Chapter 43
Chapter
Forty-Three
I’ve always known I won’t live to see her crowned. But with any luck, I’ll live long enough to ensure she has what she needs to do so. Time may separate us, but blood remembers. Love remembers.
— From the journal of Violet Andrever
All hell broke loose.
Shadows poured into the Great Hall. People threw off cloaks and ripped off finery to reveal armor darker than night.
The faction had finally revealed itself.
But this wasn’t just an attack—it was a coordinated infection.
Hufen emerged from every doorway, every alcove.
The shadows climbed up the walls to block out the windows, darkening the skylights, pitching the room into complete blackness.
The screams started as we were blinded, but they changed, terror turning to something else entirely as the infection spread. I released a flash of light, urging it to stay and illuminate our fight. But when I saw the state, I almost wished I had left us in darkness.
A councilor stumbled toward me, black veins spreading over his body, the knowledge of what he’d just become deep in his eyes. He threw himself onto a sword, making the ultimate sacrifice rather than prolong the infection.
All around me, dark veins were spreading over people, some choosing to make the same choice as him, others running for exits, only to be blocked by the hufen’s attacks. The hufen’s numbers were only growing. Kill one and two more appeared.
It was just like the nightmare. Griff was kicking bodies to get to me, his swords a blur, but more and more adversaries poured in to separate us—hufen and human alike, united in their quest, but what that quest was for was anyone’s guess.
But there were key differences from the nightmare and reality.
I was not weak. I would not hesitate. And most importantly, I was not powerless.
I felt my channels, all seven straining to get free.
I let them soar around me, wiping out hufen with sword and power as everyone who could fight did, with weapons, candlesticks, spears made of chairs, anything they could put their hands on.
But others in the Great Hall were defenseless, too many of them.
I could see hufen reaching out, trying to spread the infection, and the defenseless rearing back, most failing to protect themselves.
I sent another burst of light flaring out, driving them back momentarily.
But maintaining this was going to draw down my energy, fast. I felt people starting to wane, edging closer and closer to burn out. Something had to be done, and now.
The shadows swirled and converged. I knew from Griff that they had only seen one at a time before. But there were dozens now. He had been right, all those months ago when he told me they were searching for something. But now I knew what they were searching for.
Me.
I might have been the prophesied savior, but I was something else too—I was dangerous. To these people, to those I loved, to Serentyn. Because I had brought Starfire back into the conversation. And when I had spoken that word, I had attracted his attention.
All around me, people were fighting, as the demons strained to get to me.
But so far, none of them had come close.
Shadows began to split off from the walls, joining together near the doorway, and a haunting laugh echoed in my mind.
The shadow of a cruel finger ran down my cheek.
A promise that we would meet. “Soon,” it crooned to me. “Soon we will be reunited, my queen.”
I closed my grip around Anamlae, her song thundering in my mind, drowning out that inhuman voice.
And I found a new strength as she became the channel—I was merely the funnel.
I swept through the fray, somehow knowing that for this to work, I needed to stand in the exact center of the Great Hall.
Which was in the exact center of the castle.
Endless blades reached for mine, and I drove them all back, hacking a path to my mate.
I clung tight to the idea of forever with him, letting it sustain me as I fought to be by his side. My mate. My love. I couldn’t contemplate the opposite, that my forever with him was slipping away.
He saw me coming; even in the midst of a battle, his awareness was trained on me.
He doubled down on his efforts and met me in the center.
Both of us had a split second of checking that the other was whole, before I threw my idea at him and he instantly understood.
He guarded my back, continually spinning in a circle around me, driving off the hufen who dared to come close.
I pointed Anamlae to the sky, and drew in power from everywhere that would let me.
The light crashed out of me again, lightning and thunder flashing outside.
Time froze for a millisecond, before resuming.
But the blinding white light—it wasn’t enough.
A thought occurred to me. “Griff, I need—”
“Take it,” came the instant response. “Take it all.” He flung his power out to me, combining it with my light. That was what was needed. My power recognized its other half.
With our powers combined, it formed a shield, a dome around my people, that the darkness couldn’t penetrate.
I hoisted the shield up and up and up, crumbling under the weight until it lifted up on its own.
The skylights blew out, shattering glass everywhere, but none of it hit my people.
Hufen in the Great Hall were blasted apart, as if the sky was raining black ash.
It coated us, Griff’s sandy hair taking on a darker hue.
I turned and ran out of the Great Hall, Anamlae in my grasp. I might have driven the enemy out of the single room, but they still swelled through the castle and its grounds. They had infiltrated my home. And the devastation that reigned made my already thundering heart stutter.
The outer gates had fallen. The ramparts were overrun. Hufen poured through every entrance like a black tide, and my people were being systematically cornered, slaughtered, and turned.
It was just like the battle for Valdris fifty years ago. We were surrounded, darkness stretching as far as the eye could see. The remote, logical part of my mind told me their numbers were not nearly what they were in that battle, but neither were ours.
I scrambled over ground rough and broken from the fight.
The instant I appeared, they engaged me, seemingly to capture rather than kill.
But they were no match for Anamlae. Yet again, I felt as though she had her own awareness, choosing what power to layer onto my strikes.
Griff was there, clearing a path for me, and I took it, charging out into the darkness.
Spinning and cutting my way through the assailants, I forced them down, making my way outside.
These people I had grown to love, this place that was now my home, were being overrun before my very eyes.
The line broke. Soldiers I trained with had been cut down.
Griff, death in motion, wielded his dual blades, ever trying to fight his way to my side and ever being forced to fall back as more and more poured through.
Finn, having found a blade, swirled almost as gracefully as Griff.
Freya, knives out, stabbed at anything that came close to her.
Zachariah was weaponless but fighting with power nonetheless.
Kaia and her soldiers attempted to make a dent in the invaders, but still they came.
For when one fell, ten more took its place.
They had been infiltrating us for months, potentially years.
Potentially long before Griff had even had the idea to come get me.
All for precisely this moment. To take the power, my power, and deliver it to the darkness.
Not today.
Not if I had anything to say about it.
Starfire clearly wasn’t going to magically appear for me, and even if it did, I had no clue how to use it to fix the Veil or even really what it was.
So there, in the midst of the battle, standing in the exact spot Violet had made her last stand, I decided—I would do whatever it took.
There would be no more loss. To my family.
To anyone’s family. To this kingdom. I would do this for the boy I’d healed in Rathnure, the soldier I’d saved, Griff’s mother, everyone else like Fiadh who had no one else to save them, and every other person in my realm.
For too long, my people had been accustomed to this, as if this was simply what life was.
This pain and uncertainty. This wasn’t how it should be.
No one should have to live with this sadness, least of all the soon-to-be-parentless children.
Life was precious. It should have been filled with joy and hope, not counting the moments with loved ones, terrified that at any moment they could end.
Life was light, not darkness. And there, in the midst of the death and chaos surrounding me and all I had come to love, it was time.
No more hesitation. No more holding back.
I might not have access to Starfire, might never have access to it, but it was time to gather my power and make it explode, as my parents had before me, as Violet had before me, and stretch that light to every corner of my realm.
One last sacrifice for the good of Serentyn.
As I opened all my channels and prepared to funnel all the power I could through them, I drew myself up tall, as Violet did, and announced to the world, “My name is Lexa Andrever. I will not break!”
And if it took my life in the process, so be it.