Chapter 45
Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, she must decide.
— ALARIC SARE’S LETTERS TO ISABELLE ARKOVA
I’d never worked harder than the weeks after dethroning Rodric.
While the Feared did most of the heavy lifting to confront any remaining Blessed and confiscate adamas gems, I had another task: education.
The city had believed Rodric’s lie. The story he’d crafted about the Blessed and their adamas wasn’t a loose thread to pull free.
It was a tangled ball of yarn that took time and patience to unwind.
We started in town halls. Members of the Feared and the Storm shared their stories.
Those willing did demonstrations both with and without the gem.
We had to unweave the narrative that there was something inherently different about the Blessed.
We did everything to ensure that no one considered the Blessed as such anymore.
They were human without adamas, like the rest of us.
Well … not us, I guessed. Hart and I were truly unique in the kingdom, maybe even the continent.
Rumor of my ability to channel fire spread.
We explained it the best we could. It was a connection forged against all odds, and one that stayed with us.
I considered the ability to sense each other’s emotions a gift.
I told myself we deserved this because of everything the goddesses put us through.
It was a reward for the curse Hart had borne for hundreds of years.
It was a reward for being treated as little more than pawns by the sisters.
The thoughts rang false in my head. Eris had said the connection was our own. And I had no reason to believe she’d lie. We hadn’t seen her or Themis since the throne room. Charon commented that balance was maintained in the city—whatever that meant.
What did their game truly accomplish?
I couldn’t focus on those questions too much.
Without the influence of Rodric’s calming magic, both the ex-Blessed and the humans in the city were experiencing strong emotions.
Each person dealt with the upheaval differently.
We put as much energy as we could into allowing humans to file complaints against the Blessed who’d wronged them.
We held trials, sentenced labor and incarceration, and allowed others to leave.
I sent Lucinda and Blair updates on those who left, as Linia would be the first kingdom they reached.
A part of me hoped that without the power of adamas, a fresh start would set them right, but I knew hope wasn’t a strategy.
Charon seemed made for Glanmore Castle, and I guessed he was.
Or, rather, it had been made for him. He lounged in the hallways during the morning and evenings and flew over the kingdom in the late afternoon.
He considered himself both a beacon of our rebellion and a defender of the kingdom we built.
When not educating the people, we spent our time designing a new power structure for Kavios. We sought citizens’ feedback on new ways of governing. Over time, we decided on a council of advisors, each representing a district within the city, to govern alongside the elected rulers.
Charon and I waited in the throne room for the results of the kingdom’s first election. I couldn’t believe we had organized and executed it within mere weeks.
“I can’t believe you’re accepting a vote. You two earned leadership over this kingdom.”
I laughed. “We agreed that we didn’t want it if the citizens didn’t want us.”
And we had. Hart and I were happy to help establish someone else as the elected ruler if that’s what the kingdom wanted.
“Unbelievable.” His tail flicked up and down in front of the entrance to the throne room. It created a guillotine-like obstacle for anyone seeking entry.
“We’ll know soon enough. They are collecting the final—”
“Charon, I’m coming in, don’t smush me,” Alysa called, though I noted that she didn’t pause her progress as she strode beneath the dragon’s scaled tail. Reid, Hart, and Nicholas were with her.
“Maybe assume that the action was intended to prevent unwanted entry.” Charon’s words filled my mind, but from the way Alysa’s lip curled into a smirk, I had no doubt they filled hers, too. He’d started speaking to more and more of those with whom he’d fought against Rodric and the Blessed.
“Oh, Charon. I know that wouldn’t apply to me.” She held up a sheet of paper. “Plus, we have the results from the election. Don’t you want to know if Ember gets to stay in this castle?”
“She better. I don’t think I’d fit in her old dwelling.”
I laughed. Mother and Father had returned to the apartment. Even if Hart and I weren’t elected to rule, that wouldn’t be the home I returned to. Hart’s green eyes met mine, and something like anticipation flooded me.
Wherever Hart was would be my home.
Alysa waved the paper in front of me as she made her way across the wide stretch of marble floor.
We’d set up a long wooden table at the foot of the dais, where a group of us who had helped lead and coordinate the attack on Rodric met with any citizens who wished to have their thoughts heard.
“Aren’t you even going to ask about the results? ”
I crossed my legs under the table, then uncrossed them and crossed them again on the other side.
We would respect the citizens’ decision, but whatever that paper said would shape my future.
The heat of Hart’s gaze pulled my eyes from my lap back to him.
Those bubbles of his joy popped on my tongue, and I decided it didn’t matter what the answer was, so long as we were together.
“Hart and Ember were elected to rule,” Alysa said at last. “I guess there’s no surprise there. They had almost no competition.”
I released my breath, and Hart was at my side, his fingers tracing my cheek. “Hope you don’t want to withdraw our candidacy now, love.”
I shook my head, and that smirk curled his lips.
“Good. That might be a little too chaotic, even for us.”
“What about the council?” I asked.
There were to be five members of the council. “I was elected,” Alysa said. “Technically, the fifth seat on the council represented the Storm, or those outside the city moving in. Nicholas was one of those elected to represent Woodside.”
She also spoke of one of the previously Blessed women, who had been elected to represent Lower Hill.
She had no complaints against her for taking without consent; humans said hers had been one of the few houses in which they could work safely.
Alysa had mentioned that she’d sent more than one hurting human to the Storm over the years.
Another of those elected was a man who owned the teashop in Woodside.
I’d come to understand that he collected banned books, much like Alaric had, and he’d shared the information within with anyone who sought it under Rodric’s rule. Ava was the last name on the list.
I laughed as I saw it, looking at Hart. “Has she seen this?”
Alysa nodded. “She was not pleased. She said she’d do it for one term, and then they had to pick someone else. But no one could deny that she knows how to take care of the city with all the operations she ran through Forest’s Edge.”
“I told her I’d take over her duties managing the tavern while she helps govern the people,” Reid said.
He and Alysa had just about moved everyone from the Storm into the city. They had made the last trip to the camp yesterday. The kingdom was far from healed, but the largest hurdles of the regime change seemed to be coming to a close.
“So we’re staying?” Smoke billowed from Charon’s nostrils, and his tail started to tick up and down again before the doorway.
“We’re staying. Although—” I searched for the words.
We’d had versions of this conversation before the battle.
He’d said he knew he could leave if he wanted to.
Then, he hadn’t wanted to. I’d assumed it was because he sought revenge on Rodric and helped us to complete the trials. Now … I wasn’t so sure.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ember. I’m staying where you stay.”
I didn’t know how to ask the next question. Why did he stay?
I loved having him here. He’d had me reconstruct the window at the back of Alaric’s workshop so it could open wider.
That way, when I worked there during the day, he could stretch his neck to it from the base of the hill and we could talk.
He’d visited Scarlett briefly again to learn of his kind.
I hoped he’d keep doing so as things settled in Kavios.
She seemed happy to share their history.
And he had shared what he learned about connections like mine and Hart’s.
A love so deep, so sure, that souls intertwined, cemented with shared magic.
They were known as mates to dragonkind, but they were all but forgotten with the dwindling population.
He wondered if my and Hart’s connections with Chaos’s magic—mine as her Champion, and his through his curse—had allowed such a connection to forge.
He also told me all kinds of things about Alaric, about the history they’d learned together and the many tests Alaric had conducted, ill-advised or otherwise.
When Mother and Father had moved back into their apartment, Mother dug out a pile of letters sent between her and Alaric.
While they gave even more insights into what they both kept from me, they also offered an otherwise unavailable connection to Alaric.
He’d planned for this, but so much of it had been out of his control.
He’d had faith in Eris and in me, even when I had none in myself.
Not a day went by that I didn’t miss my uncle, but I thought he’d be smug about the way things had turned out.
I only wished he could see it for himself.
Hart must have tasted the minty flavor of my sadness, or maybe he saw it on my face. Either way, he kneaded my shoulders as I sat in one of the chairs.
“I’m not leaving until you force me out. You’re just as much fun as Alaric when he visited me. And Seb isn’t nearly as intolerable as he used to be.”
I laughed at Charon’s response to my unspoken question. I was unsure about considering Alaric breaking into the adamas cavern “visiting,” but the rest checked out.
Charon had been obsessed with calling Hart “Seb” since the throne room. Hart no longer visibly winced. The two seemed to have an understanding.
“I’m glad,” I said, meeting Charon’s gaze.
I didn’t want him to go. Now that the word was out about how the adamas was created, I worried for him.
Of course, he and Hart reminded me constantly that Charon was a dragon.
Many attackers would die in pursuit of control over him.
It had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that he was in the quartz mine when Hart found him.
“We should celebrate,” Reid said. “Forest’s Edge? Ava is teaching me how to pick drinks for customers without them ordering.”
Hart laughed, and the low, rumbling sound had me wishing we could stay in tonight. “I don’t know if you’ll get away with that as she does. You don’t quite have the same intimidation factor.” He made a point of looking down at Reid, who was at least a half foot shorter than Hart.
“Rude,” Reid replied.
“I have to go fly my circles over the city anyway,” Charon said, “so don’t worry about me.”
I stood. “Alright, maybe one drink.”
Hart’s mouth was at my ear, a whisper only for me. “Still feel like we made the right decision?”
My nod was automatic, but it wasn’t for lack of thought. I’d been reading Alaric’s and Mother’s letters about the path I would take, about all they’d hoped I would accomplish. One line from Alaric had stuck with me: Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, she must decide.
They’d kept so much from me, but in the end, they’d known that how I faced the curse—how I dealt with them—would be mine to decide. And I had decided.
I glanced back at Hart, a smile curling my lip. Together, we’d faced more curses than blessings on our path, but I was determined to find more blessings than curses in our future.
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