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Chapter 39

IRIS

Aspen’s lack of acknowledgment that he’d nearly gotten us both killed did not go unnoticed.

The air remained taut with my anger and his pride well into the night as we prepared for bed, the only word to leave his mouth a grumbled, “Goodnight.”

What I hadn’t expected, however, was to roll over the next morning to find a piece of parchment resting on his pillow.

A sketch—one small tart with a strawberry perched atop a cloud of cream.

I left the tent, wrapping my blanket tightly around myself as I stepped into the small clearing where we’d made camp. Aspen was gathering the rest of our supplies, while Mochi bounced around him, leaping into unnaturally high piles of snow.

“Is this your way of apologizing?” I held up the sketch.

“Depends,” he replied, cocking his head. “Did it work?”

It had. But admitting that tasted acrid on my tongue.

I studied the piece of paper, chewing on my lip. Most of my irritation had faded the moment I discovered the drawing. I wanted to remain angry, to simmer in the feeling, but a resolute voice in the back of my mind reminded me that at least we weren’t dead.

“Iris, I’m going to need you to stop doing that,” Aspen’s low voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Doing what?” I narrowed my eyes.

“That,” he said tensely, gaze flicking to my mouth. “It’s… distracting.”

“Fine,” I lifted a finger. “But we can’t keep doing this if we refuse to trust each other’s intuition.”

Aspen clenched his fist, exhaling deeply before stretching his fingers back out.

“There was nothing to suggest?—”

“You didn’t even listen to what I was trying to tell you.”

“Because I?—”

He stopped abruptly, no doubt swallowing his words at the ire building in my eyes. His own eyes shut briefly, only opening again as he muttered, resolute, “Fine.”

“Fine,” I echoed, turning back toward the tent.

Only Aspen Gavalon could rile me enough that I felt ablaze in a fucking frozen forest.

Mochi bounded ahead as we hiked, though after the first few times he strayed too far, I felt compelled to remind him to stay close. Divine only knew what else lurked in these lands.

Even Aspen could admit that something was different.

“You hold an incredible amount of magic . Even for someone Goddess-chosen.” He extended a hand, helping me climb over a fallen tree. “I knew, in theory, that you could create barriers similar to the one crafted for the Tundra, but… you created a wall. An impenetrable wall of power, in seconds. The Tundra’s barrier took an entire season. ”

I dropped his hand, brushing away the snow that had fallen onto my forehead when Mochi bumped into a nearby tree trunk.

“Truthfully, I’m still attempting to understand the bounds of Threader magic,” I admitted. “Historically, it’s been used for bonds, for barriers, to stabilize architecture, occasionally weapons. But I believe there’s far more we don’t know. Maybe more than they’re willing to discover. ”

“That shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose,” he noted, a small smile forming at the corners of his lips at the skeptical look I gave him. “Everything about you is an enigma, Iris. Even your magic.”

“Part of the Virlana charm, I’m afraid.”

Unassuming. Unnoticeable.

Invisible.

He shook his head, sighing to himself. “A worthy opponent indeed.”

We walked in silence for a few moments, arms brushing.

“I don’t mean to overstep?—”

“That has never stopped you before,” I interrupted, one brow raised.

“With you and Zinnia,” he pressed on, unbothered, “is Virlana her true name? Or yours?” He spoke with gentle curiosity, as though the subject was one to broach with caution. “How much have you had to hide?”

“I’m not sure.” I exhaled, shifting my gaze to the horizon. “It’s for the best, I suppose—not remembering much. Zinnia fled from her family a long time ago, so I doubt either of us are using our given names. But it feels like who we are. That part has never felt like a lie.”

She’d asked me the same thing when we finally opened the Raven’s Grove. The first time we had a home.

“She asked me if I remembered my past name when I got older. I couldn’t recall. She even offered to help me find out, but…” My voice wavered, and I swallowed. “She understood what I was too prideful to admit—that no matter what my true parentage was, I had lived the life I knew with this name. It was my true name. She had always been my true family. Whoever that girl was before… she’s gone.”

Pride swelled in my chest.

Visions of my childhood flickered in my mind—of strawberry tarts and twirling in the kitchen. My mother, even with her constant worry, gave everything for her family. Sometimes too much, to the point where Gideon had to remind her that she had to live her own life too, that she had to allow me to make my own mistakes without assuming she could always fix them.

It was something he had proclaimed he’d learned far too late.

It is always a comfort to know you have people to lean on when you need help, but it becomes a concern when you begin to lose the ability to tell those you care about that you can handle things on your own. Allowing others to fight your battles is an easy landslide to forgetting your own strength, Gideon had once told her.

I breathed in the cool winter air.

“I’m grateful she accepted it,” I said at last, meeting Aspen’s gaze. “That she was all right with my choice to continue being who she raised me to be.” A smile tugged at my lips, warmth flickering in my chest. “It’s been difficult—especially as of late. We’ve made a lot of mistakes.” I hesitated, swallowing before continuing. “Hurt a lot of people. But Zinnia makes me proud to be a Virlana. ”

Aspen’s soft smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“I’m glad you have that,” he murmured.

Something in his face made me pause. Noticing the dull shadow, the shift from blue to grey, I decided not to push further.

I stretched my neck to one side, joints popping. “You would think an immortal lifespan would prevent one's body from creaking like an abandoned manor,” I said, shifting the subject at the look in his eyes. Raising my arms above my head, I sighed. “But alas, sleeping on a forest floor always reminds me that this is simply not the case.”

“I think that has more to do with how often you,” he dipped his head in my direction, “in particular, choose the forest floor over your own chambers. I would hazard a guess it’s more often than not.”

This man had a way of deducing parts of my nature that I had never shared with him. Some I hadn’t even admitted to myself. Aspen was far more observant than I had given him credit for.

“It clears my head,” I shrugged, omitting that being in a wide-open space was often the only way to quell the feeling of suffocation that occasionally crept in.

The dark days, my mother called them.

On those days, I couldn't handle the walls—the constraint.

“I think this excursion has confirmed my fondness for sleeping indoors, preferably with at least two pillows and my own blanket,” he huffed.

“Such a stingy prince,” I tsked. “Though your longing for the plush comfort of the Kacidon Palace explains your habit of hogging the blanket.”

“Mock my title all you want, but I may take it upon myself to hoard all of the fanciful soaps in the palace when we return.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” I narrowed my gaze.

Absentmindedly, I ran my fingers down the back of my neck, tracing the gold outline I knew was there.

“Do you think about them at all?” he asked cautiously. “The others.”

I paused.

“Every day,” I admitted.

I wondered who they’d become.

My nightmares were often full of faceless children with golden brands—the ones I’d left behind.

“It is odd to think how similar our futures may be,” he said, nodding.

I wrinkled my brow. “In what way?”

“A seat on the council holds much more weight than ruling a single realm, but the role of a ruler, and its expectations, must share similarities across Altaerra,” he countered. “I know returning will be difficult, but if nothing else, we can share in the burden of similar fates.”

“It's not the same.” I avoided his stare, hoping he would drop the conversation.

“Enlighten me, then,” he drawled. “Is there nothing in our roles you could possibly deign to acknowledge as common ground?”

“No,” I replied stonily. “Because I am never going back.”

“What?”

“I am not going back to Solyndra,” I ground out, not meeting his gaze.

“You’ll have to return to compete,” he said, confusion lacing his tone. “I will guard your secret with my life, but you know you’ll have to return.”

“I don’t, and I won’t.”

His hand brushed my shoulder, but I kept walking.

“Iris, I don’t know the specifics, but—” I quickened my pace, cursing my inability to escape this conversation while stuck in these damn woods.

“You wouldn’t be alone. Nadya, Ferrin, Theon… we would stand with you?—”

“That is a direct affront to Divine law.”

All of it was. The mere fact that Nadya and Aspen knew who I was and hadn’t handed me back to Solyndra was a crime. Standing against the council? That would be necessary should I return. And in any capacity, it would likely end in death.

“And that’s suddenly a line you won’t cross?” He scoffed. “I’ve lost count of the laws you’ve trampled over. And those are only the ones I know about. Don’t pretend to care what the law says you can and can’t do, Virlana. Divine or not.”

“It is treason.”

“I don’t fucking care.”

“I am not competing, Aspen.”

He stepped in front of me, blocking the path. “Ridiculous.”

“I didn’t give my blood to the sunstone before I left,” I bristled, crossing my arms. “I am not bound to the Trials as the others are. I’ve chosen not to compete.”

“And what precisely were you thinking when you made that decision, Iris?” he snapped. “I have never seen someone so cut out for leadership. You could be the change Altaerra so desperately needs—or part of it, at the very least.”

“You know nothing about me,” I snarled.

“I know a lot more than you’re willing to admit,” he shot back.

“I will not willingly walk back into that life?—”

“Sometimes we don’t get a choice!”

“Why does it matter to you?” Our voices carried across the ice beside us.

“You haven’t actually ascended, have you?” His anger burned through every inch of him. “I suspected something was interfering when I noticed how delayed your healing was—more so than a normal Ethera prior to ascension. The Sunchosen don’t ascend until after their Trials, do they?”

I stilled as each word landed. Felt the accusation tinging them.

That was the very subject of my personal research—outside of the Malum, anyway. Nothing had given me any inclination of what it meant for me afterward.

The reason I had hidden Lux’s in the makeshift apothecary.

“No,” I conceded. “They don’t.”

The completion of the Trials initiated ascension for the Sunchosen, unlike every other Ethera. It was triggered by one final blessing—the only Ethera to receive one after birth.

“Iris,” he said, and the knowing in his tone made me want to flee. “You are not a child anymore. They may be the same, but you are not. You can hold your own among them. You have proven yourself immensely powerful. I don't believe there is any reason?—”

“I don't care what you?—”

A small whimper made my heart skip.

Mochi.

My gaze darted to where he had been when we stopped, then across the ice. Mochi stood in the center of the frozen lake, trembling in fear.

My legs moved before my mind caught up, my body acting on pure instinct as I sprinted toward him. My heartbeat roared in my ears, and I swallowed the lump of terror rising in my throat. He hadn’t moved from where I’d first spotted him.

He was trapped.

His terror slammed against the walls of my mind, his panic searing through me like a brand. As I closed the distance, I saw the spiderwebbing cracks beneath his paws, faintly heard the ice splintering behind me. I ignored it, pumping my arms faster, desperate to reach him.

I skidded to a stop, scooping Mochi into my arms and checking him over. He wasn’t hurt. Relief crashed over me—but before I could turn back, something slammed into me.

Aspen.

His arms wrapped around me, still in a full sprint, twisting my body as he hauled me over his shoulder. One hand extended as ice blasted from his palm, freezing over the fractured lake beneath us.

The cracks spread as quickly as he sealed them, shards breaking away and plunging into the dark water below as we skid across the ice. I clutched Mochi tightly, my free arm locking around Aspen’s neck as he bounded toward the shore, away from where we’d first stood.

When we reached solid ground, he set me down, his eyes raking over me, assessing for injuries as I had done with Mochi. But this was different.

Cold fury blazed in his ice-blue eyes, a muscle in his jaw ticking.

“What in the actual hells is wrong with you?” he snapped, voice sharp with anger. “Why do you have absolutely no regard for your own life?”

Heat flared in my chest. “Mochi was stuck, Aspen.” My voice rose to meet his. “His life is no less important than mine.”

“You don’t treat your life as if it has any importance at all!” His breathing turned heavy. “You act like death is some foreign concept instead of an outcome you constantly hurl yourself toward!”

“It wasn’t about me!”

“The ice was cracking, Iris!” His voice nearly broke into a shout. “You haven’t ascended, and you ran onto actively collapsing ice!”

“Because he was trapped!” I stepped closer, rising onto my toes to get closer to his height. “He was alone, and no one was going to help him!”

“You just left!” he snapped. “You didn’t even think to tell me your plan before you sprinted toward your own death! Does fear even register when you make a decision? Or have you forsaken that part of your brain?”

“I fear many things,” I growled. “Death is not one of them.”

I had gone numb to it long ago.

“It should be!”

“He was alone!”

“I would never have left him!”

A shadow flickered behind Aspen. My breath hitched.

“You risked both of your lives with this reckless need to do everything alone?—”

“Aspen…” I cautioned, my eyes locking onto a massive wolf over his shoulder.

He didn’t hear me. His voice was still taut with fear and fury. “And if you ever stopped to listen to anyone but yourself?—”

It was a wolf, but… not. Purple smoke wreathed its limbs as it prowled closer, wraithlike.

“Or cared about your life half as much?—”

This creature wanted death. This creature was death.

“Aspen…” My fingers curled around the dagger strapped to my thigh, unsheathing it in one swift movement.

He still wasn’t looking at me, not noticing that I wasn’t looking at him anymore.

“One more moment of idiocy on that lake, and you would’ve been lost?—”

“ Aspen, shut your fucking mouth ,” I hissed.

He opened his mouth to retort, but the creature lunged.