Chapter 31
Petra
“How did you get here?”
Nell’s cheeks were red, her hair falling from her braid, as I ushered her to a seat in the meeting hall. Cal and Tyrak gathered close, their brows furrowed. “Sending word by ship was going to take too long,” she said between gasping breaths. “I did what I had to do.”
I looked her over, taking in the leathers that had been made for her before she’d decided to stay in Taitha with Whit. “Did you fly here? Alone? ”
She pursed her lips, repeating herself. “I did what I had to do.”
“Fucking Saints, Nell,” I breathed, anxiety gripping my chest. “What happened?”
She swallowed hard, her eyes full of a fear I hadn’t seen in her before. “I… I’m not sure how to say this, so I’m just going to sa y it. The theory that the Occulti can take on any shape or form? Yeah, that’s true.”
The blood drained from my face. We already knew this, but Nell hadn’t been aware of what happened on our trip from Astran. “What are you saying?”
“There had to be a dozen drivas at one point. I don’t know how.
It was clear they were nowhere near as strong as Katia’s, and we were able to take them down.
” Oh, thank the fucking Saints. “But it wasn’t just drivas, Petra.
The crack appeared right in the middle of the city and they came crawling out.
And…” Her mouth opened and closed, her eyes on me but her mind back in Taitha.
She took a deep breath, but it was shaky.
“There were other things, other monsters , in Taitha. I’ve never seen anything…
” She trailed off, biting back a sob. “The kind of monsters you hear stories about as a child.”
I choked back the acid burning my throat. “Deaths?”
“Somewhere around five hundred. Your mother and Solise were accounted for.” A knot I hadn’t even known was tied loosened in my chest. “Whit and Summercut were accounted for as well. They’ve consolidated everyone still in Taitha to a few square blocks. Easier to guard.”
Guilt bloomed in my chest so quickly it felt as though my ribs could crack. Five hundred people. Five hundred souls who would leave this realm and find…what? What awaited them? More pain? More suffering?
“The Occulti attacked here last night,” I murmured, closing my eyes.
“Shit,” Nell whispered under her breath. “Everyone accounted for?”
“Yes. A handful of deaths, but we’re all accounted for.”
“Where’s Miles?”
I blinked, looking at the chair he’d been sitting in throughout the entire meeting with the leaders. “Good question. Must’ve slipped out at some point.” Nell’s only answer was a nod, her face gaunt with exhaustion. “Cal, can you find Queen Irli? Have a room arranged for Nell?”
“Of course,” he answered, extending a hand to Nell.
She took it, and the fact that she didn’t make a wise crack proved how shaken up she was. Her eyes were hollow as I wrapped my arms around her, hoping she could feel how grateful I was for her. “Thank you,” I said. “Get some rest.”
A small nod was all she could manage before she shuffled out the door.
A dozen drivas. A dozen fucking drivas. Sure, they’d all fallen, but he could make more.
Fear boiled over in my gut as my hands began to burn.
I clenched my fists together, willing the burn to stop, but it only grew hotter.
I walked back up the dais, trying to catch my breath, but it was no use.
“ Fuck !” I bellowed, beating my fist into the tabletop, hot tears flooding my eyes and spilling over the lids.
The wooden table ignited, a trail of flames snaking over the tabletop. “Saints fucking damn him!”
I collapsed onto the chair in the center of the table, just close enough to the fire that it hurt. Could I burn myself out with my own flames? What if I simply sat here, let the flames take me and this entire fucking castle and put us all out of our misery?
No. I couldn’t do that. Not to Cal. Not to Miles. Not to Nell or Whit or Solise or Ma.
I reached for the storm inside of me, isolating the rain and dropping a sheet of water over the flaming table. The fire sputtered out, smoke hissing from the embers that still glowed.
“Control is coming easier to you now.”
I jolted at Tyrak’s voice in the quiet. In all honesty, I’d forgotten all about him, still sitting in a chair at the base of the dais. He rose and took a cautious step forward, and when I didn’t protest, he approached the smoking table, taking the chair next to mine .
“Gaining control of your powers must feel good,” he remarked, no emotion discernible in his voice.
Anger should’ve flared at his words, but I was numb. I stared at the smoke drifting off the table, imagining I was looking at a scorched battlefield. That would be my view sometime soon, if I even lived long enough to see it.
“I was human before I was a Saint, you know,” Tyrak said suddenly.
My eyes flicked to him. “What?”
“We all were, except your parents.”
I blinked, staring at him. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s not something any scholar would find, nothing you’d find in any book. Katia and Rhedros didn’t want something like that to be widely known. They didn’t want humans thinking they could become Saints.”
“But they can?”
“Yes, but it’s a bit more complicated than that,” he answered, a careful smile on his face.
My head dropped back to my chair. “It always is.”
Tyrak leaned forward, his eyes on the scorched grains of wood. “He’s going to kill me.”
My first instinct was to tell him that wasn’t true, but I knew Malosym’s nature. Tyrak had escaped his claws, and he wouldn’t take kindly to being outmaneuvered. So, I remained silent.
“Acceptance came to me long ago,” he continued.
“But I vowed to do everything I could to protect you, and I’ve kept that vow and will continue to do so.
When I brought you to the Human Realm, I knew I had one chance to keep you from Malosym.
And I know this sounds harsh and a bit backwards, but I did my absolute best to find a family who wouldn’t be able to give you much in the way of an education.
” His fingers were splayed out and flexed, as if he were trying to justify his decision to not only me, but himself.
“But you deserved a family who loved you as much as your mother and father do. And so…” He took a deep breath, as if fortifying himself for the words he was going to say next.
“Everyone was asleep in the house, and I was quick about it. And as far as I knew, your parents, your human parents, were none the wiser.”
I knew this. I knew this already. But… “You took the other baby.”
“I did. And there was one family who’d prayed to me fervently for years, asking me to end their pain. They desperately wanted to start a family, and none of the healers had been able to help them. So I left her at the gates of their kingdom and waited in the shadows for her to be found.”
I gasped, shooting to my feet as my hands flew to my mouth. It all made sense — the icy blue eyes, the blonde hair, the almost identical features. “Cielle.”
Tyrak nodded, his shoulders falling a bit, as if that fact had been a weight on his shoulders since the day he’d switched us. “Yes. Cielle.”
Fucking Saints.
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
“I’m telling you this because no part of your life has ever truly been yours. And you do, in fact, have a choice.”
I straightened in my seat, my eyes narrowing on him. “What are you talking about?”
I could feel the turmoil coursing through him.
“Malosym is of the Old World, and so much is unknown of his origin and his power. We suspect he can’t actually kill a Saint, but we don’t know with certainty.
If it’s true, if he could kill Rhedros or Katia–” His voice broke on my mother’s name as pain creased his face. “The results would be catastrophic.”
“Yes,” I said with a slow nod. “I’m aware it’s unknown whether he truly has the power to kill a Saint. The Benevolent Saints informed me of such. But what does this have to do with me having a choice in all of this?”
His eyes closed for a brief moment as he whispered to himself, “Katia forgive me.” And when his eyes opened, resolve glimmered from within their depths. “Malosym is the son of two of the Forgotten Saints.”
I blinked for a moment, my mind suddenly blank. “Okay…”
“The Forgotten Saints had dozens and dozens of children with each other, and the children of the Forgotten Saints were called Extos.” Extos.
I tumbled the word around in my head, and it seemed to wriggle its way into my brain.
“Extos had their own powers, usually some weakened derivative of their parents’ powers, though they were nowhere near as powerful.
“Eraura, Saint of Love, and Shovhor, Saint of Loss, only ever had one child together, and that was Malosym. They did not have any other children because they quickly realized something was very, very wrong with him.
“To the outside world, Extos were essentially human until their powers developed in early adulthood.
They may have shown some minor traits of magic, slight healing abilities, for example.
But until they came into their power, they were just as susceptible to injury and death as humans were, by any force.
“Even before Malosym came into his power, it was plain to see darkness had taken root within him. It wasn’t long before the other Saints were calling for him to be culled, to put an end to any chance of that darkness growing before it had the chance to grow stronger.
So, as a young child, he escaped to the forest and spent his youth there, killing small forest animals. ”
I winced, shifting uncomfortably in my chair. “Shit.”