’s state. When Isla was ready for others, she’d let us know.
My hands rubbed against my face to keep my fatigue at bay.
Bayne’s hand gripped my forearm, and my eyes shot open.
We’d yet to have more than a glimpsing moment of privacy together, and there was so much we needed to talk about.
His brows narrowed as his gaze darted between my arms, something like cautious recognition flickering in his green eyes.
A twisting of shame and unease coiled its way into my chest as I followed his stare to the gilded rivers of black slithering beneath my skin, a permanent marking of my powers on full display.
I wasn’t sure when it had happened, when the black and gold markings on my arms stopped disappearing after the use of my powers.
They were here now, and they did not leave.
He schooled his features, recovering quickly. His eyes darted back to my own. But in the span of that mere second, that momentary lapse of control, I saw it. I felt it. The fear. The doubt.
Bayne released his grip, tilting his head to the stairs.
My stomach twisted. We had so much to talk about…
so much I needed to unpack and unload. So much I needed to understand, needed to confess.
Because while I cared for him, the force binding us had shifted.
My feelings for him had reshaped. I made to follow when a piercing wail shot through the corridor.
My hair stood on end at the sound of Lida’s torturous cry. Bayne’s head snapped to the door at the end of the hall.
“Go,” I breathed, wrenching the word from my lips.
Lida had been shaken, uneasy, barely willing to leave Bayne’s side since her transformation. Her caramel skin had returned its normal hue, but bags sat beneath her haunted tawny eyes.
Bayne’s brows pinched in apology, but I gave him a firm shake of my head. She needed him more right now.
I paused as Isla’s door creaked upon pushing it open. I poked my head inside and noted the slow rise and fall of her shoulder. Her thick lashes were a dark smudge above her high cheekbones. I slowly eased the door shut when a sliver of wind gently wrapped itself around my long braid.
My heart stilled for a moment as the leather and cedar scent followed.
Kellan’s tall frame was a dark silhouette at the edge of the sea. Wind whipped off the Juniper waves, and I sucked in a sharp breath, steeling myself against its frigidness. My boots sank into inches of powdery snow that covered the sand.
“I told you not to touch my hair,” I murmured as I stepped next to him, but I couldn’t help the upward tug of my lips.
Kellan huffed a laugh through his nose but kept his eyes on the dark horizon and remained quiet.
“Strange to see snow on sand,” I finally said, wrapping my arms around myself.
“Strange, but beautiful,” he replied. “It’s better than blood.”
A memory tapped against my mind, and my brows furrowed, unable to place it.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began, as he crossed his arms and turned to me.
“Congratulations,” I cut in, pinching my lips between my teeth to keep from smiling.
The corner of his lips kicked up, but the smirk was half-hearted. My throat bobbed at the solemnity that had befallen him.
“I need to tell you some things, Lyvia,” he continued, and his head tipped back as his gaze followed the long line of stars stretching up the sky.
“Okay,” I said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
Kellan turned back to me and rubbed a hand over his face as if he could wipe away the exhaustion.
“I know you can break the air oath,” he said. “And if you wish to do so after I share this with you, I won’t try to stop you, but you are someone I want to be honest with.”
My brows pinched, and my chest squeezed as unease slipped into me.
“There is a reason Xenelpha held me in that cell in the Death Dunes. Why she thought I was a bigger threat,” he continued. His dark eyes softened as his brows tilted up, as if long-held secrets waited cautiously beneath the surface.
I swallowed as he paused. His eyes drifted to his hands.
“You are one of the Starlings, the People of the Stars,” I said for him.
Daimos had said as much. Children of the gods. His dark eyes sparked as they slid up to mine, and for the first time, those tiny bits of gray seemed to lighten, looking eerily similar to the stars shining above us.
As his chin dipped in confirmation, the gray flashed to silver, and I staggered back a step, fear pulsing through me.
“I’m not him,” he said, holding a hand out. “I’m not an imposter. I’m not the Messenger.” His brows pinched upward.
My powers surged as my eyes skipped between his. Those silver eyes, so similar to the Impostor, the being watching me. But Kellan… His mouth parted as his eyes searched mine.
Paralyzed, unable to move beneath his stare, I let the feeling sit, my heart banging against my ribs.
A hawk trilled nearby, and a flash of white drew my attention inland. The snowy white hawk swooped overhead and soared toward the Onyx Tower. Nishanth, Selvina’s hawk, the one I’d seen out my window during my time at the Crystal Castle.
Kellan took a step forward, and I shook my head.
“I need to see Selvina.” I tore my gaze away from the cooling silver in Kellan’s eyes. His brows pinched upward as I left him on the snowy beach.
A soft crackle popped in the fire that lined the back of the throne room of the Onyx Tower, and I breathed in the burning wood. My powers stood at attention upon entering the fortress, and my blood pumped wildly at being back in this haunted place.
Selvina’s blonde-white hair was tied into an elaborate braid that rested over her shoulders as she paced in front of the dais.
Her eyes frequently shot toward the man in the velvet sitting chair, his jet-black hair disheveled as he ran his hands through it, turning his sapphire eyes toward me as I approached.
There was no warmth in Aeriden’s gaze. My eyes shot to Selvina, who held them without balking.
How much had she told him? Had she assumed I’d told him what I’d done to our father?
Shame and self-hatred writhed in the pit of my stomach at the thought of what she must have revealed to elicit the empty look he gave me now.
I tore my gaze away as I clenched my fists, forcing them to stop shaking as I approached.
Ursa’s crystal blue eyes sparkled in the light of the fire as she watched Selvina.
I pulled my gaze away, finding I couldn’t look at her.
Not without dredging up a torrent of pain from the well of emotions I kept locked down.
She looked so much like her sister Eira, like the elf who had given her life for me.
“Sacrifices had to be made,” Selvina finally said, her long, blue nightgown swishing as she stopped her pacing. “And they will continue to be made.”
“It didn’t have to end the way it did,” Aeriden gritted out. “You were all there. You could have helped her. Helped him.”
The musk of exhaustion that had settled on me was wiped away with a nauseating, plunging feeling.