Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
There is a beauty here, in this land. Something to preserve, beyond the people itself. We tend to lose sight of that, distracted as we are with the problems of the day.
— From the journal of Violet Andrever
It was like nothing I had ever experienced.
We churned through lights and sounds, energy sticking to us, jostling us back and forth.
It ebbed and flowed, sometimes shaking me and sometimes causing me to feel like I was moving through molasses, as though it was trying to prevent me from going, while impulsion kept me inching forward.
Through it all, Griff kept me clasped tightly against him, my head tucked under his chin, his strong body absorbing the worst of the buffeting.
And then it spat us out.
Fuck. He hadn’t been lying. He was a teleporter.
“Welcome to Valdris,” he said softly.
We had landed in a small, grassy clearing on the top of a small mountain.
I staggered back, bile threatening to rise, but I clamped down on the nausea as sensations washed over me.
I had thought the ones from this morning when I stepped outside the stones were intense, but they were nothing like this.
Seven distinct paths—channels, really—unfurled within me, each one humming a unique song in an overwhelming feeling of joy and hope, threatening to overflow from me.
I squashed their attempts, and they settled down to a slight simmer.
But more than these physical sensations in my chest, there was an overwhelming feeling of being known.
Of being seen. As if the very earth and air around me had an awareness that welcomed me, as though it had been waiting and watching for time untold for this moment to occur.
As if it wanted, desperately, for me to be here.
And somehow, those expectations didn’t make me feel judged, but rather at ease, like I was finally coming home, to a place I belonged.
Then there were our surroundings. I was struck by the sheer size of what loomed before me.
Walls stretched upward, taller than three men standing on each other’s shoulders, reaching toward the evening sky painted with oranges, purples, and reds.
I craned my neck back to see the top of the walls, where I could just barely make out silhouettes of guards stationed along the battlements.
A gate rose up before me, its massive iron bars equally imposing, with a bridge allowing access from one side of the walls to the other.
The walls themselves were stone, a patchwork in every shade of gray, yellow, and brown, as if each generation had built and rebuilt them, with each addition weathering the changing seasons differently.
A barely discernible shimmer ran along the surface of the stones and the iron bars of the gate, resonating within me like the onyx stones of Fairhaven.
I rotated in a slow circle. A paved path spread out from the gates, leading to a city spiraling down the mountainside in terraced levels.
It looked as if the castle, city, and mountain had become one over the centuries.
The ramparts, hewn from the mountain itself, coiled down in an uneven helix, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side.
Houses with cedar roofs were sprinkled haphazardly throughout the paths.
The houses closest to me were clearly the finest, with smoke curling up from multiple chimneys.
Following the spiral downward, the buildings grew smaller and more packed together.
The golden light of the autumn sunset was fading, a chill threading through the air, but the castle wasn’t growing dark—far from it, as a warm, magical glow began emanating from locations along the walls and towers.
It was as if the stones themselves were giving off a luminescence.
It was beautiful, utterly unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
This was the capital of a kingdom.
My kingdom.
The full weight of what had just happened hit me, and my knees weakened.
Griff’s arms were still around me, preventing me from falling to the ground.
He made certain I was steady before gently releasing me.
I took a step, hesitantly in case my limbs decided to fail, but for now, they continued to support me.
Stronger now, I approached the iron gates, power gently buzzing over my skin as I stepped over the threshold, Griff at my side.
Beyond the walls were a collection of towers, wings, and spires that went on for forever, forming the castle inside the walls.
Each tower jutted up at a different height—some standing solo as sentries, some connected to others or the walls by bridges.
This was a city unto itself, all contained within those fortress-like walls.
Everything about this place screamed power.
With a look, Griff summoned a guard to us. “Tell the regent the princess has returned.”
The guard looked at me askance, as if he was questioning if I truly was the princess.
You and me both.
I stood there in shocked silence, taking in the castle before me. The sheer size of it made my head spin.
Was this really happening?
Griff was silent at my side, both of us waiting to see what would happen next.
We didn’t have to wait long.
Funneling out of the main doors was a crowd of people—more people than fit in my entire village back home. They were dressed in finer clothes than I’d ever imagined; what Griff was wearing must be commonplace. I’d never felt so underdressed in my life. And they were heading directly toward us.
Toward me.
The contents of my stomach threatened to rise again as the clamoring in my head increased. At first, it was just a low murmur, like a distant conversation, but as the crowd came closer, the murmuring grew louder, more insistent. Like at home in the town square, but more.
Lots more.
I had been able to push those feelings aside at home, the feeling that I knew what someone was thinking before they spoke or sensed their emotions as my own.
But here, it was impossible to ignore and shove away, as those channels within me flared to life again.
My palms grew sweaty and I fought for a deep breath, backing my way a few steps through the iron gates, wishing Griff would teleport me somewhere else, anywhere else, as the crowd rushed me.
Especially with the older man leading the crowd fast approaching. He had a somber expression on his face, and a neatly trimmed gray beard and hair. My breath caught as I saw his eyes—turquoise eyes, the exact same shade as mine.
Before he could reach me, a young man who looked a lot like Griff stepped into his path and blocked his way.
At first, I thought I was seeing double, but the more I looked, there were slight differences.
Griff’s hair was sandy blond, while this man’s was more of a light brown, his clean-shaven skin less sun-kissed, as though he spent most of his time indoors.
And where Griff’s hazel eyes tended more toward green, his were more brown.
More differences became apparent as he continued his approach.
They appeared to be the same height, but he lacked the sheer mass of the man standing behind me.
Whereas Griff looked like he was carved from stone, this man’s lines were softer, leaner, as though he hadn’t spent his whole life in a training yard.
“I’m Finnegan Narvene. But they call me Finn. You must be Lily.”
I nodded, not sure what to say, especially with the roar of the crowd threatening to overwhelm me, voices battering me in every direction.
“Finally! The lost princess…”
“It’s her, right? It has to be her. Just look at those eyes, so like her father’s…”
“She’s so young—too young…”
“Why is he standing so close to her?”
“She’s the one who’s supposed to save us all?”
But above all the noise, one emotion came through, rising above everything.
Hope.
In me.
“She goes by Lexa,” I heard from the deep rumble of the chest behind me.
That was all we had time for before the older man reached us, looking distinctly put out that Finn had jumped in front of him.
“Out of my way, Lord Narvene. Let me see my granddaughter.”
I had figured we were related, but this was my grandfather? Nana had always said my eyes came from my father’s side, which had to mean that this was Nana’s spouse. Zachariah.
Nana had very rarely said anything about her life before we moved to Fairhaven, but the little she said about her husband had not been complimentary.
He examined me as though he could see through me. “And how do we know this is she?”
Honestly, that was an excellent question. Maybe I wasn’t who they all expected me to be and I could just go home. Except Nana had said it was true.
“It’s her.” Griff’s voice from behind me was unyielding, daring Zachariah to doubt him.
Which was precisely what happened. “And do you have proof, Lord Narvene?” He sneered at Griff, which was a feat given that Griff was so much taller than him.
“Besides the fact that I found her with Rose, look at her eyes. And if you still have doubt, don’t you have access to your soul channel?”
What was a soul channel?
They continued talking, but I couldn’t quite make it out over the ringing in my ears. The crowd was surrounding me. No longer were there individual voices, but everyone was talking all at once, directly into my head. All of it blended together into a cacophony between my ears.
I rubbed a hand over my temple, trying to stop the ache, desperate to block out the noise. Wanting someone, anyone, to make this stop. Underneath the excited chatter, worries, and calculating thoughts, something else came through clearly—a voice so cold and malicious it made my skin crawl.
“So she returns. But not for long. He’ll see to that.”
I swayed on my feet, instinctively taking a step back into Griff, whose hand came to rest on my lower back. Finn had sidled up to my side.
“She isn’t shielded,” I heard from behind me. “This must be deafening.”