Chapter 63
The moment I’m taken across the encampment beneath the Paramount plateau, an entire hour before planned, I know that the sovereign has lied about my part in this so-called ritual.
And, of course, the time I told the Dreamwalker when she appeared to me last night is now incorrect.
The searing realization that the entire escape plan may be out the window squeezes my lungs as I continue across the land beneath the castle plateau.
The dark sky is streaked with purple, the low sun glowing weakly on the horizon. But already, the stars are visible, and the encampment is shrouded in darkness save for speckles of magelight.
The closer we get to the entrance of the forest, to Fiada Purlieu, the faster my heart beats. I’ve been cynical about the existence of the Veil, especially given that there is nothing out of the ordinary about the appearance of the forest, but something feels off.
My mind screams at me to flee as we get closer.
A large bonfire illuminates the area, including several guards and a few other figures up ahead.
One is obviously the sovereign. He’s flanked by Lynx and Radika, Lynx’s mask more ominous in the wavering flames nearby.
Two thick, wooden posts have been erected before the forest entrance, a body bound to each of them, their hands secured behind their backs.
A book that looks old enough to fall apart, bottles of potions, and other artifacts sit on a stony table—an altar of sorts.
My eyes trail from the table to the two bound figures.
Tiernan’s head is slumped forward as if he’s unconscious, but the other captive looks at me with pleading emerald eyes and tears streaming down her face.
Neris.
The breath whooshes out of my lungs and my knees buckle, but I stand my ground. A soldier nudges me, and I stumble forward to face the sovereign, whose lips stretch into that oily smile. His eyes are darker than usual, as are the veins standing out on his neck.
“I’m glad you could make it, Lady Gwyneth,” he says lightheartedly, as though we’re taking a morning stroll through the castle grounds.
“Get ready to witness the sacrifice of the Shadow Wielder, and the opening of the Veil!” His eyes seem demented tonight; too wide, too dark. His grin is unsteady, wild.
My heart stills for a moment. Opening? He’d said he was going to close the Veil! To end the blight. I shouldn’t be surprised that a man like Rheon would blatantly lie this way.
“Not only will there be a sacrifice, but a transference of power,” Rheon continues. “Your Ordinary friend is about to become a Wielder, if all goes according to plan.”
Two Zenith members step out from among the rest of the soldiers, a large knife in each of their hands.
Neris draws an audible breath as a blade is held to her throat.
The other soldier grabs Tiernan by his hair, forcing his head back, and the man’s eyes fly open, consciousness crashing into him.
He immediately stiffens as he realizes his predicament, remaining statue still as the soldier also holds a knife to his throat.
“Winnie,” Neris whimpers.
I look frantically at the sovereign.
“Balance requires sacrifice,” he says.
It’s a phrase I’ve heard from the Purists as well.
“Once the Shadow Wielder’s soul exits, his powers will transfer from him and cling to Reneris.”
My eyebrows furrow. That doesn’t even make sense.
Yet Radika pulls a silver stiletto from her robes and strides toward Neris, who doesn’t dare to move and risk the soldier ending her life.
Chanting loudly in a strange language, she holds Neris’s arm still.
With one hand, Radika begins carving something into the flesh just below the short sleeve of Neris’s dress.
Neris cries out in pain, and it takes everything in me not to run to her rescue, but Radika continues, calm as if she’s simply drawing on canvas. She then tucks the thin weapon away and snaps her finger.
The potion she’d been mixing that day in the infirmary floats from the makeshift altar and lands smoothly in her waiting palm.
As she uncorks the bottle, I grapple for something to do, anything that would stop whatever’s about to happen.
I cannot let her give Neris that potion; I cannot let Tiernan be sacrificed, whatever that entails.
“Stop!” I shout as Radika places the bottle against Neris’s tightly sealed lips.
All eyes turn to me.
“I have something you want.” My voice cracks, coming out breathless. I pull my pocket watch from my trousers and hold it up for everyone to see. “It’s a stone. I heard it’s of great value. As an amplifier.”
The sovereign perks up, intrigued.
I look at the golden hands of the clock one last time.
At the beautiful details nestled within the brass.
The milky white stone veined with mossy green is visible beneath the outer glass rim of the clock—where I’d melded it with the watch a year ago to keep it safe for reasons I hadn’t even known at the time.
Tears sting my eyes as I think of destroying the last keepsake I have from Father.
But he wouldn’t want me to hold on to sentiments for the sake of it.
I close my eyes and call to the stone within.
The glass fragments, the shards digging into my skin, then the entire pocket watch practically melts as the stone is drawn into my palm.
I drop the broken pieces and close my bleeding fist around the stone.
It hums in my hand, heating up until it’s almost unbearable.
Like it’s begging to be released or warning me not to release it.
As usual, I cannot decipher my own intuition.
“Winnie, no!” Neris says. “Don’t.”
“Is this what you want?” I ask, holding out the stone in the palm of my bloodied hand. I step forward, but the sovereign doesn’t budge. I swear his pupils dilate, but he seems afraid to move closer to me. Or afraid to claim the stone.
“Radika.” His tone is clipped, uncertain.
“That’s the one,” Radika says without him even asking the question.
My eyes shift to Tiernan, who is staring into my soul as though he can see my thoughts. Then I hear his voice, though his lips don’t move. “Release me from the dampener so I can Wield.”
I try not to startle, but my heart jumps. He’s a Mind Whisperer?
“And a Mimic. Release me, then toss the stone toward Rheon. I’ll redirect it.”
I hesitate for only a heartbeat. Then I clench my fist, the cuts on my palm stinging. I will the shackles on Tiernan’s wrists to break—releasing his magic and his body from the post. If it makes a sound, I don’t hear it over the roar of my pulse in my ears.
“Well, Pendry, what are you waiting for?” the sovereign asks. “Give me the stone.”
“Yes, Excellency,” I say. But instead of moving closer to him, I hold my breath and toss the stone in his direction.
Panic fills his eyes as he realizes he’ll have to catch it. He steps forward, but Tiernan holds his hand out and the stone flies into his waiting palm.
No sooner have his fingers closed around the stone than a sizable feline with grey fur hurtles out of nowhere, claws extended, ripped clothing clinging to its body.
It pounces on Tiernan, tackling him to the ground.
He cries out in pain, and the stone rolls from his hand and into the grass.
The wildcat pins his arm with a large, clawed paw, snarling and baring its teeth.
I barely have time to process my own shock when the sovereign shouts, “Seize her!”
As a soldier steps toward me, I pull up a mound of earth and he trips over it. Everyone that comes my way is met with a blast of dirt or rocks in their face. I sink a couple of others waist-deep right into the ground, trapping them.
Between attacks, I look around frantically, seeking Neris. I need to get her out of here. But she’s no longer bound to the post.
Not again!
A man comes at me, his fists flaming. I release the bracelet on my wrist, morphing it into a dagger that I fling into his chest. His flames die before he drops to the ground.
Another Zenith member cloaked in midnight blue appears before me.
His dark eyes are wild, a mop of unruly black hair plastered to his forehead and temples.
I summon my dagger from the Flamewielder’s chest as I take in this new attacker.
Dark veins cobweb out from the corners of his eyes.
My gaze dips down from the painfully familiar face to his fists.
To the hands that’d gently held my face when he last bade me farewell.
When he’d pressed a loving kiss to my forehead and told me to keep my fighting spirit alive in his absence.
These same hands that are prepared to smite me are the same hands that tended many a childhood wound.
A lightning bolt pin sits on his burly chest, and I blink, forcing my eyes back to his feral gaze. A few heartbeats pass before I finally find my voice—barely.
“Father?” I whisper.
He snarls as if the title provokes something animalistic in him.
As he lunges for me, tiny sparks melded with dark mist play on his fingertips.
Bitterness creeps into my throat, and my heart squeezes agonizingly.
As I leap to the side, the hair rises on my neck as the tiniest zap of lightning illuminates the space where I’d just stood.
He has powers?
“Father! It’s—”
He shoves his hand toward me, and more sparks laced with darkness form.
A breath later, they die on his palms. He looks partly bewildered, partly panicked.
Darkness moves beneath his ashen brown skin—as if ink flows through his veins.
His eyes seem too large, blackness bleeding into where it should be white.
My heart hammers so rapidly that my body goes numb.
“Father!” I call. “Please. Eurig?” I send a chunk of earth into someone in my periphery. I don’t even look to see what’s become of them as Father closes in on me. Weak sparks sputter at his fingertips.
Another chunk of earth hovers at my side, prepared to be brought down upon the head of the man who’d been my greatest role model. Who’d disrupted societal norms to teach his daughter how to defend herself. Who’d believed in her. In me.
Something flickers in his eyes, the darkness receding and a familiar, tender gaze locks onto my face.
“Father. It’s me. Winnie.” My voice comes out breathless. “Please.”
But my father, or whoever this man—this creature—is, shakes his head. The recognition disappears from his eyes. I step back, raising the chunk of earth, but he closes his eyes and vanishes from the spot. More Zenith members begin to jump away.
They’re … fleeing?
The sovereign is nowhere in sight, and the big cat is still grappling with Tiernan.
The animal’s head whips toward me, its face riddled with bald patches within the fur.
Then suddenly, the cat morphs into human form with tattered clothing hanging off her body.
She knocks Tiernan out with a swift cuff to the temple, then grabs the discarded red cloak before vanishing along with Tiernan.
There’s no one left, save for Radika, the stiletto held to Neris’s neck from behind.
My knees quiver as I root my feet. “Radika, it’s over!” I shout. “Everyone’s gone. What do you want?”
“The stone,” Radika says simply.
My lips tug down. I’d thought it lost but, sure enough, there in the grass lies the stone.
My memory of the discussion I’d overheard returns; the stone is needed to be given willingly for it to work.
I pluck it from the grass. The white bits are still red from the cuts in my palm. From the pocket watch that I melted.
“Winnie,” Neris’s voice sounds far away with my pulse still pounding in my ears. “Don’t give it to her. Let her kill me. You’re more important. The world needs you.”
I look at her with exasperation while she remains still, her head pressed back against Radika’s shoulder, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“The world needs you. Ordinary doesn’t make you unimportant!”
“Oh, for the gods’ sake,” says Radika, impatience lacing her voice. “Give me the stone or I will pierce her thro—”
Her words are cut off as darkness surrounds her legs like fog, vines of shadows looping around and around her body. She drops the blade, shuddering. Then she claps her hands over her head and falls to her knees.
Neris clutches her throat, shock filling her eyes as she backs away from Radika.
I glance around as a woman with hair pulled back into two thick braids approaches, shadows clearly swirling around her hands even in the darkness.
On her left side is a shorter woman holding a bow, a quiver strapped across her back, and on her right is a taller woman with several long braids down her back and a sword in hand.
The Shadow Wielder drops her hand and the vapors dissipate.
It’s her. I’m not sure whether to be afraid or relieved, but Neris runs to stand beside me. “Are you alright?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the three women approaching.
I should know better than to turn away from the enemy, but I suddenly hear Radika’s voice, speaking in that language I’ve heard her utter in the past. I turn to her as her hands start to glow purple from where she’s kneeling on the ground.
But she stops abruptly, clutching at the arrow shaft that appears in her chest.
A sick feeling overcomes me, bile searing my throat, pain stabbing through me so fiercely that I break out in a cold sweat. A shing fills the air as the taller woman pulls a sword from her belt while the shortest of them grabs a fresh arrow from the quiver strapped across her back.
Radika coughs, then closes her eyes and disappears from the spot. When the women are close enough, wide brown eyes meet my gaze. The Dreamwalker.
I nearly laugh with relief, but I can hardly breathe—my chest is on fire.
“Winnie?” The Dreamwalker’s soothing voice pulls my attention.
I nod and Neris links her elbow with mine, holding me close. She’s shaking like a leaf, truly scared.
The Dreamwalker takes in our surroundings, then swallows so hard that it’s noticeable. “Where is he?” she asks. “Where is Tiernan?”