Chapter 32
Chapter
Thirty-Two
The sun disappeared. The days are upon us. It’s time. Fuck.
—From the journal of Violet Andrever
Correction—she was holding my blade to my throat.
Ironic.
“What the fuck is this? Start talking and make it good. I’ve had a very long day and I’m short on patience.”
Shit. This already wasn’t going as planned. Although, I hadn’t actually planned anything beyond getting here.
My mouth went dry. Maybe Finn had been right and I should have thought this through a bit more. Too late now.
“My name is Lexa Andrever. And I need to talk to you, Aunt Violet.”
Her eyes narrowed and the blade didn’t waver. “I have one niece,” she said dangerously, “and she is a baby. You are not a baby.”
I looked pointedly at Anamlae. I didn’t actually know what would happen if she cut me with it. I knew the blade was powerful, but it seemed like a lot to hope for a piece of metal to know a future bearer and decide to not make her bleed.
“Technically, I’m both. I’m from fifty years in the future. And right now, that baby is desperate enough to risk everything to come back and find you.”
She hesitantly searched my face for what felt like forever. Arriving at a decision, she took a step back, gesturing with the blade. “Talk.”
I drew breath again and I talked. I told her about the Veil. How everyone now thought I was the Orlaith. How she had appeared to me in dreams. I told her how I had searched for answers everywhere, including in her journal. And I told her about how she’d left me a letter.
“I did?” Her brows shot up.
“I guess it’s more accurate to say you will.”
She paced inside the tent, then whirled to face me. “How do I know this isn’t some trick?”
I shrugged. “You don’t. But you could use your soul channel. That’s almost fully open, right? See what it tells you?”
She hmphed, a little miffed she hadn’t thought of it herself. She approached me cautiously, never taking her eyes off me, and just barely touched her fingertips to my chest, directly over my heart. My soul channel rose up to meet hers.
It was like looking into a mirror as her recognition flowed through the bond. Godsmother to godschild. Aunt to niece. Protector to protected.
Her breath caught. “Blessed Solais. I know you. You really are… How is this possible?”
“The Veil is thinnest on High Days,” I said softly. “And apparently, a godsparent bond can stretch across time.”
“The bond,” she mused. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing.
You and I do have a bond, kiddo. Forged the day I vowed to protect you if anything happened to your parents.
And those dreams… they weren’t just dreams.” She shook her head to clear it.
“The future. Of course. Because my life wasn’t complicated enough already.
What a way to celebrate Blathaine.” She pushed her hair out of her face. “And they call you Lexa?”
“Yes.” I’d thought it would take longer to convince her. Thank the gods for the soul channel. You couldn’t fool that.
“At least Mira will be happy the name stuck.” She shook her head to clear it. “Alright, kiddo, let’s see if we can find someplace to talk in this godsforsaken mess. But I should warn you, if you’re looking for easy answers, you’re going to be disappointed.”
We stepped outside into a city made of tents and I was struck by the overwhelming darkness. Even in the deepest night at home, there was some pinprick of light. Some stars. Some hint of moonlight. But here, now, the darkness was absolute, as if someone had draped black velvet over the entire world.
“What time is it?” I ventured, though a part of me already dreaded the answer.
She looked at me, brows lifted. “A little before ten in the morning.”
Morning. This impenetrable darkness, this crushing blackness—this was morning.
“Fourteen hours left,” I whispered, more to myself than her.
“Left for what?”
But I was staring up at where the sky should be, where the sun should be blazing. “There’s no sun.”
“We haven’t seen the sun in twenty-seven days.” Stopping, she grabbed my upper arms, her grip tight enough to bruise. “You have the sun?”
I nodded slowly as realization flowed through me. Blessed Erde, today was the day. I assumed I was going to travel back to a Blathaine, but I hadn’t known… hadn’t even thought that it could be this Blathaine.
She let out a whoop of laughter, tinged with desperation, never noticing my despair. “You have the sun,” she repeated. “Then we find a way to beat this. We have to.”
I nodded slowly again, not trusting myself to answer.
They did find a way—she did. And it caused her death.
We rounded the corner and I froze. He was younger, his hair not nearly as silver, his face missing the lines of bitterness that the years would carve into his face, but it was him.
Zachariah.
“Fuck,” I breathed.
Violet stopped when I did, following my stare. “What is it? Oh, my father?” She looked between us, confusion clear on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“He can’t see me.” The words came out sharper than I intended.
“Look, I know he’s a mean old bastard, but—”
I grabbed her arm and pulled her back around the corner. “I need you to trust me on this, Violet. He cannot know I’m here.”
Understanding dawned in her turquoise eyes, followed quickly by a flash of pain.
“He fucking survives, doesn’t he? After all this, after everything he did, everything we’re fighting for, he survives, and you…
” She swore again. “Okay. We’ll go the long way.
But, kiddo? Someday, you’re going to have to fill me in here. ”
She led me through what had once been an orderly army camp but now felt more like a refugee settlement.
Tents were crowded together in haphazard rows, their canvas sides pressed so close they touched, creating narrow alleys barely wide enough for a single person.
It smelled of too many people living close together, of smoke and fear and unwashed bodies.
And underneath it all, the cloying scent of desperation.
Torches were everywhere, thrust into the ground at irregular intervals, their flames struggling to illuminate anything against the darkness that pressed in from all sides.
Soldiers moved through the darkness with careful steps, clearly having learned to navigate by sound and touch.
Voices carried strangely here, sometimes swallowed entirely by the darkness, sometimes echoing through it.
I could barely make out the castle, even though it was right there. The stone blended in with the unnatural darkness. It looked like the entire army was encamped in the yard.
“Not the entire army, but close,” Violet explained when I asked. “We pulled everyone back when the Veil fell. We still have scouts at the natural boundaries, to sound the alarm, but if they break through…”
She didn’t need to finish.
When we reached her tent, she perched on the cot and I could see exhaustion in every line of her body.
“Alright, kiddo, here’s the quick version of what I’ve learned.
The gods raised the Veil to protect us from the darkness.
For millennia, it held. Then it started to fray.
Holes began appearing. Darkness slithered through those holes.
It kills everything it can reach, turning the people into creatures none of us recognize. ”
“It’s happening at home,” I admitted, before I could think better of it, sinking down on a trunk.
She nodded, as if she wasn’t surprised. “Then twenty-seven days back, everything changed. The Veil disappeared entirely. Darkness poured in, blocking out the sun like someone snuffed out a candle. Hordes of hufen have been descending on the kingdom, killing and destroying everything in their path. Narvene thinks—”
“Narvene?” I couldn’t help myself from interrupting. The name being so casually spoken made me catch my breath.
“Garrett Narvene. Is he still there with you?”
I shook my head. “His sons.”
She grinned. “You know his sons? That’s great! Anyway, he thinks that the seven gods created the Veil as their final act before transcending to true godhood. He’s also theorized that they left the prophecy as an instruction set for us.”
“But there’s nothing in there about fixing the Veil.”
She snorted. “Zachariah is still focused on that as the only thing the Orlaith does? Kiddo, your role is so much bigger than just that.”
She opened her mouth to speak again, but a thunderous boom shook the ground beneath us. We both jumped and ran to the tent flap. Violet pushed me back, into whatever safety resided within the tent, as she poked her head out and swore.
“Stay here,” she ordered, her hand already on her sword hilt.
“No,” I protested, trying to follow her. “I can help! I have power, I can fight—”
She spun and shoved me back inside with surprising force for someone with the same slim build as me. “I know you can, kiddo, but this is not your fight. This isn’t your time.” She pointed sharply at me. “Stay put.”
I watched as she disappeared into the black. How she could see where she was going, I’d never know. I stared at the sky and shivered. This couldn’t happen at home. I wouldn’t let it. She was right that this wasn’t my fight. But it was my war. I let the tent flap fall.
“Mira, come on!” a voice yelled. Violet had told me to stay inside, but that voice… My throat tightened. “Mireya!” the same voice shouted, closer now.
My blood ran cold as I pushed past the canvas opening. There, silhouetted against the unnatural darkness, were two figures.
“Always so impatient, my love,” a woman with long, blonde hair said as she approached a dark-haired warrior.
He stood there fuming, arms crossed over his chest, his dark hair falling in waves over his brow.
“Is there someplace we have to be, Thom?” Her voice carried a bit of teasing and his posture relaxed as she placed her arms on his chest.
Thom. Mira.
Mam. Da.
The world tilted sideways.
They were right there. I could go to them. Be with them. Finally know what a family was like.