Chapter 42
Chapter
Forty-Two
We keep having council meeting after council meeting, as if that’s going to help. As if that will bring the sun back. Thom and Mira are doing their best, but what a time to be thrust into leadership. I pray there’s a chance in hell of us pulling it off. And I fear that chance is me.
— From the journal of Violet Andrever
For the first time in the six months I’d been here, the council was silent as we walked in. There was no jovial conversation, no bickering, no shouting matches. Just the councilors sitting around the table, some in fear, some in dread, and some in resignation.
As soon as we took our seats, Griff began describing what he had seen.
The picture he painted was grim, even more so than I had dreaded.
“It is as we feared,” Griff said. “The Veil is tearing. No longer are there just holes appearing in the Veil, but the foundation is crumbling. Additionally, I can confirm that there are now two forms of hufen—the mindless soldiers we’ve known and the ones that call themselves his generals.
If you remember, we reported on that several months ago, that Fiadh Doherty had referenced herself as such. They call themselves deamhan.”
“How did you learn this?” the councilor from Sylvaneth asked. Not as if they doubted him, but more as if in fear.
I could sense his hesitation, even though he kept his face blank of emotion. I felt him weighing his words and somehow knew it was because of me. I felt myself get pissed preemptively.
“I engaged one of them.”
I knew I wasn’t going to like it.
“Relax. I’m safe.” Even as he commanded the room, his attention was on me.
“Relax?!” How dare he tell me to relax? I sent everything I was feeling through the bond. “What do you mean you engaged one of them?”
“When I got to where the hole was, they were there. As if they were waiting for me.”
Understanding dawned on me. “They created the hole to draw you out.”
“Or, more likely, to draw you out.”
If they knew we were mated, and drew Griff out hoping to get to me…
“The frequency of the holes is increasing. The hufen are becoming bolder, especially these deamhan. I think he’s done waiting.”
All the blood drained from my face. “What does that mean? And why now?”
“I don’t know, Princess.”
Out loud, Griff continued, “The general, the deamhan, was lucid. If I hadn’t seen his eyes, I never would have known he was infected.
But once I knew, I saw the other, more subtle signs.
Plants withering in his footsteps. Animals fleeing from his presence.
The corruption is stronger in these deamhan, more aggressive.
Just being near them starts to affect the environment.
Who knows what havoc it will wreak on the Veil. ”
A shiver ran down my spine. Fiadh had called herself a general.
But she had been so far gone, I didn’t think she could have passed as human.
My mind flashed back to Cillian. To what Aoife had said about his eyes.
And my gut told me I was right—there were those who walked among us.
Who could touch without infecting. Or infect only when they desired.
We were so fucked.
Griff was still speaking. “Even though they’re more cognizant, they die just as the rest. Decapitation. Fire. Stabbing through the heart.”
He continued to explain what he’d seen. The deamhan had hit multiple Veil points at once, overwhelming the small number of forces in the border towns. The report Zachariah had received wasn’t wrong. Entire towns had been destroyed, with people missing, presumed dead or worse.
Was it really only two days ago I’d sat in his office and heard that?
At this point, we were days away from the Veil collapsing entirely and being overrun by the darkness.
Murmurs shifted around the room. Many of the people here had been alive fifty years ago. Had fought in those battles. And everyone saw the patterns repeating and knew where this path eventually led.
“What can we do?” the councilor from Aurantia asked, desperation clear in every word. “We’re outnumbered, outmaneuvered—”
“Not outpowered,” Zachariah interrupted, looking directly at me. I squirmed as every head turned toward me. “Not if we’re willing to use everything at our disposal. Not if you can access the old magics.”
“You told him?” Griff kept his face expressionless even as surprise colored his thoughts.
“I couldn’t think of what else to do,” I admitted. “Besides he featured heavily in some of them.”
Griff was silent for a moment while I realized what I had just inadvertently confessed.
“Tell me you did not tunnel through memories without me, Princess.”
I summoned an impish grin, shoving down the fear that Zachariah’s words instilled. “Oops.”
“You and I are going to have a long conversation about that ‘oops’ later,” his mental voice growled down the pathway to me.
I was saved from further discussion by a light knock on the door. I was shocked at who I felt on the other side. When Andrei opened it, Freya edged her way inside, hesitantly as every face spun toward her. For once, her bubbly personality had abandoned her.
“Freya?” Andrei asked gently.
“I have something to report,” she stated in a soft voice.
“Go ahead,” Andrei encouraged.
She looked around the room, making eye contact with me, and I hoped I had an encouraging smile on my face but I feared it was a grimace. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I was treating a patient. A gardener. He was acting strange, so his coworkers brought him to me. In my examination, I found…”
As she trailed off, I realized I was holding my breath. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“He was infected. It was early on, but the infection had taken hold.”
As the council room exploded with murmurs and exclamations, I was on my feet toward her, ready to burn the infection from her like I had done with that boy, but she stopped me with an outstretched hand.
“I’m uninfected, Lexie.”
I searched her with my channels anyway, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Turning back to the rest of the council, she raised her voice in order to be heard. “And I was able to heal him.”
Another round of exclamations took place, and my spirits rose. It wasn’t just me! Maybe others with their soul channel could do it too.
She held up a hand, and the excited conversation dwindled to hear what other good news she’d brought. “I searched out with my channels, and it’s worse than I feared. It’s everywhere,” she finished softly.
I reached out just as she did, casting my awareness around the castle and the city.
And there, deep inside the earth, so deep I almost missed it, was the infection—a writhing bundle of darkness, spreading vines around the mountain, burrowing into every crevice, deep beneath our feet.
I staggered into my chair at the enormity of it and wordlessly shared the image with Griff.
And somehow I knew. I knew without a doubt—I had caused this. I knew about Starfire. The words had been whispered, carried by the wind, straight to his ears. He knew.
By digging through the memories, by speaking the words, I had accelerated the timeline. This devastation, the death, it was all on me. If I had known better, I could have prevented this. And now we had no choice.
This was all my fault. I had put the word back into the universe.
“It’s not your fault,” Griff attempted to reassure me.
I turned to look at him. I knew my eyes were wide with unshed tears, but I couldn’t help it. “I did this.”
“No.” He was firm. “He did this. The enemy did this. And we will stand against him, together.”
Hours later, the council was dismissed. The fatalistic knowledge of all we had to lose rippled through us as Griff and I charged through the hallways.
Every second felt borrowed now, stolen from an hourglass that was running empty too fast. And if we were counting down in hours and minutes, we weren’t going to waste a second of it.
“Come on.” He grabbed my hand and all but tugged me up the stairs after him.
“I’m still mad at you.” I attempted to make my voice sound convincing but it came out breathless instead.
He paused on the stairs and the look he gave me was pure challenge. When I joined him on the step, his hand didn’t just slide around my waist, it clutched my back like he was trying to fuse us together.
“Yeah, well, I’m still mad at you too.” With a glance to ensure we were alone, he kissed me with an urgency that made my heart race, fear and desperation running through us.
“Forgive me?” His mental voice was caught between command and plea.
“No.” But I kissed him back just as desperately.
His chuckle was strained. “Liar.”
When we got to our door, I slipped in front of him, but he immediately pressed against my back, pinning me to the door. The ward forgotten, I spun in his arms to face him.
“You could have died out there,” I said fiercely, my hands fisting in his shirt. “You could have died and I would have felt it and there wouldn’t have been anything I could do except feel your light fade away.”
“But I didn’t,” he said just as fiercely, his hands cupping my face. “I’m here. I’m alive. I’m yours.”
There was a frantic energy to both of us as he took my mouth, driven by the time apart, the confessions of love before we had been rudely interrupted, the memories brought up this night, and the state of the world falling to pieces around us.
“Now open that damned door.”
I spun back around, struggling with the wards as his hand snaked around to cup my breast. I somehow managed to get the door open, and he crashed us through it. Slamming the door shut behind us, he shoved me against it and covered me with all six-foot-whatever of aroused male.
I needed him. Now.