Chapter 47
DAWNbrINGER
CEDRIC
“Oh, it is good to see you. I’ve missed you, my dear boy.”
Cedric was frozen in place.
“Ric?” Elyria’s voice was soft, careful. “What’s going on?”
He tried to steady his thundering heart. “I don’t—I don’t understand.” His mind raced, ancient memories suddenly surfacing—whispered stories told at bedtime, meat pies baking in the oven.
Concern pulsed down the bond. “Talk to me.”
“My—my nanny, as a child. My family’s housemaid. I saw her again, during the second trial. I thought she perished the same night my parents did.”
“And you never knew she was sylvan the entire time?” Elyria asked aloud, several faces suddenly looking at the two of them, perplexed.
“Are we, uh, missing something?” Ollie asked, having moved toward the group with a furrowed brow.
Jocelyn sighed, folding her arms over her chest. “Oh, I would venture to guess there are quite a few things we need to get caught up on, Oleander.”
Cedric shook his head. “I still don’t understand.” He groaned internally. Fuck if he wasn’t tired of hearing himself say that. He turned to Thraigg. “You—you know her?” Turned back to Alouette. Larkess. Whoever she was. “You know him?”
“Who d’ye think sent me into the Crucible after yer accident-prone arse, boyo?” Thraigg said, slapping his leg with a chuckle, though there was something serious reflected in the dwarf’s blue eyes.
Cedric’s own eyes widened, his mind replaying the way Thraigg had fought at his side during the first trial. His refusal to leave him to face that dragon alone. His answer when Cedric had asked why he’d helped him.
“I’ve my own reasons and none of them involve seeing ye roasted alive.”
Cedric whirled back to Larkess. “You sent him in to protect me? Why, when your own agent was already being sent to carry out her crafty mission?” He pointed a finger at Zephyr. “You needed two spies in there trying to bond with me?”
Elder Larkess pressed her lips together, her skin faltering back to its natural shade, her glamour slipping away. “He was never a spy. I had a job available. My old friend volunteered to fill it.”
Cedric blinked, momentarily stunned. “A job,” he said flatly. “Every champion who ever entered the Sanctum died, and you considered that a job?”
Thraigg gave an infuriatingly casual shrug.
Elyria looked from the dwarf to the elder and back again. “Fuck me if I don’t want to hear the story of how the two of you became friends, but if someone doesn’t actually give a real answer to Cedric’s questions we are both going to combust. Why?”
“By the Five, yes, please.” Cedric’s chest felt tight, his flame sparking to life in his veins. “Will somebody just tell me why? What does any of this have to do with me? Why would you go through the trouble?”
“Because I wanted you to survive,” said the elder.
“Four fucking hells. Spit it out!” Elyria seethed, her hand seeking Cedric’s as though she needed him to ground her, to keep herself from lashing out again.
If she noticed how every surrounding person tracked the motion, she didn’t seem to care, and that made something settle in Cedric’s chest—something like contentment, or maybe pride.
Elder Larkess, too, watched the two of them link their fingers together, then waved her arm in the air as though to dismiss the watching crowd. Without a word, they dispersed, leaving only the elder and Zephyr still standing with the group.
“Why?” Cedric repeated.
Larkess’ voice cracked with emotion when she said, “Because I loved your mother, and your father, and you, you stupid, wonderful boy. Because you are the hope of this entire realm, Cedric.”
He was suddenly very glad to have Elyria holding his hand for the way the ground seemed to shift under Cedric’s very feet.
“I failed them both when it mattered most,” Larkess continued. “And I swore to the roots of this world I would not fail you too.”
Cedric swallowed, tightening his hold on Elyria’s hand. She squeezed right back, a pulse of warmth shimmering down the thread—support, sympathy.
“Who were they? My parents? Who were they that you were with us all that time?”
“I think you know.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
Silence stretched across the clearing. Even the birds had fallen quiet.
“Your mother was Selenae Orielle Vienna, the First and Only Daughter of House Nero, the Sunfyre Heir.” Larkess drew a breath. “Princess of Luminaria.”
Elyria gasped.
Cedric felt as though the world itself had cracked open beneath him.
“That can’t—It’s not . . . That’s not possible,” he managed to eke out.
Elyria drew closer, wrapping both her hands around his one, as though she cradled something fragile. Something close to breaking.
Just acknowledging that he might be mixedborn had been hard enough. But this? Cedric’s mind was already flooded—a full lifetime of memories and dreams and unanswered questions piling up, one on top of another on top of another.
“What’s gotten into you, my little phoenix?”
The happy, secluded life they’d led. The dagger his mother always wore at her hip.
The nightmarish way it had all ended—in fire, in blood.
The cultists who attacked them that night, who murdered Lysander Thorne in cold blood, who carved the scar into Cedric’s face .
. . they had been searching for something. Or had it been for someone?
Was it possible that Lennie Thorne was, in fact, the lost princess Cedric himself had been searching for?
“Keep it secret, little phoenix. And when the time comes, burn it all down.”
His mother’s final words—spoken as she stood in a blazing cottage, dark magic crawling up her body—echoed in his ears.
It had taken more than twenty years for him to remember them at all.
Took him sitting alone in a moonlit alcove, his head in his hands, going over and over and over the truths revealed during the Trial of Spirit.
Cedric’s power swelled, that furnace deep in his chest lighting up. Magic scorched through his veins, ignited by the sudden barrage of truth.
For a moment, he felt that loss of control, that unbidden build of power, just like before he combusted for the first time. When the only thing that had been able to quell his fire had been Elyria.
Not fire.
“Not a flamecaller,” he thought, the next word already formed in his mind before Elyria sent it beaming down the bond.
“Sunbringer.”
“All this time,” he murmured. And he knew he would not combust now, would not explode in a swirl of white-gold flame. Not when that wisp of Elyria’s shadow was already inside him—soothing him, tempering his storm.
A tiny touch of ash embedded in the starfyre—no, sunfyre—that burned within him.
And then it was her voice burning through Cedric’s mind, the echo of their playful exchange in the training yard, before she showed him her sparrows for the first time.
“A blade to turn enemies to ash, wielded by the knight who rose from it.”
The hand not clutched between Elyria’s was still wrapped around Ashrender’s hilt. His father’s sword. His mother’s power?
Elyria’s emerald eyes were lined with silver when Cedric looked at her. He felt the swell of light in his chest at the sight, the shimmering cord of their thread pulling against his ribs.
“You are Daephinia’s heir.” Elyria’s words were a reverent whisper, and Cedric almost released an entirely inappropriate laugh at just how ridiculous it felt for her to be talking about him with that sort of awe. She was the one who deserved veneration, not him.
He was no one.
He was just Cedric.
Wasn’t he?
“It’s not—I’m not—” He sucked in a sharp breath, needing to say the words even if he already doubted them. “I don’t think this is possible. I cannot be—”
“What, mixedborn? The son of the lost princess? The Dawnbringer?” Elder Larkess sounded amused.
Cedric was not.
“The what?”
The elder smiled. “Zephyr? Would you?”
Cedric had almost forgotten about the other sylvan entirely.
She stood from the table with a nod, coughing into her fist, her voice small as she began reciting the celestial prophecy.
In all honesty, Cedric did not particularly care to hear it, and it seemed neither did Elyria, given the way she rolled her eyes with each sanctimonious verse.
They were the only ones, however. Every other ear in the glade was rapturously listening to Zephyr’s recitation, as if they hoped to glean new information from it.
“From bitterest rivals to heartbreaking ends, two bloods shall find their way,” Zephyr said, and Elyria tensed at Cedric’s side. “Through sacrifice, darkness, and friendship betrayed, as dawn brings a new day.”
Cedric chose to ignore the not-so-subtle curse that Elyria muttered under her breath.
Zephyr cleared her throat once more, her shoulders hunching like she was trying to fold in on herself as she finished. “So will they reclaim the One True Crown, wielding its terrible might. A choice will be offered, an offer then made: Heal the realm or cast it into night.”
“Do you see, my boy?” Larkess said, stepping forward and cupping Cedric’s face gently—just for a moment. “You are the prophecy. Dawnbringer. Realm healer.”
“No pressure, boyo.”
Cedric’s eyes narrowed on Thraigg, who had fat tears rolling down his ruddy cheeks. “Did you know?”
The dwarf sniffled. “Gaia’s tits, Ric. Does this look like the bloomin’ face of someone who knew ye were the stars-damned son of prophecy?”
Cedric shook his head. “I’m not. I can’t be. I am not the one who claimed the crown.” Like an instinct, he pulled Elyria closer.
“Prophecy is not always exact,” Elder Larkess mused.
“One of you claimed half of the crown. In doing so, so did the other.” She peered at Cedric and Elyria, her milky gaze assessing.
It flicked from their linked hands to their dually protective postures to the sides of their necks.
Then, dropping her voice as if only speaking to herself, the elder said, “I sense it. Sense the tie between you. Two halves, making a whole.”
Cedric blinked rapidly, the inner corners of his eyes pricking sharply.
“Yes, the prophecy does seem to have a rather funny obsession with twos, doesn’t it?
” Elyria grumbled. “Two bloods finding their way, two pieces of the crown.” She paused, looking up at Cedric, her mouth pursing to one side.
“Leaves space for interpretation wider than the fucking Chasm, doesn’t it?
Aurelia herself said the crown had not fully been claimed.
That it wouldn’t, until the halves were reunited.
So we may not even have gotten to that part of the prophecy yet. ”
“And the ‘two bloods’ could refer to the two of you, together, or it could just mean you alone, Cedric,” Zephyr added quietly.
Elyria grimaced, as though agreeing with Zephyr caused her physical pain, but she nodded. “Human and Arcanian blood flows through your veins, solimaeus.”
The unfamiliar word that filtered through Cedric’s mind was lost to the feeling of something cracking behind his ribs. A splinter of grief, sharp and sudden. He turned back to Larkess. “My father?”
“Lysander Thorne was as human as they come,” she said. “But brave. Fierce in his convictions. He loved you and your mother beyond reason. Willing to live a small life to keep you safe. Died protecting you both.”
Cedric swallowed the lump in his throat. “When they came that night, what were they looking for? My mother? And why didn’t you—” His voice cracked. “Why did you let me go with Lord Church, if you survived that night? Why couldn’t I have stayed with you?”
It wasn’t as though he would have traded the life he was given. He wouldn’t go back and change where he ended up. It brought him Tristan and Tenny and his other friends and a lifetime of experiences that had him taking on the Crucible at the exact right time to meet . . .
He flexed his hand around Elyria’s, adjusting his hold. She began playing with his ring, spinning it around his finger, and in spite of everything Cedric was hearing, in spite of himself, he was somewhat stunned to find he wanted to smile.
She was the only anchor he needed.
But he also needed to understand.
Larkess’ face fell, genuine sadness lining the weathered creases bracketing her mouth, spearing from the outer corners of her eyes.
“Oh, sweet boy. If only I could have. But I did not escape that night entirely unscathed.” She drew back the long, pooling sleeve of her robe to reveal a vicious, puckered scar carving up her arm from wrist to shoulder.
“And by the time I was well enough to return, you were already gone. He had already taken you.”
“Lord Church,” Cedric whispered. A new wave of thoughts started to intrude.
How much did the lord paramount know? His piercing gaze, his air of all-knowingness suddenly took on a different tint as Cedric thought back through their interactions together over the years.
His total unwillingness to discuss Cedric’s parentage, the origins of how he came to live under his care.
The unrelenting path Lord Church put Cedric on when the time came to start training for the Crucible.
There was something dangling just out of reach of Cedric’s comprehension, a final piece of this strange and impossible puzzle that he just couldn’t seem to grasp.
The elder’s thin lips pressed together as though she, too, had opinions on the man who had raised Cedric in her stead.
“You have become a fine man, Cedric. And so I must be grateful to him for that alone. But I think you know as well as I do that it had little to do with him. Just as who you have become has little to do with your lineage.”
At that, Cedric scoffed. “You say that out of one side of your mouth, yet out of the other you are trying to tell me that I am some kind of prophesied prince? That I will bring the dawn and heal the realm? Make up your mind.”
“You are both. You are more.” She looked from him to Elyria and back again. “Sunbringer. The phoenix reborn. The rising sun.”
A chill ran through Cedric.
The sun will rise.
“Varyth Malchior knows,” he said darkly. “He must. Otherwise, why would he bother setting up that trap in Dawnspire? Isolating me from the others?”
Elyria tensed. “ ‘He is required.’ That’s what Avery said. What he said Malchior said, I mean.”
“And what I think we all want to know,” chimed in Thraigg, “is exactly what the damn bastard requires Ric for.”
There was a beat of silence.
“There is something else I need to know too.” Cedric squared his shoulders, lifting his chin.
Everyone waited.
“If Selenae was my mother,” he said slowly, every word heavy, “then the lost princess truly is lost. I saw her ripped apart before my very eyes.”
Elyria leaned into him. He leaned right back.
“But if she died more than twenty years ago”—he turned his face toward Elder Larkess—“then what happened to the other half of the crown?”