Chapter 44
Chapter
Forty-Four
I dream of a golden haze. Of a place where nothing hurts, where everything is at rest. I think it comes to me because it knows I’m headed there soon. I think it’s telling me everything will be okay. I just have to get through this first.
— From the journal of Violet Andrever
Iwas drifting in that golden haze. Golden dust defied gravity, floating upward and toward each other. The dust solidified briefly into first one figure, then three, then seven.
“You did well, my child,” the figure in gold said. I struggled to place the name, my mind fuzzy and unable to think clearly. “But it is not your time.”
A tall, lanky man in purple approached me. “You must return, child. So much is still undone.”
“Live, my daughter,” whispered a homely woman, dressed in green with dirt beneath her fingernails. Her sentence was echoed by every figure.
“We will meet again,” the woman in gold said. She gave a gentle push in my direction as a handsome man in red joined her.
As I spun away, the name finally came to me.
Solais.
I never hit the ground. I slowly came back to myself, roaring in my ears, to find that Griff had cushioned my fall.
He grinned at me, holding me in his lap as all around, people started running toward me.
My clothes were ruined, my hair a mess. I had never felt this weak before, burned from the inside out.
But the crown was still a heavy weight upon my brow and the sun was visible in the sky again, illuminating the fallen, human and hufen alike.
The roaring in my ears grew. It was cheering. Victory, people were shouting. Celebrating the Veil being back in place.
I couldn’t join in the cheering as the sobering knowledge swept through me—our days were still numbered. The threat still existed, simply held at bay by something as fragile as a silk screen.
Those I loved were surrounding me. Griff behind me, holding me tightly.
Finn on the ground at my side, looking dazed.
Freya was climbing out of a hole in the castle walls, part of an army of healers going from person to person, checking them over.
Andrei was over on the other side, doing the same thing.
Zachariah leaned heavily against the wall, for once allowing himself to appear weak.
His eyes were scanning the crowd—was it possible he was looking for me?
Our eyes met and something flashed across his face that looked like satisfaction.
He nodded, his lips curving in the first smile I could remember seeing on his face, before he turned away to answer a question.
Kaia glanced at me, saluting before going back to clean up.
Saluting?
Oh right. I was the queen.
Fuck.
“It suits you.” Griff’s voice was tender as he brushed the back of his fingers over my cheek, staring at the crown. “I’m so proud of you, my queen.”
I looked up at Griff, his eyes a dark hazel green, love shining through them. I wished with all my might that I didn’t have to tell him this.
“It didn’t work,” I admitted softly in defeat. “I patched it, but couldn’t finish it entirely. I wasn’t strong enough.”
Maybe it would buy us another fifty years, but I doubted it. Not now that he knew I existed. That I knew about Starfire.
I realized now what Violet had known. It was never about the Veil. The Veil was a fantasy we’d told ourselves to keep the monster under the bed away. To keep the nightmares given form at bay.
He smoothed hair away from my brow, avoiding touching the crown that rested on it. “We’ll find another way.”
I remembered the voice laughing at me as I fought. A name came to me, rising through the recesses of my mind as if a memory from long ago. But it didn’t feel like my memory or Violet’s had supplied this name. An introduction, a name to go along with the terrifying face and voice.
Cythraul.
The monster from my nightmares, made of shadow and flesh. I shivered as I remembered his words, his promise that we would meet again soon.
I had no doubt he would come for me. For Starfire.
For the power that ran through my veins and this land.
We might have won the battle today, but the war was still waging around us.
The faction was still at large. I didn’t deceive myself that the power I’d put into the Veil today would withstand direct attacks from inside it. Cythraul was coming, sooner or later.
But maybe we could meet on my terms.
“Or,” I said, looking at all the celebrating faces. “We find the way to channel Starfire, and then we take this fight to the bastard himself. And stop this once and for all.”
It was never about the Veil. The Veil is simply a bandage—a shroud over what we should have rightly done. It’s about cauterizing the wound entirely. And we were never strong enough to do so. But the cost… is the cost worth it? Gods, I hope it is. May future generations forgive us.