Chapter 49 A Phoenix Rising
A PHOENIX RISING
ELYRIA
“What happened to the other half of the crown?” Cedric’s question was a crack of lightning splitting the air.
For a moment, no one spoke. No one moved.
Elyria looked between the knight and the elder, then to Ollie, Jocelyn, Thraigg, Shep, and even Zephyr in turn.
Her brow furrowed but she kept herself from speaking into the silence, spewing an onslaught of questions all her own.
It was Cedric’s turn to demand answers. He deserved them.
He’d just been dealt the emotional equivalent of Polonius rear-kicking him in the chest, for fuck’s sake.
Elder Larkess blinked—slow at first, then rapidly, as if trying to clear her vision. “What do you mean?”
Cedric’s brow furrowed. “The Crown of Concord. The . . . half-crown? In the Sanctum, Aurelia told us that the other half was given to the lost princess. To my”—his throat bobbed—“to my mother.”
Elder Larkess took a slow step forward, her gaze narrowing, sharpening. “You don’t have it?”
A strange tightness gripped Elyria’s chest.
“No,” he said carefully. “I never had it.”
The elder’s eyes widened in alarm. “What do you mean?” she asked again. She turned to Elyria, searching her face as if hoping she might contradict the knight. “You have it, yes? Tell me you have the locket.”
Cedric blinked. “The locket?”
Elder Larkess threw her weathered hands up, her voice tinged with hysteria.
“Yes! The locket! Your mother’s locket! She only wore it every day of her life.
” She looked pointedly at Ashrender, slung at Cedric’s hip, then to his and Elyria’s interlocked hands and the silver ring sitting on his finger.
“You have those, surely you have the locket too? Don’t you? ”
When Cedric didn’t answer, her face went pale.
“Earth Mother save us, if you don’t have it .
. .” She wrung her wrinkled hands together, pacing back and forth with a slow shuffle of her feet.
When she spoke again, it was as if she was only talking to herself.
“No, no, it’s all right. It’s fine. I would know.
I would know if the magic had been undone. Even if it is lost, it will be—”
“What are you talking about?” Elyria asked, cutting through the elder’s rambling.
“What does my mother’s locket have to do with the crown?” Cedric asked at the exact same time.
Larkess looked up, eyes wide as her gaze darted between them. “The locket is the crown.”
Shocked silence settled over the group. The way Thraigg’s mouth popped open might have been comical, had the context been anything other than what it was.
“Say that again?” Elyria said, enunciating each word as though the elder was speaking another language entirely.
“The crown is the locket. The locket is the crown. Transfigured. Transformed.”
“Verdancy,” Cedric whispered, and the elder nodded.
“The Earth Mother’s blessings are many, though not all of us are able to wield them in the same way.
Access to the Verdant Veil allows us to do many things.
Change ourselves.” She made a point of looking at Zephyr.
“Change other things, to a degree. And for a cost.” Her hands shook as she gestured to herself.
“My magic has kept half of the Crown of Concord masked in the form of your mother’s locket for almost two hundred years. ”
Cedric finally withdrew his fingers from Elyria’s in order to rake both hands through his hair. “I don’t—Fuck. I don’t want to say ‘I don’t understand’ again, but I don’t know what else to say. I hardly know where to begin. This is—I can’t—Fuck.”
Elyria could feel his panic, could feel the rising swell of his power, like the two were tied together and searching for an outlet, for release.
And despite agreeing with his general sentiment, because she, too, was still finding this all difficult to comprehend, Elyria forced herself to remain calm.
She refused to add to Cedric’s distress.
Admittedly, this was not an easy task for her in the best of times. But for him, she would try.
“Just breathe,” she said down the bond, and Cedric blew out a breath.
“I know it is a lot to digest, dear boy. To not only learn of your lineage, of your role in the prophecy”—she glanced at Zephyr—“but also of Varyth Malchior’s interest in you? And to now know the state of the crown? It is enough to break any man.”
“He is not breaking,” Elyria said sharply, and when Cedric turned to look at her, his mouth had curved up to one side.
“Because he is not just any man,” the elder said, nodding in agreement.
“Ye said a mouthful right there, that’s for sure,” Thraigg muttered under his breath, and Elder Larkess chuckled, some of the tension in the air releasing.
“It is . . . a lot,” Cedric said slowly, exhaling again.
“And I may need to revisit several, if not all, of these topics once they have sunk in. But right now, the one that concerns me most is that final one. If the locket is the crown we have been searching for, if that truly is the other piece, then both halves are lost. One to Varyth Malchior—”
He wasn’t looking at Zephyr. Seemed to be refusing to meet her gaze entirely, in fact. But Elyria didn’t miss the shame-filled dip of the sylvan’s chin, nor the way her eyes fluttered closed as though she were in pain.
Good.
“—and the other to who knows where. My mother’s locket was lost the night she was killed. I don’t know if it burned up in the fire along with her and my father”—he swallowed, nervously twisting his ring—“or if something else happened to it, but either way, I’ve never had it.”
Elyria took a step toward the elder, finally unable to keep her questions at bay.
“Could someone else have taken it? Could they have it right now? Is it possible they could’ve unlocked its original form and sold the crown half to Varyth Malchior?
Is there a chance he could have already reunited the pieces and—”
“No. No.” The conviction in the elder’s voice—firm, confident—had Elyria’s rapid heartbeat immediately slowing.
“Well, thank the stars for small miracles,” she breathed, “but how are you so sure?”
“I would know if the transfiguration had been reversed. We would all know. My magic is tied to it.” Once more, Elder Larkess gestured to herself. “I am tied to it. Only I can break it. Or the spell will only break once I have.”
“Once you have . . . broken?” Cedric asked, his voice low.
Elder Larkess nodded, and there was a sad smile on her face when she said, “Aren’t you glad I didn’t die that night?”
“Another reason why it was so important to protect the sanctuary.” Zephyr’s voice was little more than a high-pitched whisper as she came forward. “Varyth Malchior can search forever for the crown. He’ll never find the other half. And even if he did, he’d never be able to unlock its power.”
“This does not absolve you of your crime,” Elyria spat. “Did you even know that the prize at the end of the Crucible was only half the crown when you promised it to him?”
Zephyr straightened her shoulders. “No,” she said. “I only learned of the locket when I returned to Elderglade afterward. When I told the elders of everything that happened in the Sanctum.”
Elyria threw her eyes to the sky with a scoff. “All the shit you did, you mean.”
“We all made choices in there,” Zephyr said, her voice stronger. “We all did things to protect the people we love.”
Elyria bit her lip. She had done the same, hadn’t she?
The image of Evander’s face as he faded from this world—wrenched from life at her own hand—overwhelmed her.
Guilt and grief exploded from that rattling box she held in her chest, great enough that Cedric must have felt it, because the next thing she knew, her own name was a whisper in her mind, pulling her back from the edge.
“Elle. That wasn’t your fault. Malchior corrupted him, and you saved us all.”
“She is right though. It was a choice that I made. I saved you,” Elyria said back, her resolve a steel brace against her spine. “And if I had to do it over, I would choose you again.”
Light shimmered down the thread, warmth that seemed to come straight from Cedric’s heart shooting into Elyria’s, blooming bright and beautiful.
“Ev chose to make that deal,” she continued. “He allowed Malchior’s darkness in and let him escape the Sanctum.”
“We all made choices,” Cedric repeated, and Elyria could only nod at the truth in that.
“Um, so sorry to interrupt whatever this is”—Ollie’s voice was like a brick being thrown through glass—“but what in all four hells is happening here?”
Elyria’s brow creased as she looked first at Ollie, who was pointing back at her, then followed the line of his sight. To her own chest, where soft light was emitting from beneath her blouse, seeping out over the edges of her vest.
“What the—”
“A true soul-bond,” said Elder Larkess. “Incredible.”
Elyria glanced at Cedric, taking in the glow breaking through the cracks in his armor, warm and bright. Something like pride had the back of her throat feeling tight, even as bewilderment still blared in her mind.
“Is this . . . normal?” Elyria asked the elder.
“It is not,” Larkess replied, matter-of-factly.
Well, then.
“I have met only a few soul-bonded pairs in my very long lifetime,” she continued, looking between Cedric and Elyria analytically, like she was observing some rare new species. “This link between you seems different even from those I have known.”
Elyria could feel the focused stares of her friends, and she brushed off the whisper of embarrassment she felt creeping along her shoulders.
She and Cedric had claimed each other. They were soul-tied.
She needed to own that fact. “I think it is different. Our magic has always felt linked, calling to each other, even before.”
Her and Cedric’s mutual glow faded as she spoke the words aloud, like it was settling back inside them. Realization struck. “It’s because you are Daephinia’s grandson, isn’t it? And I am Malakar’s . . . unintended recipient.” Her lip curled as she said the last part.
“Sunbringer and nightwielder,” said the elder. “Your magic has been trying to reunite since the Shattering.”
“Why would that be?” asked Elyria. “Especially if Daephinia’s magic is what destroyed Malakar? Wouldn’t each of our magics have rejected the other, rather than be constantly drawing us together?”
Elder Larkess’ expression softened. “Because destruction was never Aurelia’s intention when she granted humans the ability to wield magic.”
Elyria blinked, but it was Cedric who asked, “What do you mean?”
“Magic is about balance. Dark and light, shadow and sun. As the Guardian of Balance herself, Aurelia knew that better than any other. But when Malakar twisted the star goddess’ gift, he broke the scale.
” Elder Larkess tilted her head, tapping her chin like she was deep in thought.
“I do not speak for the celestials, so take from this what you will, but I believe your magic drew you toward each other because it knew that both halves needed the other in order for balance to be restored.”
Cedric exhaled. “So, the bond between us . . .”
“It is magic’s way of mending what was broken.”
Elyria’s magic stirred at the words, her shadows thrumming as if in affirmation.
Another beat of silence fell over the group—not shocked this time, not full of expectancy. Reverential. Awestruck.
Elyria cleared her throat. “So, what now? We came here looking for answers about Princess Selenae and the missing half of the crown. We found them.”
“They just weren’t anything like we could have imagined,” Cedric said.
“Right. And now we know that the other half of the crown is somewhere out there in the world, we just have no idea where. It may be hidden in the form of a locket, but are we supposed to just, I don’t know, let it be?
” Elyria had held onto the dream of filling the Chasms and repairing the continent for some time.
She wasn’t sure she was ready to let go of it yet.
Cedric frowned. “In the Sanctum, Aurelia told us that we could use one half of the crown to find the other. If we still had possession of the first half”—multiple heads turned to glare at Zephyr, who was still staring at the ground—“maybe we could have used it to find the other piece.”
Elyria made a face.
“What?” Cedric asked.
“I mean, she said, ‘One piece will lead you to the other,’ ” Elyria corrected. “Technically, she didn’t say a piece of what.”
Elder Larkess nodded. “As with prophecy, you cannot always take what celestials say at face value. Perhaps she was talking about the two of you coming together.”
“I don’t know about that,” Elyria said with a scoff. “I think if that’s what she meant, she wouldn’t have been so stars-damned surprised when Cedric came back to life.”
“A phoenix risen,” said the elder, awe and pride beaming from her as she looked Cedric over. “If only your mother could be here to see it.”
Cedric’s throat bobbed. “Can you locate her locket? You said it’s tied to you, to your magic. Can you sense where it is?”
“Alas, I cannot,” she answered. “Knowing how valuable it was meant burying its true nature so deep that even the most talented of magic wielders would never know what it really was.” The elder released a weary sigh.
“Again, doing so was not without cost. Between the magic needed to transfigure the crown and maintain my glamour, I had little to spare. It’s why I couldn’t .
. . There was nothing I could do that night. I am sorry.”
Cedric shook his head. “I spent a lot of time blaming others for my parents’ deaths.
” He glanced at Elyria, his expression forlorn.
But before she even had a chance to speak, to send reassurance down the bond that she never held his fears or his blame against him, he continued.
“I know now that the fault lies only with the cultists who actually cut them down, and the man who sent them there. I blame no one but Varyth Malchior, for all the sins he has committed.” His eyes burned with golden fire, and Elyria nodded against the tightness in her throat.
“Then Malchior should be the focus of your vengeance,” said Larkess. “Even without the crown, he is a blight on this world. He must be stopped.”
“And he has his eyes on Cedric.” Elyria’s fist curled at her side.
“Yes.” Elder Larkess glanced at Shep and Jocelyn, her wizened brow furrowing. “What I have been told of your encounter in Dawnspire disturbs me for this reason. I am not so certain the crown is even what he seeks anymore.”