Chapter 67
Larkspur
Gilded light slipped through the window, as though gold poured over the sill. The glow mounted into a pair of broad shoulders before arms stretched wide. Astros.
The Sun Origin stood before us with a dissatisfied hum. “Who calls us?” he boomed, and the heat of his sunlight scorched my cheeks as it flared, causing my Shadows to retreat.
He’d married us, bound us… All while knowing Dritan was a pawn to be sacrificed.
All while anticipating my husband’s demise would be necessary for my success—he’d condemned me to death whether I won or lost my battle with Caym.
Anger mounted in my chest, and my Shadows sought something to tear apart.
Bile built in the back of my throat. We were so disposable to them all—flecks of dust, ants on a sand hill.
My aunt stood stone-still. She clutched the windowsill behind her and pressed herself back against the pane, focus bouncing between Emmerick and me warily.
I stood taller, desperately trying to cool my anger and settle the panic that threatened to unravel me.
“We have met before, Origin Astros—in the Temple of Light where you wed me and my husband,” I snapped, unable to mask my resentment. I motioned toward the table where my love lay before addressing the others.
“Your key has fallen into Caym’s grasp,” I seethed. “Your schemes have gone awry—was it all truly designed to be his end?”
The eerie stares of the higher powers seared me; it didn’t make me cower. My resolve would not crack under their divine judgment.
A gust paired with dazzling stars circled around me and then Dritan. “She speaks the truth,” a male voice whispered as a strand of my curls lifted on the wind—as though picked up by an invisible finger.
Dust glistened against the dim lamplight, revealing a cast of Siro, the Wind Origin.
A sparkling woman who, despite being her namesake, looked nothing like Aunt Asterie said, “The boy’s heart does not beat. The relic cannot be wielded.”
She was tall with long, inhuman fingers and waist-length blue vines of tangled starlight cascading from her head. “Do you see him, Atla? Look, child.”
My blood boiled more every moment they refused to regard my questions. The Sources peered at me and my husband like we were specimens in a jar.
I gritted my teeth. How could they be so calm? Did none of this world truly matter to them?
“Answer her,” Emmerick ground out. His presence at my side steadied me.
Astros’ glare landed on him. He sighed. “Yes, he was meant to die. When Isolde came to us and requested the final relic, we spent centuries searching for a way to deliver a new Origin into the world.
“Now, it is ruined. Caym will rise, and upon the black moon, be unstoppable. You are right—the third relic was a key to help us reach Death’s domain. You failed us.”
I stiffened at his callous choice of words. He made my husband out to be nothing more than an inanimate object to be used. The room stilled, and all attention turned to Dritan.
“Why bind us, then?” I demanded. “If his destiny was to die, how would I have succeeded and accomplished Isolde’s prophecy with our lives bound?”
My head spun as I tried to understand the selfish nature of Sources we’d long put so much faith in.
Astros’ nostrils flared as though he was offended by my questioning him. “I did not bind your lives. You assumed so, but I only bound your powers, Princess. I made both of you stronger. Little good it did.”
My throat constricted.
Dritan could be dying. I ran to the window, gazing out to find a gray ring forming around the moon.
No… no it couldn’t be.
“War was to be fought with shadows and light,” a bright, amorphous female figure said. She shone as brightly as the rising moon. Elara.
“And yet the light has dimmed,” the Moon Origin continued with a frown and tsk-tsked. “You’re too late. He’s growing weaker against Caym.”
My eyes burned as I returned to my husband’s side. I stared down at him with my heart in my throat and took his hand. His face had paled; his lips grew blue.
I wouldn’t allow Dritan to be taken from me. We had a future—so many possibilities ahead of us.
“You did this,” Emmerick accused as he stalked toward Astros. “And now, you will help us fix it.”
Aquas’ kelp-laden skin was pulled taut; he was the most corporeal of the lot. With a grave tone, he pointed at Emmerick and said, “There is no correcting course now. You and the child of Siro did not listen to me—you were to bring him to me, and you did not.”
“So that you could sacrifice him?” Emmerick boomed; his fists remained tight at his sides, and the muscles of his jaw went rigid.
“Come now, Aquas,” a crackling voice emitted from the flaming silhouette of Lira, the Origin of Flame. “All is not lost. The boy still breathes. He is strong like his mother—he fights Caym as we speak.”
Atlas plucked a rose petal from her own arm and winced with a whimper before throwing it in the air. Origin Asterie grabbed her wrist to prevent her from doing it again, shushing her.
“Ah, but without him awake, there is no way into Death’s domain. The damage is done,” Siros retorted. “They have doomed us to this eternal prison.”
The powers around us made a ruckus of disparaging counterpoints. Amara’s horror-stricken expression mirrored the churning helplessness within me, all while Emmerick remained stiff; his anger roiled off him.
“Settle down,” Elara scolded. “Caym wishes us to turn against one another.”
I’d never dreamed of seeing the Source Origins of our land in my lifetime. Never mind watching them squabble like petulant children while my lover trembled on the cusp of death before them.
Anger pulled at my vision, and my jaw clenched.
“Enough!” Emmerick’s shout shook the room along with a flash of golden light and quieted the lot of them. He stepped to my side, settling a large hand on my shoulder.
“She has the relics,” he panted out through his rage. “Tell us another way.”
The Source Origins stilled; all grew silent aside from Atlas, who whimpered, leaves drooping.
“We cannot help you,” Astros concluded despite the labored, wrath-filled breaths of the King beside me. Blood pounded in my ears as the ground spun beneath my feet. The very deities who warped our fates would not intervene.
They would leave us for dead.
Heat built behind my eyes, and Emmerick’s grip on my shoulder tightened, continuing to steady me; I’d never been ready for this.
“Cannot or will not?” Emmerick growled.
“It is impossible,” Astros barked back. “You ask for answers we do not have.”
Lira approached Dritan, tilting his chin to the side with a sharp nail of flame. I braced, though her touch did not scorch him. She gazed down at him like a mother doting on a child. I wondered if the Origin could have a heart beneath the flames.
“There must be a way,” I whispered to her, then turned to the rest of them. “You are the most powerful beings in this world. What must we do?”
Their plan had been foiled.
We held little hope.
My upbringing, my training, my devotion—all for nothing. The prophecy crumbled between my fingers like loose soil.
“I may know another way to reach him,” Emmerick cut in. “Can objects be taken with someone into the realm of the Sethe curse? And which one of you do I need to bargain with for that to happen?”
Lira’s posture perked up as I turned to Emmerick, mouth agape.
What he intended became clearer now.
He’d curse himself again.
The sacrifice he was willing to make proved he would be the type of man Dritan could look up to. I wished my husband were awake to hear his pledge of loyalty. When he met my gaze, he gave me a reassuring nod and the weakest trace of a smile.
“Interesting,” Astros hummed out.
Dritan’s breath caught. My chest constricted. He did not have long.
We did not have long.
“It will not work,” Aquas said. This time, his tone was more somber and remorseful than resentful.
But the Origin of Flames stared at Emmerick before she said, “I’m willing to bargain with you—to give you the chance to try. My only condition is that the child of Desidero must enter Death’s domain with you. By the prophecy’s demand, she should be there for the killing blow.”