Chapter 30
“Are you ready to do this?” Bastian stands beside the bed holding a croissant in his hand. “Grayson thought he’d lure you out with warm baked goods.”
I grumble an obscenity and throw the blanket over my head. As hungry as I am from not eating at King Cirrus’s table last night, sleep is more of a priority. Getting in late and staying up thinking about Levi and the prophecy have me spent.
The mattress bows at his weight beside me. His large, comforting hand caresses my shoulder. “Aren’t you curious at all? We waited for years for you to come along and now we’ll know the identity of the other savior. Imagine another person like you out there with First City lineage.”
I sit up, knowing I’ve lost the stay-in-bed fight. “That’s what scares me. What type of person, or creature, comes from the First City? The only ones I’ve seen tried to kill us in Tenny Rocks.”
He stands and walks to his desk, picking up a piece of paper. “It is written. There’s not much we can do to change it. You have us, and we’ll do everything in our power to protect you. But we can’t guide the hands of fate. We can’t change your destiny.”
“Give me the damn croissant.” I slide my feet over the side of the bed, let them touch the cold floor, and shiver. The insurmountable mountain I must climb keeps growing—Supes who want to kill me and a prophesied mutant fighting buddy. Worst of all, my best friend is dead. I hate waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but it’s getting to be too much.
After stuffing the roll into my mouth, I pad down the stairs behind Bastian to join the others. I’ve already removed the prophecy from my corset, and I hold it in my hand. Grayson and Evie sit in the living room with mugs of coffee. They stop their conversation when we appear.
Grayson smiles. It’s way too chipper for my tired head. “Looks like it was a rough night.”
Evie shoots him a warning glare before looking at me. “Is that the prophecy?”
I hold the paper in my hand out to her, not wanting the responsibility of reading it. With its fae magic, it’s practically burning a hole in my palm. “Do you think we should read the first half?” I only heard it the time Levi recited it out loud from memory.
“Got it here.” Grayson lifts an open book from the side table next to his chair and runs his fingers along the words.
Bastian and I sit at the table.
“Two cities loom above us all,
one veiled in beauty, and the other darkness.
Both hold death within their walls.
For those saved by Mahogany’s gaze
dance among the fairy rings and a fire’s blaze.
The great wilderness protects the hidden.
Two will rise from the cities’ walls—young and brave and true.
Their sacrifice will save us all
and end the evil reign
of both great cities.”
Evie unfolds the parchment, her hands shaking. Unlike me, those raised in the wilderness have waited years for this. Her eyes flick from Bastian to Grayson to me.
“A seamstress born and raised
among the privileged few.
Abandoned by her father.
Orphaned by her mother.
She’ll learn to fight with
grace and ease, facing friend and foe.
An orphaned son of power
taken well before his time.
The precious babe laid in the hands
of a farmer and his wife.
Torn between two worlds,
the boy becomes a man,
ready to rip the fabric of two cities
to save his precious land.”
Evie stops reading. Her voice is low as she says, “There’s one more part.”
We already know, but we don’t stop her.
“Maribel Nexus Windsong-Barellis and Bastian Aidan Hale.
Both from different worlds
and destined to tear each other apart.”
The room remains silent, letting the prophet’s words spin in our heads. A million thoughts fight for my attention as I struggle to grasp one. Our connection. It’s so obvious. We’re drawn together because of fate. We need to work together to take down the cities before we turn on each other. And he’s from the First City—the enemy. Has he been playing me all along, knowing I was the second savior? I want to scream and roll up in a ball at the same time.
I narrow my eyes, struggling to look him in the face. “Did you know?”
His skin is deathly pale as rare tears well in his eyes. He’s putting on a good show if he knows something. “No.” He leans forward, holding his head in his hands.
Grayson stands and paces in front of the fireplace, arms folded. “We can’t start pointing fingers. He’s our brother. If he says he didn’t know, we must believe him.” He stops pacing and approaches the table, resting his hands on it, and leans forward. “But if I find out you’ve played us all this time, you’ll wish you were dead.”
Bastian scrapes back his chair and storms out the back door, letting it slam behind him.
Evie sits on the table beside Grayson. She runs her hand up his arm. “Think about what he’s going through. Not only is he the second savior, but he’s just found out his whole life’s a lie and he’s from the First City. Who’s his father? Who’s his mother? I’ve never heard of children in Arazian’s realm.”
My mixed emotions tug at me from all sides, threatening to tear me apart. All the hope I had before we traveled to Frostacre, smashed to pieces by the fae. And in all this, I thought I knew Bastian. He connected with me in a way no one else could, even Levi. How I long for my friend’s advice.
Grayson looks out the rear window and then the front one, most likely looking for Bastian. “We’ve got trouble.”
“What is it?” Evie joins him at the window, hiding behind the curtain. “What does he want? He’s carrying something.”
I push back my chair to join them, curious. A tall fairy with long, dark hair stands on the border of the protective barrier. In his arms, he holds a body. He stares at us for what seems like hours before laying his load on the ground and walking away.
“Bracken.” Grayson lets the curtain fall and heads for the front door. “He’s returned Levi’s body.”
Evie and I follow him outside as he jogs across the yard and lifts our brother to his chest. Seeing his lifeless form, Grayson lets out a sob, clutching him closer as tears run down his cheeks.
In my life love leads to loss. First my father, then my mother, and then Levi. Who else will I have to lose to bring freedom to the wilderness? I turn to see Bastian standing by the corner of the cabin.
As much as each loss in my life has torn me apart, I’d rather love someone with every fiber of my being and lose them than never love at all. I want to run to him and throw myself into his arms, lose myself in him, but I refrain. We need to bury Levi.
Grayson and Bastian dig a hole beside our brother’s flower garden while Evie and I wrap his body in a blanket. Before covering him up, I take one last look at his perfect face. His glasses were lost somewhere along the way, and bruises cover his skin, but he still has a kindly pout on his lips and dark wisps of hair contrasting with his deathly pale skin. Knowing his soul is no longer with him, I fold the blanket over his face, tucking it behind his head.
Bastian shovels the last bit of dirt over the grave while we sprinkle flower seed over the freshly turned soil. With a watering can, Evie provides moisture to the plot, and within minutes, flowers pop through, brimming with new life.
Leaning closer to me, Grayson says, “Fae magic.”
“I’d like to speak first.” Evie crouches beside the grave and runs her fingernail along a petal on a purple flower. “Levi Crassus taught me everything I know about acceptance. As part of the deaf community, he understood prejudice, hatred, and rejection by his own people. He could have turned this into bitterness, but he loved more than anyone I’ve ever met. I’m eternally grateful for what he’s given me.” She stands and steps back, the purple flower in her hand.
I swallow back the lump growing in my throat. Tears sting my eyes for what seems like the hundredth time since we left Frostacre. The thought of entering his room—our room—makes me want to give up and fight harder at the same time.
Bastian watches me as if I’m a rabid werewolf, ready to lash out. It’s not his fault, but I’m not sure what it means for him or for us. The thought of fighting together to take down the cities thrills me, while his lineage scares me senseless. After all I’ve heard of the First City, what good can come from it?
“I’ll go next.” Grayson picks a red flower from the gravesite and sticks it behind his ear. “When I first arrived in the wilderness, I barely knew what a knife was, let alone how to use one.” He glances at Bastian. “After bringing you into the fold, you were so drunk all the time, you couldn’t be bothered with an Avrenian. ‘Useless piece of fodder,’ I think you called me.” A boyish smile crosses his face at the memory. He holds up a hand. “No worries, I’ve forgiven you. But Levi taught me how to throw a dagger with deadly accuracy. Must have killed twenty trees.” His lip quirks as he bites it and averts his gaze to the sky as his voice cracks. “He’s one of the best damn men I’ve ever known.”
It’s getting to where I don’t know if I can hold it together enough to speak. But I need to for myself and Levi. “He was the first to call me kin, to accept me as the prophesied savior, and to consider me his friend. Never in my life have I met someone so accepting of a person he’s never met coming from a city he despises. He was a walking example of something my father told me a long time ago: a true friend lays down his life for those he loves.” I stoop and pluck a white flower from the grave, twisting it between my fingers.
Bastian hasn’t spoken since the reading of the prophecy—at least not to me. Hooded eyes stress his sullen face, causing a stirring inside me. If he really knew nothing about his heritage, he’s dealing with multiple hefty loads at the same time.
“Levi moved to my house when he was ten years old, and I was twelve. My mother was kind to a little boy whose world had just been ripped apart. She baked him my favorite cookies, let him sleep in late, and brought him home a pet kitten. I was so jealous of her doting on him, I turned to bullying. At school, I’d tell the other kids he wet the bed and made fun of his signing behind his back.” He inhales sharply and looks to the side. “It wasn’t until one night, when we had a big storm on the farm and we couldn’t find him, that I realized how important he was to me. He’d fallen into the stream and was swept away by the rushing water. Fortunately, he grabbed onto a tree root, pulling himself to safety. We found him the next day, a frickin’ muddy mess but alive. I swore that day I’d never bully him again, I’d defend him to my dying breath, and I’d never be jealous of what he had.” He looks at me, his crystal-blue eyes drilling into mine. “Until I saw him with you. It came so easily to him.” Instead of picking a flower, he scoops dirt into his hand, letting it sift through his fingers onto the grave. “Rest in peace, little brother.” He turns and walks down the path to the Grove.
My heart aches listening to his story, seeing the anguish on his face, and watching him leave. I want to go after him, to tell him everything’s alright between us, but he deserves his space.
Grayson wraps an arm around my shoulder, squeezing. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? That Bastian would be a savior. To me, he’s always seemed a bit unhinged. Maybe it’s the Miscrete in him.”
I twist out of his arm. “Bastian’s not a Miscrete. Besides Arazian and his mutations, who else lives in the First City?” Images of a towering black castle with dungeons, bats, and screaming always fill my head when I think of Arazian’s lair.
“We don’t know.” Evie clasps her hands behind her back as she walks toward us. She’s lived in the shadow of the First City longer than us, so she’s heard the bone-chilling tales of what goes on behind the monstrous walls. “There are rumors.” She tilts her head as if assessing whether she should share them with me. “Rumors that the Northern Duke keeps company with Arazian along with other former Avrenians he chooses not to mutate.”
The sound of his title makes me pause. A distant melody plays in my head, its tinny notes making me long for my father, not the powerful leader who associates with the man who mutates humans. “Then maybe it’s about time we find out.”