Page 73

Chapter 73

Karus

With the same swiftness she had come, she was gone.

The Blightress left in a cloud of black, and I felt it. Deep inside my bones, I felt the shift, the world reimagined in a flicker of time.

“ Karus ,” Rev called, asking to be let into my shield.

I dropped it and his arms were around me, his breath heavy, fear rippling through our bond. He had been so afraid. I felt it there between us.

But I could only stare over his shoulder at where she’d been.

I ignored the vice on my womb, the spread of tight spasms signaling Saelyn’s arrival would be this night.

The fae began to fall back into the forest, leaving behind their celebration, but I could only stare.

Clairannia called, “ We need to get back to the Fortress !” She pulled on Rev’s shoulder while Figuerah called to the lumens in the growing darkness, her golden power of light trailing through the trees.

Revich spoke to both of them, but I could only stare.

“ What have you done? ” I asked, searching my mind for the Blightress .

No answer came.

No coy remark or threat of her power.

“ I don’t believe you. Tell me what this is,” I demanded to the silent corner of my mind where she had always been. “ Why can’t I feel you anymore? ”

I was pulled away.

The fae warrior, Nova , said something to me, but I couldn’t comprehend it.

I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t process that my body was giving way to our child, I could only call over and over in my mind, afraid of what the Blightress had planned.

I had no reason to trust her.

I had no reason to believe her words of peace.

The next wave of pain, I could not ignore.

Clairannia was there, whispering spells to relax my womb, helping subside the spasms slightly.

Revich was speaking to me.

He held my face, his eyes a deep blue ringed with black. His shield around us was brilliant azure fire. I lifted my hands to grasp his, and I smiled in a laugh, blinking rapidly and coming back from the corner where I had just screamed Visalia’s name in an echo of silence.

“ Stay with me,” Rev ordered. “ Karus , look at me! Stay with me, my love.”

“ She’s gone,” I started, laughing again, tears streaming down my face. “ I can’t feel her there. Rev ,”— I grabbed his shirt, shaking him—“she truly left.”

He lowered his forehead to mine, placing his hands on my belly. “ I believe you. Now , Karus ,”—he lifted my face—“you need to bring our daughter into this world. She’s not waiting to get back to the Fortress . Clairannia says she’s coming now, and she needs you to focus.”

I nodded, the sounds and light around us coming back to me as I was lowered to the forest floor. Figuerah sat behind me, propping me up, Clairannia knelt at my legs, helping me through my breathing, telling me when to push.

Rev stayed at my side, talking with me through every bout of pain, easing every spasm with the spells he knew to calm my racing heart and help me bring our child into the world.

Her cries lit the night, and I collapsed back into Figuerah’s lap, closing my eyes, hearing the bliss of full, healthy lungs.

Figuerah shook, laughing and crying, wiping the sweat and tears from my face.

I blinked to see Revich holding our child in his arms, sobbing as I’d never seen, rocking her wrapped in his cream shirt, his chest bare, pressing our daughter to his skin. He whispered something at her ear before kissing her mess of black hair.

He leaned down to kiss me in a jumble of words of love and pride and admiration. He set Saelyn into my shaking arms and held the two of us, kissing my head repeatedly, beginning the song of his mother.

Time moved swiftly across the moments after and as my body healed from Clairannia’s magic, I drifted to sleep, searching one more time for the Blightress , finding nothing but the silent, empty dark.

* * *

Three weeks later, they came back to us.

They all came back to us.

It began with the lumens. Revich and I walked the paths of Felgren , Saelyn taking turns in our arms, when Parvus and Rauca came bounding through the forest trees to greet us.

No vines grew from their skin, no red flickered in their eyes. They returned as the loyal lumens we knew with no evidence but our memories that they had ever been otherwise.

Mychael and Rell came next.

They arrived one evening as the sun sank below the trees.

Pompeii called to both of us through the Overseer bond, and we rushed to the foyer to find him there in Mychael’s arms while Renn twirled her sister around and around in cries of relief and giggles.

I held Saelyn tightly as Rev rushed to Rell , asking if she was alright, looking her over for any signs of injury. When they both assured us they were unharmed, we headed to the kitchens to hear their stories.

“ I don’t remember anything beyond being pulled into that portal,” Mychael explained. “ The next I woke, Rell and so many others were lying in a grove of broken trees up north.” He took Pompeii’s hand into his. “ It’s why it took us so long to return. That was around three weeks ago, but Rell insisted on helping me return all of the other channelers to their cities. None of them remembered what happened.”

“ Can you tell us?” Rell asked excitedly. “ How long were we gone?” She nodded to Saelyn in Revich’s arms and then to Thevin in Talon’s . “ It must have been months if both babies of Felgren have arrived. What happened to the Blightress ?”

Silence filled the kitchens and everyone looked to Revich and me.

“ She is gone,” I said. “ She has released everyone she put into those syphoner trees, and she is gone.”

Mychael asked softly, “ Do you believe she’s gone for good?”

I crossed my arms at my chest. “ If this is some game she’s playing, it’s a convincing one.”

* * *

Three more weeks passed before the question was answered.

Clairannia and Figuerah left Felgren , returning to their homes, promising to visit soon. Philius left as well, summoned by the Queen to meet with Lady Lamoral , whose young daughter, Lady Lanna , had gone missing one night in her bed. We asked Philius to represent Felgren and help lead the search for seven-year-old heir in our stead.

Revich and I had fallen into a routine. Parenthood was fulfilling and simple when we had a fortress of servants and friends who all wanted time spent with Saelyn , giving Rev and I plenty of much-needed breaks and quiet moments alone.

I had fallen asleep that afternoon on my blue high back chair, my hand still on Saelyn’s cradle where I had rocked her to sleep. I dreamt of a black night lit with white shining stars. I dreamt of a forest bursting from the ground outside of Hyrithia’s castle gates. I dreamt of a field of snow, high as my waist, cold and silent as I trekked through endless white seeking… someone.

I woke with a start, bolting upright and gasping. It had felt more than real. It had felt like a memory. I reached down to sweep my fingers across Saelyn’s soft black locks to find that she was not there. I rose in a panic, whipping around to see a figure in black walking slowly across the room with a bundle in her arms.

“ Please ,” I begged, reaching out. “ Please don’t take her.”

The Blightress halted her steps, facing me with eyes brimming in tears. “ I am not here to take her, Little Sprout . I am here to say goodbye one last time.”

I dared not move. I dared not leap across the room to take my sleeping baby from her arms, knowing she had all the power to whisk her away in a mere second if she wanted to.

“ You are here to say goodbye?” I whispered in a racing heartbeat. “ To me?”

“ To both of you.” She smiled genuinely, stroking a long pale finger over Saelyn’s cheek. “ She has done more than you will ever know, Baron Karus .” Her gaze lifted to mine as she finished, “ I have loved you since I felt you. That , at least, will never change.” She kissed Saelyn’s head and stepped closer, handing her to me.

I took her quickly, backing away, already calling to Revich through our bond. He appeared seconds later in a flash of blue light.

The Blightress held up her hand, blocking the ray of power that shot from his hands. “ I am not here for that, Baron Revich .”

He stepped in front of me. “ You said you would leave and not pursue either one of them.”

She nodded, folding her hands in front of her billowing black gown. “ And so I will. I wanted to hold her one time. Just once, I wanted to feel the weight of a babe in my arms.”

I set Saelyn back into her crib as she stirred.

Moving around Revich , I asked, “ Why can’t I feel you? How have you gone from my mind?”

“ You still hold my power as you will continue to do. But it was always my choice to stay with you.” She took another step forward and Revich reached out to block me, but I lowered his hand, meeting her in the distance between us.

“ I don’t know why you’ve changed. But thank you. If there’s anything you could have given me, it was this.”

“ I know,” she whispered. “ I love you, my Little Sprout .”

I frowned, reaching out to her, feeling the pull of the thread between us that had been there since I had grown in my mother’s womb. She faded into the black around her as nothing more than a trail of power that dissipated like the sound of a Felgren wind.

* * *

Months later we returned to the cave.

I needed to see it.

I needed to be sure and so did Revich .

Pompeii and Mychael assured us Saelyn would be safe with them and we returned, finding the massive cavern to be just that. Empty , wet, and dark.

The Blightress’s heart was missing with no sign of where she had gone or what she had done with it. Word rumbled throughout the isle that the land was prospering, and I knew the Blightress must be alive, hidden somewhere, for we magic wielders could not survive without her. Revich and I portaled through her lands, searching for any sign of Blight .

We found nothing but a dead forest.

No beasts of Blight , no living trees to hunt us down.

Just empty silence and an abandoned palace of white stone.

That night, we returned to the Fortress , the three of us nestled in our bed. Rev softly sang the song of his mother to Saelyn , stroking her black hair as she slept. I watched with such love, my heart could burst from the overwhelming relief I felt having the two of them there—safe, and happy, just as I had begged all those months ago when I had accepted the power of Baron .

I held onto those moments then. I tucked them away to memory.

I reached out to cover Revich’s hand, warm and soothing over our child. We held each other’s gaze with Saelyn snuggled between us, and he silently mouthed the words, I love you . I did the same with a smile and promised myself I would never forget the love in that room.