Chapter 44
forty-four
. . .
Ever
Chaos. Pain. Anger.
An anger so scalding, all I want to do is run and hide.
I don’t know where I am, but it’s not Kirrasia. Or anywhere else.
It’s as if I am lost—to time and space and everything in between.
But there is a war being fought within me. A rush of heat, the golden strands of power I recognise as Novandia, thick and growing, but in the next breath their light dims, easily washed away by a torrent of water, cool and calm, a white glow as if touched by moon and starlight.
She extinguishes his control. But in the wake, the pain builds.
So much.
I want to let it out. Let it free. And I’m taken right back to the forest in Nehandun, calling for help as I take and take and build the power inside of me until there is nowhere for it to go.
“You are the balance, Ever. You are a Fifth for this purpose.”
“Help me,” I plead. “I don’t understand.”
“You are both sides. You will take all my gifts. You can wield his. But it is you, your own heart, and your own will that can turn the tide within you.”
“No. I’m not going to be the referee to your squabbling.” A rush of anger flares the power inside my body, stoking the heat that is fighting to overthrow my control.
“That is not your choice. You are a Fifth. Your mother. Your father. Every Fifth that’s ever been has the potential, and your time has come. You are my warrior in this fight.”
“You didn’t tell me that. You said you wouldn’t let this happen.” The power that flows in me awakens to my emotion, drawing its energy from the pain that swims around me, building and readying to aim. And suddenly I’m the one raining my ire at Aslendrix.
But all I seem to do is pull thick clouds of darkness, the same as what arose from the Transference Stone, all around me.
“I have no intention of freeing my brother from my curse, or to let my magic be used to bring me down.” Her words are sure. Filled with wisdom.
“All of that faith, sister, in one small person.” A menacing voice thunders around me, cracking the darkness and shining a sliver of gold, sparkly and bright. It dissolves the very essence of Aslendrix as he speaks. “She will succumb, and then what?”
Novandia.
It’s Novandia’s voice. He spoke to me before.
They both tug and pull, their powers refusing to mix, just like within my brother and me. Streams of power are flowing erratically around me.
“Then she will bring forth our mutual destruction, for you chose a selfish and arrogant man with a need for power at his heart. That will never win, Novandia. Have I taught you nothing over these centuries?”
Their bickering pitches back and forth, threatening to break me open and crack the very heart of me until there’s nothing but blood and dust left.
As they do, my tolerance of the pain and the menace that traps me draws closer.
So close, I can reach it, feel it over my skin, and it calls for me to give in.
To take it. To give myself freely to the magic.
No more fighting. No more pain. No questions, no confusion.
It’s so tempting. I’d learn of every scrap of information that was ever held against me.
I’d save Ten in every conceivable future with no fear over what he may have to suffer because of me. I’d hold power over all.
I could let go.
And give in to the dark.
It’s my choice. It’s within my power.
The threads of my very soul are being unwound and severed every second I stay in this place—this limbo—trapped in the dark, amongst the stars. Amongst the gods.
“Hold on, Ever.” Ten! Ten’s voice.
Through the darkness, it jolts me, pulling me back from the edge. I open my eyes, but I cannot see. However, I don’t need to. I can feel him all around me. He’s the tether I need, and I grasp hold and concentrate on him. On the love I know he has for me.
He’s still fighting for me.
He’s always fought for me, and I want to fight for him. For us.
For Calix, who lost his sister, for Lyle, for Kyra, for Crimson, and even for Micah.
Not for Aslendrix, and not for Novandia.
If Novandia can put his power and faith in a person like the Usher, then he doesn’t deserve any scrap of control or power.
Aslendrix, at least, has only ever strived for balance. For peace.
She entrusted me with this—her burden of power.
Maybe it’s time I believe in that, even if there were consequences last time.
I let myself get lost in the magic.
Her power shouldn’t be what we war over. She gave us, her people, her magic. We’ve brought it to this.
That is not the Gods’ war. It’s ours—the Orders.
“Come back to us, Ever. Come back to me.”
Ten.
I see the Opal Falls, the Great Hall, and, looking up at the stars, a myriad of small, tiny fragments of our time together scatter in my eyes, the memories I cherish arising in the dark.
It’s how our visions start, but this is like looking at chips of a looking glass of our time together, all through Ten’s eyes.
I piece them together until they form the picture of me that he sees. Someone strong and capable. Someone he trusts and loves. And I use that vision as my own shield against the destructive nature of the darkness I’m trapped in.
All the magic that I’ve ever been gifted has been malleable.
I can bend it, sometimes even without conscious thought.
It wants to be used. It will obey. This ancient power is the same as the magic that sits in the well at the centre of my chest. It’s the same.
It can be wielded and forged into something that I don’t need to be afraid of.
I hold the memory of Ten’s eyes, my comfort, in my mind as I ask the power to mix with the magic at my centre. It feels conflicted, looking for the catch, as if after so long being trapped, it’s suspicious of what might happen.
My hands ball into fists as I fight my emotions and the urge to force it. But, despite everything in my past, the Maker’s words ring in my mind. Now, with everything on the line, is not the time to be rash.
Gently. Quietly. I absorb the power, allowing the well to fill over and spill within my chest. I wrestle to channel it and use my own memories, my own armour to protect myself from the raw darkness within.
It’s pure. And once I feel the strain of the well—the pressure on the edge of the walls, as if they might crack at any moment—I aim.
I become the light. Not hot and rash and blazing like last time, but cool and calm, like crystal.
Like starlight.
And I focus all of it on Novandia, his heat and the burning furnace that he brings. But he is no match for the blast of previously dormant energy that is now coursing through me. This was the plan the Usher had all along: to forge his own power and use it for destruction.
Novandia is hiding in the darkness, trapped and desperate to get out, but my strength can hold him back. Contain him, just as Aslendrix must have done with her curse, all those many years ago.
The Usher wanted him to be free, to be on a level playing field with Aslendrix, but I won’t let that happen.
The power slides through me smoother than flowing water.
It has its own pulse, beating loudly, rising, stirring within, as if it recognises the shift in my resolve, and is moving to overwhelm me in a different way.
It grows bigger, expanding until I fear what will happen.
I know I won’t be able to contain it any longer.
And, in a violent crack of power that vibrates the air around us, I am surrounded by nothing, travelling through the dark.
I am the very space between us, but I cannot reach Novandia.
He is shielded. Cut off. Trapped. Closed off within Aslendrix’s curse.
As I reach for the control, wanting to ensure he never has the potential to gain his power again, the air shakes, and my stomach falters as I jolt at the sensation of the ground against my knees. I’m back at the Transference stone with Ten holding me.
I push away from his touch and scramble away, not wanting him to be harmed by what is inside me, as I focus on finishing my task to banish Novandia.
I climb onto the stone. We aren’t veiled in darkness now.
The column of light from me, channelling through me, has pushed Novandia back.
All the threads of power, all the colours, connecting Aslendrix to the Naturals, the Elementals and the realm of Kirrasia, dance and weave around me, as if suddenly they are there for me to see.
It’s beautiful, a tapestry of colour and shine, hidden from all eyes.
But I can see. And She is there, woven within us all.
As I raise my eyes to the sky, the stars and the night close in around the tear in the sky the Usher brought. The sun, its watery glow receding as my power pushes it back. And the complicated lock of magic, the overlayered threads, binding Novandia in his curse, shine like spun gold for me to see.
Whatever was inside of me, whatever I took from the stone, I bind around those locks, tightening every hold and gap, wrapping the magic and power, willing it to encase and hold, so they can’t ever break.
The relief in my chest is enormous, bringing me to my knees as the energy within me balances. I’m not drowning anymore. I’m not frightened. I have locked Novandia away, but the power from the stone still wrestles with me.
And I smile.
“Nooooo!” The screech rips the quiet from around us, and I crash back to the scene here and now.
The Usher wails to the side of the stone, cradling his arm in his other. The cloak he is always shrouded in is caked and dripping with scarlet blood. “You stupid girl. You could have had it all. You could have ruled over everything,” he rants. “What have you done? What have you done?”
He half-falls, half-jumps from the stone, and that’s when I see him.
Kalan.
His body lies still against the snow, a scorch mark over his chest.
“No. No! What happened?” I look around and see Ten coming for me and spot Calix with Kyra and Lyle a few yards away. “What happened?” I cry.