Chapter Fifty-Three Riela
Chapter Fifty-Three
Riela
I awoke to the taste of flowers, and the smell of leather and paper. I was lying on a hard surface, but someone had shoved
a thin bedroll under my back, and I was weighed down by a heavy pile of blankets.
Even so, I shivered, cold on a bone-deep level I’d only felt once before.
It took an age before I could force my eyes open. I blinked at the unfamiliar ceiling, then tilted my head a degree to the
left. Shelves. Shelves of books.
I was in the restricted library, and I was alone.
I frowned as that sank through the layers of fog and exhaustion. I was alone, and yet, I was still in Lohka.
Where were Garrick and Vastien? Had they gotten the antidote in time? I vaguely remembered Bria promising to help them, but
I couldn’t remember if she’d found the antidote.
I needed to find them.
My magic slipped away from my reach, and my body refused to move. Panic gave me the strength to jerk my arm free of the blankets,
but the stone floor felt like lava against my skin.
I moaned in pain, but my strength was gone, and it was taking my consciousness with it.
I sank back into the dark.
I awoke to the vile flavor of replenishment tea. I choked and gagged, and a warm arm wrapped around my chest to keep me in
place.
“Shh,” Garrick soothed. “Easy.”
“Then you drink it,” I slurred without opening my eyes.
The arm around me turned to stone. “Riela?”
I cracked my eyes open at the cautious hope in his voice. We were in his bedroom, though I didn’t know if we were in Edea or Lohka. We were reclining against the bed’s headboard, and the line of heat at my back was his body as he held me up.
“Who else?” I forced out.
He sighed into my hair, his arm tightening. “We didn’t know if you would recover,” he confessed.
“How long?”
“A week.”
“S’okay,” I mumbled, already sinking. “I—”
The rest was lost to the depths.
I awoke to the soft sound of someone breathing. I felt . . . better. Not good, not even good enough to be called bad, but better. I shifted, testing my limbs, and the breathing stopped.
“Riela?” Garrick murmured. His voice was rough with sleep and exhaustion, and I was sorry for waking him.
“How long this time?” I asked. My throat was dry, and my voice was scratchy, but I didn’t feel like I might slip away at any
moment.
“We last spoke yesterday,” he said.
He sat up, removing his heat from my back, and I groaned at the loss. I was still deeply chilled, though the shivers had stopped.
Garrick helped me sit up and lean back against him, then he put a glass of water to my lips. The liquid was cool and delicious,
and I gulped it gratefully.
Until he took the glass away.
I growled, and he chuckled, something desperately like relief in the sound. “You’ll make yourself sick. I’ll give you more
in a moment.”
“Where are we?” I asked.
“We’re in Lohka.”
“I woke up in the library. Alone. What happened?”
“How much do you remember?”
A fight and poison and burning, unimaginable pain. “Some.”
“Do you remember Shar attacking you?”
The agony of the rose vine was seared into my memory. “Yes. Then she attacked the dais.”
“She did,” Garrick agreed quietly. “Another curse from Feylan. It forced us back to Edea.”
“You were going to die,” I whispered. “There was no antidote.”
“I don’t know what happened next,” he admitted. “I remember reassuring you, but the poison had already started eating at me.”
“The door wouldn’t open, so I forced it open.” I closed my eyes and tried to coax the jumble of memories into some semblance
of order. “I think I might’ve stolen magic from King Roseguard’s castle. And the forest?”
“And the land, and Stoneguard Castle, and everything else within a day’s walk.” His voice was carefully neutral.
“Dead?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“No . . . not exactly. Most of the creatures have recovered already. But the land and castle will take more time to return
to health.”
I frowned as something about that bothered me. “You went back,” I murmured, figuring it out. “Without me?”
“The door is open,” Garrick confirmed.
His voice held an odd undertone that I didn’t like. I wanted to ask him about it, but I could already feel sleep creeping
up on me. “Did you drug my water?” I asked around a yawn.
“No, little mage, you are just exhausted. We’ll talk more later. Sleep now.”
I did.
I awoke alone with the blankets carefully tucked around me, and I was nearly warm. I also urgently needed to empty my bladder.
By the time I’d wrestled myself out of my blanket cocoon and to the edge of the bed, I was sweating. I slid off the mattress
and my legs held—barely. I trembled like a newborn fawn, but I made it to the bathroom before I had a humiliating accident.
The bathtub sang a siren song, but I wasn’t sure I could climb in—and, more importantly, back out—without help. I settled for washing my face. I felt better afterward, but my muscles shook with fatigue.
Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I jerked around only to stare at my reflection in the long mirror.
The thick nightgown covered me from neck to toes, and the sleeves draped over my palms. The material was both soft and warm.
I looked at my face. It had lost all the softness it’d slowly gained thanks to the consistent meals over the last few weeks.
My cheekbones were too sharp. I stepped closer with a frown.
My hair was darker, nearly black, with an undertone that almost looked purple in the bathroom’s low light. My eyes had changed,
too. No longer brown, they were now nearly the same color as my hair and flecked through with periwinkle.
What the fuck?
I stepped closer still, until my nose was nearly touching the reflective surface, but the view didn’t change. I rubbed a finger
over my clean cheek. Something was wrong with my skin, too. It was smoother, more luminous, and rosier than it had ever been
before.
I swept my hair back, revealing ears that were unfamiliarly pointed, subtle but undeniable. Realization cut the legs from
beneath me, and I sank down to the cool stone floor.
I was fully Etheri.
This was my true appearance.
Tears welled, and in the jumble of my emotions, I didn’t know if I was crying for the life I’d lost or the one I’d gained.
Maybe both.
I didn’t feel any different, but I was still weak from magic overuse. It was possible that I’d only survived channeling such
a vast amount of magic because I was Etheri.
I reached for my magic, then physically recoiled at the unfamiliar color. Instead of a calming pool of blue, what little magic
I’d recovered now roiled in wispy shades of violet. I hesitantly created a light, and it popped into existence, glowing brightly.
My fingers tingled at the magic draw, so I let the light go. I didn’t want to spend another week in bed because I no longer recognized my magic—or myself.
Moonlit magic thrummed through the air, then Garrick’s voice urgently called, “Riela? Are you well?”
“I’m in the bathroom,” I called back. “You can come in.”
I watched him approach in the mirror. Relief and concern warred on his face when he saw me sitting in front of the mirror.
Then I caught a glimpse of sympathetic realization before he smoothed away the expression. “Did you fall?”
“No, not exactly,” I murmured. “I’m okay, but I’m not sure I can get up.”
Garrick picked me up and turned for the bedroom, but I stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Will you help me bathe? I wasn’t
sure I could do it without drowning, but I’d like to be clean.”
He swallowed. “Of course.”
He ran a bath, testing the water multiple times. Then he helped me remove the nightgown before slowly lowering me into the
lukewarm water. “Is it too hot?” he asked, remembered pain in his voice.
“No.”
“We tried to warm you with baths at first,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “You screamed like you were dying as soon as you touched
the water.” He swallowed. “I thought we’d broken you.”
“I don’t remember.”
His breath shuddered out of him. “Good.”
He let me sink completely into the water, and I sighed. I lifted my arm to reach for a washcloth and froze in fear. Vines
and roses painted the underside of my left forearm from wrist to elbow, but they hadn’t extended.
I traced a finger over the marks, then shivered as phantom pain dug thorns into me. My doubts about whether or not Garrick
was lying about Roseguard had died the moment the Blood King’s magic had torn into me.
Etheri might be ruthless, but it took a certain kind of cruelty to lay a death curse on someone you thought might be your own daughter.
“Shar said I had two weeks until this curse reached my heart.”
“We’ve been monitoring it,” Garrick said. “It hasn’t advanced. It’s possible the amount of magic you channeled broke that
curse, too.”
I blinked at him. “What do you mean, ‘too’?”
He helped me wet my hair, then started massaging shampoo into it before he answered. “What do you remember of our last conversation?”
“You drugged my water.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I didn’t, but you thought I did. Do you remember anything else?”
“The door is open, but you weren’t happy about it. Why weren’t you happy?”
“It very nearly cost your life,” he murmured.
That was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. “What else?”
He sighed and carefully poured water over my head to rinse my hair. “The door is . . . changed.”
“Changed how?” I asked, gripping the sides of the tub as dread climbed my throat. “Did I break it?”
“I don’t know,” Garrick admitted quietly. “Before, only the Silver Court sovereign could open the door, and they could control
who passed through to Edea. Now the door is open for anyone or anything to pass through. We’ve been forced to defend it—on both sides.”
I instinctively reached for my magic to see if I could sense the door, but I sucked in a breath at the unfamiliar color. “My
magic changed colors.”
Garrick stilled for a heartbeat before nodding. “I know. You broke the remaining binding on your magic. You likely broke part
of it when you saved your village. The Sapphire Court has an affinity with water in all its forms, so that’s likely why that
part broke first. Feylan’s magic is scarlet, and now your magic is a blend of the two.”
Misery stole my breath. “King Roseguard—Feylan—is my father.”
“It seems that way, yes,” Garrick confirmed softly.
I mechanically washed my body as my mind whirled. Garrick helped me rinse, then he lifted me straight from the water though
my wet skin soaked the front of his tunic. He carefully wrapped me in a fluffy robe and set me on the edge of the mattress,
then he went to find a towel for my hair.
It occurred to me too late that I should be embarrassed. But I didn’t feel embarrassed—I felt cared for. Tears pricked my
eyes again, but I blinked them back.
Garrick returned and began drying my hair with gentle hands.
“Did Lord Mar know?” I asked. “About me and Feylan?”
Garrick’s jaw clenched, but his touch remained careful. “I don’t know. He helped the Silver Court fight off the distraction
Shar brought, but then he vanished. No one has seen him since—and I’ve had people quietly looking.”
“Was he injured? Maybe he retreated to recover in safety.” Garrick sighed, and I bit my lip. “I know it’s suspicious, but
I never felt unsafe around him. He really did seem like he was trying to help.”
“He could’ve been helpful because he was sending the information straight to Feylan.”
“Maybe,” I hedged. I’d liked Mar, and it hurt to think that he’d been betraying me the whole time. “What else?” I asked. “Tell me the rest.”
“Grim’s curse is broken. He can choose either form in Edea.”
“That’s good, right?”
Garrick rubbed his thumb over my shoulder. “It is.” He hesitated, then blew out a long breath before admitting, “You have
also seemingly broken the seal on the forest. Magical creatures are no longer restricted to its bounds.”
My heart leapt. I could go home!
Just as quickly, it fell again. I was Etheri. My home was no longer in Edea—at least, not permanently.
Then the full meaning of Garrick’s words hit and horror bloomed. “The monsters are free.”
“We’ve been doing what we can,” Garrick said, “but there are only so many soldiers I trust, especially around humans for the
first time in a century. The Blood Court is being . . . less cautious.”
“Oh, no.” I breathed the words as the horror deepened. I’d doomed my village and every surrounding village along with it.
And if the old stories were to be believed, I might have doomed the entirety of Yishwar, if not Edea itself.
“I have to fix this.” I jerked up from the bed, but my legs refused to hold me. I would’ve hit the floor if Garrick hadn’t
snagged my wrist at the last second and pulled me back.
“You can’t even stand. You need to rest.”
I shook my head. “Help me dress.”
“There’s more,” he admitted.
“What more could there possibly be?”
“Feylan has officially invoked the law of primogeniture. He felt your magic when you opened the door. He knows you’re a focus,
and he’s desperate to have you. We have three days, including today, before you must appear in the Blood Court or risk war.”