Chapter 34
Petra
I’d almost had him. Malosym had been here in Araqina. I’d seen the blue light. Adorex had confirmed it. I’d felt him, the moment I stepped out onto the street. He’d been here, and I never even managed to lay eyes on him. I let him go.
Fuck.
“We should’ve burned it then.”
Katia’s words were just audible over the furious chitters and hisses as I opened my eyes to the Darkness Beyond. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to reveal I was here. They’d kept the truth from me, hidden the fact that I had the power to end all of this.
“We cannot relive the past, Katia.”
“What else is there to do here, Rhedros?” she snapped, more venom in her voice than I’d ever heard. The noises of the Occulti picked up for a moment, and when Katia spoke again, it was quieter, more measured. “We could’ve saved her all of this pain had we just burned the world when she was born.”
“And it would’ve taken away her chance at life.”
“What kind of life is one that will end at the hands of Malosym? It would’ve been a kindness. It would’ve been a mercy, Rhedros.”
“Her life will not end at the hands of Malosym. Maybe Noros will convince her to take the Sanguilite’s path. Build her own realm,” Rhedros continued. I winced as an Occulti passed by far too close and hoped it wouldn’t somehow spot my invisible form.
“She won’t,” Katia answered, anger and sorrow hardening her tone. “You know her soul. She won’t do it. She’s too much like me. I should’ve fucking killed him when I had the chance.”
“But you didn’t. Petra may be like you, but you are nothing like him.”
I wanted to cover my ears. I didn’t want to hear this conversation. What good would it do me to hear of their regrets?
Katia sounded like she was breathing through gritted teeth. “You know how it’s going to end.”
“I do, darling.”
They fell silent for a beat. “H-How did it come to this?” Katia finally whispered, the words choked.
Rhedros didn’t answer. I squeezed my eyes shut.
They’d abandoned hope. I wanted to stand up and scream to them that they’d be getting out of here when I killed Malosym.
But I kept my mouth shut, willing myself to find my way back to the Human Realm.
As Katia’s cries quieted to sniffles, I felt the barrier begin to thin.
◆ ◆ ◆
When I was little, Da used to tell us the Saints lived in the sky.
He’d point out stars, drawing invisible lines with his fingers, as he told us who they were.
The shapes never made much sense to me, but Da insisted that was them.
“They’re nae far away,” he’d tell us. “Just there, ye see, just above us. Even when the moon is asleep and ye cannae see them.” But now, as I opened my eyes to a sky scattered with stars, I wished it was true.
I wished they were that close. Perhaps if they lived in the night sky, Katia and Rhedros wouldn’t be in danger of Malosym’s wrath. Perhaps they’d still have hope.
A long breath left my nose as I blinked the world into focus.
“There she is,” a familiar voice breathed, and it settled somewhere deep inside me.
“You were out for a while this time.” Cal’s eyes were molten in the red glow of torchlight.
I tried to memorize the way the blue looked like a sunset over a sapphire ocean.
I wished the feeling of his arms around me could be imprinted on my very soul. Maybe it already had been.
I took stock of my senses, letting consciousness slip back into my body.
No pain shot up my arms when I squeezed my fists.
The blisters were healed. We were in the middle of a street in Araqina.
I could vaguely hear voices and footsteps all around me.
I was okay. I’d made it through. But as I found my way back into my head, reality was a beacon in the night.
“How many did we lose?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Cal’s face hardened. “Somewhere between seven and eight hundred. Mostly civilians.” A weight dropped in my gut as I closed my eyes against his words. Fuck. Fuck. “Mobilizing the army we had available at a moment’s notice did not go as smoothly as it should’ve.”
“The drivas?”
“All fine. Rixa will need a gash on her back healed, but otherwise, they’re all fine.”
“And the injured?”
“Nell helped set up the ballroom as a holding space until you woke up,” he answered. “Figured it was better than summoning a rainstorm and flooding the city. Healers are in there now doing what they can.”
My posture stiffened as I tried to stand, but Cal’s arms tightened around me. “Hang on,” he murmured. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Cal,” I answered quickly, trying to decode the expression on his face.
He stared at me for one extra moment before his grip loosened and he helped me to my feet. I shook off the remaining grogginess as we moved through the streets, headed for the doors of the castle where I would spend as much time as was needed healing the injured.
Guilt made my stomach churn as we passed bodies in the streets. Again. How many times would this happen? Why had he attacked? He hadn’t been at full power. Had he expended too much sending in the Occulti in their true form last night?
“I let him go,” I murmured. The guilt swirled with anger and set my head spinning.
“You can’t blame yourself, Petra.”
“You always say that, but at some point, I’ll have to take the blame. At some point, enough is enough.”
Cal was quiet for a beat too long before he answered me. “You didn’t let him go. Don’t you dare think that.”
How could I not think that? My sole purpose in life had very quickly boiled down to ending Malosym’s life.
That was it. That was my only mission. I failed today.
And who knew what consequences would come from him still being somewhere out there in the world?
How many more people would he hurt? How many would he kill?
When we finally pushed through the doors to the ballroom, I shut out everything but the task ahead.
Cal left to help families who were still looking for their loved ones in the streets.
And I healed. I sliced my palm open over and over and over again until every gash was closed and every cut was mended .
I’d long since sent the healers away to get some rest. I fell into the same pattern of apologizing, of explaining what I knew in the shortest way I could. The sun had to be close to rising when I made it to the very last person in the ballroom.
Cielle.
She sat patiently, hands folded in her lap, posture perfectly straight without appearing the least bit stiff.
The way her legs were tucked one behind the other looked natural, but I was sure I’d fall out of my seat trying to maneuver myself into that position.
Grace seemed to radiate from her, making my lack thereof feel so much more profound.
I’d know she was royal without having to ask.
Even with dirt streaking one of her cheeks and her blonde hair escaping its braid, she was beautiful. Just as beautiful as Larka.
But I had a feeling she had the filter Larka didn’t, and I’d be willing to bet Cielle had never let a single fuck or shit slip through in front of another person. Maybe not even under her breath.
She was still so very Larka, but I could tell now, she was her own person. She was…me, in a strange way. She was the real Petra, the daughter my mother had no idea had been taken away from her and given a different life. What would my mother say when she found out?
“Hello, Cielle,” I said quietly, trying to infuse some sort of cheer or joy into my voice for her sake. There was none to be had, though.
“Your Majesty.” Her words were strained and there was a slight hitch in her movements as she rose to lower herself into a curtsy.
“Please,” I said, gesturing for the small cot she’d been waiting on. “Are you injured?”
She gingerly extended one knee, and I saw the purple splotches and swelling at her ankle.
“Twisted it running down the stairs in the chaos. It’s not bad.
I wasn’t going to come here, but my cousin all but shoved me into the ballroom.
I feel silly asking to be healed when so many other people…
” She trailed off, her eyes moving around the room.
The floors of the ballroom looked like a painting created with only shades of red.
Piles of bloodied cloth lay discarded on cots, evidence of the people I’d healed just as much as it was evidence of the ruin I’d summoned to their doorstep.
“Don’t feel silly. This looks painful,” I murmured, inspecting Cielle’s ankle as I pulled my thoughts back to her.
“I’m glad you stayed.” I pulled my dagger across my palm one last time, opening the wound that had already started to clot, and gently rested it against her ankle.
I would never, ever grow accustomed to watching someone heal before my very eyes.
The purple bruises faded and the swelling lessened immediately, her ankle good as new in seconds.
She flexed her foot, carefully rolling the joint, testing. “Wow,” she whispered. “It’s amazing. I mean, I’ve been watching you move throughout the room all night, but seeing it firsthand is different.”
I gave a weak smile, looking around until I saw a clean strip of cloth on a nearby cot. I wrapped it around the gash on my palm to keep it from opening again until I could get some rest. But after I tied it in place and Cielle stopped flexing her foot, neither of us made a move to leave.
A heaviness hung in the air between us. So many questions. I was the one to open the floodgates, to broach the subject that sat like a whole separate person between us. “Did you know?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “Well, I found out last year I was adopted, but I never assumed…” A shallow breath left her lungs as she peered down to where her hands were folded in her lap. “I figured it out after we met at the ball. It’s mad.”
“It is,” I agreed, a humorless laugh escaping me as I lowered myself onto the cot across from her.
“So, your sister…”